A pair of men from Williams Lake has been fined over $9,000 by the Conversation Officer Service (COS) for snowmobiling in a caribou closure area back in 2019.
In March 2019, Conservation Officers and RCMP conducted a joint helicopter patrol of snowmobile closures east of Williams Lake.
Two snowmobilers were seen operating within the Grain Creek snowmobile closure near Quesnel Lake. The two operators went to significant efforts to evade all officers’ attempts to make contact but were eventually arrested near Caribou Lake.
One man was fined $5,050 after being found guilty of operating a snowmobile in a closed area, obstructing a Conservation Officer and operating a snowmobile in a reckless manner. The other man was fined $4,000 for operating a snowmobile in a closed area.
The fines are the largest fines imposed in B.C. provincial court related to caribou closures in a precedent-setting case for the COS.
$8,700 of the fines will go to the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation.
The COS said that they “hope these significant fines will deter any snowmobilers from a similar incident.”