A bighorn sheep lay in a field not far from here, its head missing. In nearby Elko, three elk and five deer died from gunshot wounds, their carcasses rotting in the hills. And somewhere in the distant mountains, game wardens searched for another elk that a tipster said had been killed by illegal hunters, apparently just for the thrill of it.
The reports keep coming in — elk, deer, antelope, bighorn sheep and other big-game animals — killed in a wave of poaching that has alarmed state and federal wildlife officials in Nevada and several other Western states.
The authorities said they are seeing more organized rings of poachers and unlicensed guides chasing the biggest elk and mule deer, with the largest antler array, sometimes trading them on Internet auction sites or submitting pictures to glossy hunting magazines that prominently feature big kills.
"There is almost a fixation on possessing or obtaining trophy-class animals," said Jim Kropp, the wildlife law enforcement chief for Montana, which this fall began a new public awareness campaign about poaching called Enough Is Enough.
"People," he added, "will go to any length to have these things in their possession. It's big antlers and big egos."
The federal government does not keep national statistics on poaching incidents, but wildlife law enforcement officials in several states, mainly those with large populations of elk, mule deer and other animals prized for their impressive antlers or girth, have raised concerns about the rash of complaints and the big money that seems increasingly a factor in the cases they investigate.
The officials said tight regulations on where and what can be hunted at various times of year, part of an effort to manage the size of big-game herds, have motivated some hunters to shoot game out of season or on restricted land.
The National Park Service wrote in a budget statement last year that poaching had contributed to the decline of 29 species of wildlife in the 390 parks and other sites it oversees.
An interstate compact set up 15 years ago in a few Western states to track and punish violators of hunting laws across state lines has grown to 24 states nationally, including New York, which joined this year. Big-game crimes, mostly related to poaching, accounted for 42 percent of the violations to the compact reported last year.
"We treat these as essentially homicides," said Lieutenant Jerry Smith, a Nevada supervising game warden. "But it is such a secretive crime. We have no witnesses to work with, just the bodies, when we find them."
A decade ago, Nevada tallied 50 or so animals poached or killed out of season and by hunters without permits. Last year, 70 such animals were found, the highest number ever; so far this year the tally is 65, and with a few weeks of the biggest hunting left, Nevada officials said the number could surpass last year's.
Nevada is not alone.
This year, Montana and federal investigators seized 30 elk heads and prosecuted 22 people in a poaching ring who drew fines and in the case of the ring leader, Danny McDonald of Gardiner, Montana, a year in federal prison. They had illegally led out-of-state hunters to trophy bull elks leaving Yellowstone National Park.
In Idaho, Ed Mitchell, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game, said poaching cases in the state had remained steady in recent years, but the crimes increasingly are carried out by people in the black market for antlers and heads, which can fetch tens of thousands of US dollars.
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