Pelts shipped to Canada, sold at fur auction, prosecutors say
Three New Hampshire men pleaded guilty Friday to illegally hunting more than 40 bobcats over four years and shipping their pelts to Canada for sale at a fur auction, federal prosecutors said.
Sherwood Dubrey Jr., 48, and Randy Inman, 49, pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Lacey Act, according to prosecutors. Dubrey Jr.’s father, Sherwood Dubrey Sr., 72, pleaded guilty to violating the federal wildlife law.
Bobcat hunting and trapping is illegal in New Hampshire. Prosecutors said Dubrey Jr. and Inman spent more than four years hunting the animals, sometimes using bait piles on their property and on state land to lure them. Between 2018 and 2022, the two men illegally exported at least 41 bobcat pelts.
The scheme exploited the gap between New Hampshire’s bobcat ban and New York’s regulated hunting season. After killing the animals in New Hampshire, the men took the pelts to New York, where Dubrey Sr. obtained false tags making it appear that the bobcats had been legally killed there. New York allows bobcat hunting during a designated season and provides hunters with tags needed to export the animals. The pelts were then shipped to Canada and sold at a fur auction, prosecutors said.
Investigators said text messages between the men showed they knew the hunting was illegal. In one message, Inman told Dubrey Jr. that he had shot or choked an illegally trapped bobcat. In another, Dubrey Jr. told his father he did not want New Hampshire to create a legal bobcat hunting season because it would create “competition.”
The men also used rifles with scopes that recorded videos and photos of the kills and shared them with others, prosecutors said.
Dubrey Jr. and Inman face up to five years in prison. Dubrey Sr. faces up to one year. All three are scheduled to be sentenced in January.