An Idaho Fish and Game Commission member is being criticized after he shared photographs of himself posing with a family of baboons, including young ones, he killed while hunting in Africa.
Idaho Governor Clement Leroy Otter’s spokesman Jon Hanian on Friday told the Idaho Statesman that the governor’s office was looking into the matter involving Commissioner Blake Fischer.
KILLING SPREE
Fischer and his wife shot at least 14 animals in Namibia, according to the photographs and descriptions included in an e-mail he sent to more than 100 recipients.
That included a giraffe, leopard, impala, sable antelope, waterbuck, kudu, warthog, gemsbok (oryx) and eland.
“I didn’t do anything illegal. I didn’t do anything unethical. I didn’t do anything immoral,” Fischer said.
Most of the photographs with the African animals are posed as standard big-game hunting photographs of the kind often seen in Idaho with deer, elk and mountain lions.
The photograph causing some to question Fischer’s judgement and ability to remain a commission member is one of him smiling broadly with four dead baboons propped in front of him, blood visible on the abdomen of the smallest baboon.
Fischer killed them using a bow and arrows.
“So I shot a whole family of baboons,” Fischer wrote below the photographs in the e-mails he sent.
Former commission member Keith Stonebraker told the newspaper that an apology by Fischer would satisfy him.
‘REVOLTING’
“They killed a whole family, including small baboons, and I think that’s revolting,” Stonebraker said. “It just puts a bad light on us.”
The commission Fischer serves on makes policy decisions concerning Idaho’s wildlife, and it often manages game populations through hunting and fishing regulations.
Those regulations are intended to require ethical behavior in the pursuit of wildlife.
Some of Idaho’s policies, such as on wolf and grizzly bear hunting, have been challenged in federal courts.
The commission has seven members appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state senate.
Fischer was reappointed earlier this year, but he needs senate confirmation.
Former commission member Fred Trevey called on Fischer to resign.
“Sportsmanlike behavior is the center pin to maintaining hunting as a socially acceptable activity,” he wrote in an e-mail obtained by the newspaper through a public records request.
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