PRATT – Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism’s (KDWPT) Law Enforcement staff continue to make great strides in bringing wildlife poachers to justice, including four individuals who, combined, were responsible for illegally taking 68 Kansas deer.
On Nov. 4, in Barber County court, John Blick, Jr., of Sharon, was sentenced to spend 14 months in prison related to the poaching of a combined 60 whitetail and mule deer. In addition to prison time, district judge Frank Meisenheimer sentenced Blick to pay $310,234.68 in restitution to KDWPT for the value of the deer to the state.
Blick – who was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm when the poaching crimes were committed – also pleaded guilty to 33 charges in Harper County. He was fined $15,000 for those charges and ordered to pay $17,407.04 in restitution for three trophy deer he killed in Harper County in 2019. Blick has been ordered to forfeit his hunting privileges for five years. Because of an agreement between states, this means Blick will not be able to hunt in more than 45 other states during the five-year forfeiture of his privileges.
In both counties, Blick pleaded guilty to numerous counts of criminal hunting, hunting with aid of a motor vehicle, criminal discharge of a firearm, felon in possession of a firearm, failure to purchase a permit and failure to tag a deer, exceeding bag limits, hunting with aid of an artificial light, hunting without a valid license and the illegal take of a trophy deer.
Per Kansas law, all confiscated deer heads were destroyed, and all equipment seized, including firearms, were forfeited to the state of Kansas.
KDWPT game wardens Jason Harrold, Scott Stoughton and K9 officer “Gypsy” conducted a multi-year investigation on the case. The trio credits
