The only thing I regret doing, or not doing, is reporting it to the DNR on the original date." – Troy Richard.
UPDATE: DNR investigator says Bay City man ate feline's heart after killing it
BAY CITY, MI — In the eyes of Bay City resident Troy R. Richard, when he shot a cougar on his family's property in the Upper Peninsula, he did so to defend his 68-year-old father from a potential mauling.
Richard is a 42-year-old lifelong hunter, his living room decorated with mounted deer heads and a stuffed bear. His 68-year-old father, Theodore R. Richard, brought him up in the hunting tradition.
"We are hunters, not shooters," Theodore Richard said. "There's a difference between that. We'll go up hunting to Canada or somewhere else and come home empty-handed. A hunter enjoys the experience."
"I've went four years without ever shooting a deer," Troy Richard added.
On Friday, Dec. 6, Troy Richard and his 7-year-old son went up to his father's 80-acre hunting camp in northeast Schoolcraft County, planning on doing some black powder hunting for whitetail deer. Theodore Richard already was at the cabin. After hunting throughout the weekend, the three Richards were in their secluded cabin Monday afternoon when a herd of about a dozen deer ran out of the woods to the west and into the clearing around the structure, acting oddly and running in circles, the Richards said.
After 20 or so minutes, the deer moved away and an unarmed Theodore Richard began walking to his blind, where his rifle was. Troy Richard and his son remained in the cabin, the father helping his son with his schoolwork at a kitchen table.
When Theodore Richard was about 75 yards south of the cabin, his son looked out the kitchen window and saw a cougar exit the woods from the direction the deer had previously appeared, he said.
"I saw the cougar about 100 yards from the cabin," Troy Richard recalled. "It was looking for deer, but the only thing it seen moving was (my dad) walking out. That cat was going in the direction of my father."
Troy Richard opened the kitchen window and hollered at the feline, he said. When the large cat did not flee and continued to display a prowl-like stance, Troy Richard grabbed a .22-250-caliber rifle loaded with a varmint bullet and shot at the cat through the open window.
The bullet struck the cougar in the left side, Richard said.
"It jumped in the air and just took off running where it came from," he said. "We knew it was hit and wounded."
Theodore Richard said he didn't know what was happening and didn't see the cougar.
"I never even knew it was happening because it was behind me," he said.
Theodore and Troy Richard met up at the edge of the clearing and decided to let the cougar go, they said. The next day, though, Troy Richard had a change of heart.
"You got a wounded animal now," he said. "A moral or ethic value just wore on me. You got to go make sure the cat is down, not suffering, and that's what I went and did."
Troy Richard said on Tuesday, Dec. 10, went alone and followed the animal's blood trail, finding the wounded animal in a swampy area almost 2 miles away from the cabin.
"It got up, growled at me, and it came at me," Richard said. "I had a pistol with me and I finished it off right there. Another half a day, it would've been dead. There was no saving him. He was mortally wounded."
Troy Richard initially planned on leaving the cat where it lay, but then decided against it.
"I couldn't leave an animal like that in the swamp," he said. "I tied a rope on him and drug him back with me. At that point in time, I had no idea what I was going to do. We should've reported it, should've called DNR immediately on Monday and we didn't do that. At that point in time, we were like, 'We can't do that now.'"
"How do you explain you waited a day, you know?" his father added.
Troy Richard ended up field dressing the animal, taking its hide and skull, he said.
"In my mind, I know that the cougar population is growing and it's going to become a problem in a few years, then there's going to be hunting season on them, just like with the wolves," he said. "In my mind, all I got to do is hold on a few years … then I'll be able to mount it. I wanted to preserve it; that's why I brought it back home."
"It was just a dumb decision that we made," he continued.
Sometime later, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources received a tip regarding what had occurred. Investigators first contacted Troy Richard's 43-year-old brother, Todd A. Richard, who was not at the hunting camp at the time.
Todd Richard, of Burt, is a taxidermist by trade, his dad said. "They tore his place apart looking for any evidence of any kind would have implicated him and he came out with flying colors," Theodore Richard said.
The investigators later came to Theodore and Troy Richard's homes and seized the cougar's skull and hide, they said.
On Wednesday, March 5, Theodore and Troy Richard were arraigned on criminal charges, accepted plea deals and were sentenced.
Troy Richard pleaded guilty to single misdemeanor counts of taking or possessing an endangered species and conspiracy to commit that crime and Schoolcraft County District Judge Mark E. Luoma sentenced him to 30 days in jail and ordered him to pay $5,225 in fines, costs and restitution and to perform 120 hours of community service. Upon release, he is to serve two years of probation. He also had to forfeit the .357 Magnum he used to kill the cougar and cannot hunt through 2016.
Prosecutors agreed to dismiss single felony counts of torturing or killing animals and lying to a peace officer.
Theodore Richard pleaded guilty to one count of taking or possessing an endangered species and Luoma ordered him to pay $1,725 in fines and costs and perform 96 hours of community service. The judge revoked his hunting privileges through 2015 and he is to serve two years of probation.
Luoma also arraigned Todd Richard on a count of conspiracy to take or possess an endangered species. He attempted to plead guilty, but the judge did not accept his plea, his brother and father said.
The DNR's Wildlife Division previously confirmed that a trail camera in adjacent Luce County snapped a photo of a cougar on Dec. 8, the day before the initial shooting. Investigators believe the animal in the photo is the same one killed.
Cougars, also known as pumas, catamounts or mountain lions, are classified as an endangered species in Michigan.
"The judge deemed the initial shot would have been recognized as understandable or acceptable," Troy Richard said. "The second shot was not deemed as self-defense because I had put myself in that position, is how they worded it."
Troy Richard said he did not handle the situation as well as he could have and is accepting responsibility for that.
"The only thing I regret doing, or not doing, is reporting it to the DNR on the original date," he said. "Other than that, there's nothing I regret. If we would have reported on the initial day, we would have had no issues. They even told us that.
"We're grown adults," he continued. "We have to deal with the consequences."
Troy Richard is to begin serving his 30 days in jail in Bay County on Friday, March 7, though he has been granted work release.
"If you get to know me, you'll know I've never been in trouble with the law," he said. "I served four years in the Marine Corps. I'm the president of a nonprofit, XBC Racing Inc. I'm not your common criminal."
Todd Richard's next court date is pending.
The DNR reports that cougars disappeared from the state in the early 1900s. The last confirmed wild cougar in Michigan prior to 2008 was an animal killed near Newberry in 1906.
Since 2008, the DNR has confirmed photos or tracks of cougars on 23 occasions in 10 Upper Peninsula counties. The animals are believed to be young individuals dispersing from established populations in the Dakotas in search of new territory. There is no evidence of a breeding population of cougars in the state, the DNR maintains.
The Bath-based Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, maintains cougars experienced a resurgence in the state in the 1950s and are present in the Lower Peninsula, even as far south as Bay County and the Thumb area. In an effort to prove this contention, they previously presented photos of cougars they claim were taken in Oscoda and Alcona counties.
The Times was unable to contact DNR Lt. Skip Hagy, who previously has addressed the media regarding the incident, for comment.
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