On Jan. 5, 2017, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department launched an investigation into the illegal killing of a deer near the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protest camps in Morton County.
The case, which drew public attention due to its disturbing nature, was linked to an incident that occurred in the fall of 2016 near the Cannonball River.
In an effort to identify those responsible, Game and Fish released a video showing a group of individuals retrieving and ultimately killing a whitetail buck that had become trapped in the river.
The raw, unedited footage—lasting about seven minutes—was obtained by the department and made available to the public.
The video, which can be found on the North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s YouTube channel, shows four men entering the water, shouting and cursing as they drag the struggling deer to shore and kill it. It was described as a “clear case of illegal hunting.”
Four men from New Hampshire, Idaho, and New York were later charged in connection with two separate deer poaching incidents near the DAPL protester camp in southern North Dakota.
As of March 2017, the men faced charges of unlawful possession of big game, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $3,000 fine.
Arrest warrants were issued, although none of the suspects were in North Dakota, and authorities were working to identify additional suspects.
The video’s release and subsequent investigation sparked discussions about both the legalities surrounding hunting in the state and the ongoing tensions between protesters and law enforcement during the DAPL standoff.
Animal cruelty charges were considered at one point.
Scott Winkelman, who alerted authorities after seeing the video on Facebook, expressed his concern.
“The manner that the animal was killed certainly is disturbing,” Winkelman said, according to the Billings Gazette.
The incident occurred near the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, and the Game and Fish Department included the case in its larger media archive documenting events related to the DAPL protest movement.
At the time, Chief Game Warden Robert Timian emphasized that the illegal killing of the deer violated North Dakota’s hunting laws and undermined the state's wildlife conservation efforts.
Around the same time, reports of butchered and missing livestock near the DAPL protest camp sparked an investigation by the North Dakota Stockmen's Association and local authorities. Those incidents included a dead saddle horse, four dead cows, more than 30 missing cattle and three dead bison.
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