Airmen pay $10,000 for botched hunting trip

[unhappycamper]

Airmen pay $10,000 for botched hunting trip
By Tim Mowry - Fairbanks Daily News-Miner via The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Dec 7, 2007 6:35:38 EST

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — It turned out to be an expensive caribou hunting trip.

The four Air Force hunters who got two pickup trucks stuck in the tundra off the Dalton Highway last year trying to retrieve caribou they shot have paid $10,000 in restitution to the U.S. government, officials with the Bureau of Land Management in Fairbanks announced Tuesday.

The fine will cover “penalties, rental and other administrative costs,” according to a press release issued Tuesday.

“I think that’s a significant fine,” said public affairs specialist Doug Stockdale with BLM in Fairbanks. “I hope this is something that makes people take notice.”

According to the press release, the hunters, all stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, also told BLM officials that they spent more than $32,000 to extract and repair the two pickup trucks, which were stuck for nearly six months before the hunters were finally able to remove them by using jackhammers to dig them out of the frozen tundra.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2007/12/ap_elmendorf_hunting_071206/