I don't believe G&F made a mistake on this situation because testing was the only way that they could prove this was a mule deer and not a hybrid or whitetail. That fact should get him convicted because the DNA analysis was conclusive that it was a mule deer. As soon as I saw this come out on the internet I thought to myself exactly what you have mentioned though. This hybrid possibility will be a can of worms for the G&F because there is nothing in an actual law that differentiates the difference between a mule deer, a whitetail, or now a hybrid and what tag is good if the animal is actually a hybrid. IMHO the G&F needs to immediately get a statute specifically stating what characteristics have to be present to use a particular tag to take an animal unless that tag is good for both species or one with both characteristics like where I hunt. We all know that normally you can look at the tail alone to tell the difference between the two species. The racks can sometimes be deceiving because mule deer don't always have bifurcated racks and some nontypical whitetails do. In fact, I have a nontypical rack on the wall here that I took down in the brush country of south Texas back in the 80s. It is not huge, but I shot it because it was the only real nontypical buck that I've ever seen and it looks like a typical 4x4 mule deer with nice brow points. Unless I would tell you what it is nobody would ever know it's a pure whitetail since mule deer live hundreds of miles from where that deer was shot.
However, it gets very interesting when the two species interbreed and what the offspring can look like. We saw a buck down low on the mountain we hunt several times over two years and for sure it was a cross between the two. He had a whitetail's color and the head/ears of one, but the rack was a screwy mixture of both. We never got a look at his rear end the few times we saw him. I would have shot him in a heartbeat, but hew was always on a piece of private property we didn't have access to. It will be interesting to see what the G&F does, if anything, regarding the possible misuse of tags that we're discussing due to this court case. I hope a Judge or jury will convict him, but I have my suspicions that a deal will be cut that they will let him off without huge penalties at the state level. It will be interesting to see if after the case is completed whether the Feds will go after him for violation of the Lacey Act since he took the head from Wyoming to have the taxidermy work done.
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