ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — After pleading guilty in a poaching case, three men were ordered to pay restitution for illegally killing three musk oxen in northwest Alaska.
At their Wednesday sentencing, 33-year-old Thomas Tazruk, 30-year-old Billy Bodfish and 58-year-old Willie Bodfish were ordered to pay $3,000 restitution for each of the three kills, for a total bill of $9,000 to be split among them.
The men are residents of the small Inupiat Eskimo village of Wainwright.
The men also were ordered to pay $500 fines each and forfeit their firearms. They pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor charges that they took the animals during a closed season and failed to salvage the meat.
Prosecutors say only a hind quarter from one of the animals was salvaged and the rest was left as bait.
