An Arlington man has been sentenced in U.S. District Court for illegally killing an elk inside Mount Rainier National Park in 2004. Dean Douglas Harriman, 48, had pleaded guilty to federal charges of “acquiring and transporting illegally taken wildlife.” He was sentenced to pay restitution of $2,500, was fined $500 and place on probation for one year. In addition, he has been banned from Mount Rainier National Park for one year and his state hunting privileges were revoked for one year.
On Nov. 6, 2004, a park volunteer discovered a fresh kill site of an elk
on Carlton Ridge in the southeast corner of the park. Rangers verified that the kill site was well within the and began an investigation. Three days later
rangers contacted a hunting party of six camped just south of the park
boundary on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The party had harvested and tagged a 4-point elk two days before. Harriman, part of the group, said he had shot and tagged the elk on opening day of elk season in the White Pass area.
Rangers requested tissue samples of the tagged elk to verify that it was
not the same elk that was taken in the park, but Harriman refused. Rangers gathered DNA evidence from blood spatters in the camp where the trophy was stored and blood drippings from sacks of meat hanging in the trees and the downed carcass at the kill site. The evidence was sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab in Ashland, Ore., for analysis. The lab confirmed that the DNA from the evidence gathered at the campsite was a match with the elk carcass found in the park.