Four bull elk and a bighorn ram with its horns still attached are among wildlife poachers shot and left to die in Las Animas and Saguache counties in recent weeks, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife is offering a $4,000 reward for information about the elk and $1,000 for the sheep.
The elk were poached on four separate ranches between the communities of Stonewall and Picketwire in Las Animas County on Sept. 13, 26 and 27. The first rifle season for elk hunting is Oct. 15 to 19.
One was shot and abandoned whole; one was wounded and had to be killed by wildlife officials; another was shot with only a portion of meat called backstraps removed; and the fourth had its head removed with no meat taken.
CPW can’t provide additional details on the case because it’s an open investigation, spokesperson Dean Miller said. But he said the fact that the elk were shot on private ranches is “especially egregious.”
With the correct tag, a hunter can try their luck on public land or private land with the owner’s permission.
Twenty five ranches in Colorado, with land totaling around 1 million acres, are enrolled in CPW’s Ranching for Wildlife program. It was designed in 1986 to give hunters more opportunities while encouraging ranchers to improve habitat on their land for both game and nongame animals.
Ranchers provide opportunities free of charge. CPW says about two-thirds of the ranches actively participate in youth hunting opportunities and one-third donate hunts to conservation organizations for them to auction or raffle off to help raise funds for habitat improvement on private and public lands in other locations. Ranching for Wildlife ranches have their own permits and seasons.
Four ranches are listed as Ranching for Wildlife participants in Las Animas County: Hill Ranch, Purgatoire Wildlife Ranch, Tercio Ranch and Twin Peaks Ranch. Miller said he couldn’t say if the poaching occurred on these ranches. But the manager of the Hill Ranch said no animals were poached on that property.
The $4,000 reward is for tips that lead to a citation or an arrest. Anyone willing to testify about information they provided leading to the filing of charges would also be eligible for a hunting preference point, which increases a hunter’s chance of drawing a limited license for a specific species, or a hunting license, the agency said.
Ram “shot and left with nothing removed”
CPW received a report of a Rocky Mountain bighorn ram shot and left 200 yards off of a county road around 10 miles from the town of Saguache on the afternoon of Nov. 11.
The sheep are Colorado’s official state animal. District wildlife managers William Miedema and Cait Philpott-Jones responded to the call and found the ram with the help of a CPW K-9 officer. It had been shot once in the gut. They determined it was shot earlier that day in the immediate area.
Sheep licenses are extremely rare in Colorado. Just 311 were issued in 2025, compared with 92,900 deer licenses.
The Rocky Mountain bighorn was left with nothing removed from it, Miedema said. There was a single bighorn ram hunting license available in sheep-hunting units 10 and 55 inside Game Management Unit 681, where the animal was found. “But my legal hunter for the area had already harvested a ram this year and the season dates were Sept. 2 through Oct. 2,” he added.
John Livingston, CPW spokesperson for the southwestern part of the state, said someone poached a desert bighorn sheep in the Montrose area a few years ago and that a rock climber walking to a crag found the carcass and reported it.
“Of course with an animal as iconic as the bighorn sheep, it’s pretty alarming,” he added. “People come from all over specifically wanting to see Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep in Colorado. And you would struggle to think that somebody would just make a mistake on properly identifying that animal in this given location.”
The bighorn killed near Saguache was found in an “open, rocky, barren space with sagebrush,” Livingston said. There was good visibility in every direction, and it isn’t wooded, “so it’s difficult to think someone accidentally shot that animal. One of the key principles of hunter safety and gun safety in general is always to know what your target is, what’s beyond it and to properly identify your target.”
Willful destruction of any big-game animal is a felony in Colorado and can result in a lifetime suspension of hunting and fishing privileges. Convictions could result in fines and jail time, depending on charges. The illegal take of any bighorn sheep is punishable up to a $100,000 fine.
Miedema said the ram’s horns were half curled. Additional fines could exceed $25,000 for the illegal take of a bighorn ram with a half-curl or more.
“The sheep was left there to rot and was spoiled by the time we got there, so we were unable to salvage and donate the meat,” Miedema said. “This is wanton waste.”
CPW is asking anyone with information to contact Miedema at william.miedema@state.co.us or Operation Game Thief at game.thief@state.co.us.
Operation Game Thief is administered by a citizen committee that rewards funds maintained by private contributions. The board may approve rewards of up to $1,000 for flagrant cases.
Colorado’s Turn In Poachers program can also reward people who reveal poachers with preference points or, in some cases, hunting licenses, for reports of illegal take or possession or willful destruction of bear, deer, elk, moose, mountain goat, bighorn sheep, pronghorn or turkey.
In 2024, a reintroduced gray wolf died after CPW captured it and moved it to a wildlife sanctuary. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service later determined it had been shot. A person who shoots a wolf could face a $50,000 fine and up to a year in prison under the federal Endangered Species Act. Conservation organizations later doubled the reward posted by the federal government. The shooter has not been caught.
The steep price of poaching
CPW spokesperson Kara Van Hoose said agency investigators won’t stop until they’ve exhausted every avenue toward solving a wildlife-related crime. That proved true in an investigation that started in October of 2021 and spanned three years and multiple states.
It started when CPW officer Scott Murdoch noticed four members of one family on the hunting draw list with the same address listed on Richmond Hill Road in Conifer for each license.
He also recalled seeing a white salt lick on that property in prior meetings with the family. One of the family members, Jeffrey Flaherty, had Colorado resident hunting licenses for multiple species and some for private lands only. His son Andrew Flaherty had nonresident hunting licenses.
Further investigation showed Jeffrey Flaherty held an active Florida driver’s license, had voted as a Florida resident in the 2020 election and owned six vehicles registered at a shipping store in Florida. When applying for hunting licenses, applicants must certify all residency claims are valid as well as possess a valid Colorado driver’s license to be considered a resident of the state. Out of state licenses are far more expensive than in-state licenses.
In November of 2021, Murdoch obtained a warrant to place multiple trail cameras around the Flaherty property. Over the course of the next few weeks, surveillance photos showed Jeffrey Flaherty setting out hay, alfalfa and corn to illegally bait wildlife on several occasions. The trail cameras also captured him and Andrew Flaherty harvesting a mule deer near the bait. And a search warrant revealed text messages detailing Andrew Flaherty hunting a bull elk out of season.
In an interview with CPW officers, a family friend said he spoke with Jeffrey Flaherty about placing elk innards and pumpkins around his property to attract a black bear and admitted to using game meat to draw bears to the area, a violation of Colorado law.
The case took three years to complete. All three men were charged with crimes. Jeffrey Flaherty pleaded guilty to 13 misdemeanors in Jefferson and Adams counties including illegally possessing big game, baiting wildlife, hunting elk out of season and making false statements about Colorado residency on license applications. He was fined $42,787, received two years of supervised probation restricting his ability to hunt and fish in Colorado, and faced a second five-year license suspension that extended to 48 other states.
Andrew Flaherty pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors including illegal possession of wildlife, hunting bull elk with bait and hunting out of season. He was fined $3,646 and had his hunting and fishing licenses suspended.
The family friend, Kenneth Curtis, pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors including baiting bears, illegally hunting wildlife with bait and failing to wear daylight fluorescent orange while hunting, all of which earned him a $1,646 fine and a yearlong suspension of his hunting and fishing privileges.
Van Hoose said CPW can “put together a pretty great case.” Wildlife officers said the elk and sheep cases this year “are not indicative of a spike or increase.”