TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Kansas officials have sold a set of trophy antlers from an illegally shot buck for $16,001 at a closed and unannounced auction in a state senator’s office.
Possession of the 14-point rack had prompted legislation and years of wrangling before Thursday’s sale, The Topeka Capital-Journal reports.
It all started in 2011 when a poacher shot the buck in a rural area south of Topeka and fled with its head. After the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism seized the antlers the next year, Tim Nedeau claimed rights to the rack that was taken from his family’s land.
But wildlife department officials contended that Nedeau shouldn’t receive the ill-gotten mount worth thousands of dollars, even after changes to state law gave landowners first-refusal rights to game taken illegally on their land. The law wasn’t designed to be applied retroactively and the land where the buck died was owned by Nedeau’s mother.
Brad Loveless, secretary of the Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, said that he took the initiative to resolve the conflict by convening the Thursday meeting and conducting the accompanying auction in the office of Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley.
Loveless said the invited bidders were Nedeau and a representative of outdoor retailer Bass Pro Shops, which made an opening offer of $10,000. Nedeau responded with a bid of $10,001. The bidding went back and forth and Nedeau ultimately prevailed.
“We didn’t advertise it. We didn’t go through that process,” said Loveless, who solicited involvement from Bass Pro Shops. “By no means were we trying to shut anyone out. We wanted to give him (Nedeau) a chance at this.”
Nedeau, who previously won an $8,000 court judgment from the poacher, said he didn’t want to discuss the transaction until he was in possession of the antlers.
The informal auction was unusual because the state disposes of most surplus goods through an online auction house.
Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, said he had been told the meeting in his Capitol office would be to discuss a resolution, but he wasn’t warned about the auction. Hensley said Loveless used a cellphone to bring the Bass Pro Shop representative into the conversation.
“I had no idea that this is what was going to happen,” Hensley said. “I had no idea they were going to have an auction. I think it was really mishandled.”
Rep. Ken Corbet, a Shawnee County Republican who advocated at the Statehouse on behalf of Nedeau’s claim for the deer’s head, also objected to the auction.
Corbet said the decision to conduct a closed auction with Bass Pro Shops meant the retailer would set the minimum price Nedeau would pay to acquire the trophy.
“This was no more than Wildlife and Parks being a bully, thumbing its nose at the Legislature and landowners,” said Corbet, who owns Ravenwood Lodge, a hunting and shooting facility outside Topeka. “I thought it would be a resolution where they just give him the antlers.”
The Cabinet secretary said proceeds from the sale would be deposited in the Operation Game Thief account, which provides rewards to people providing information to authorities leading to conviction of poachers.
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