The Sitka man who placed poison bait out while employed as a groundskeeper at the Sea Mountain Golf Course last year, 31-year-old Kevin Taranoff, was sentenced in court for using unlawful methods and means to take game on Monday

Taranoff received a sentence of 180 days in jail with 150 days suspended, fined $2,000 with $1,000 suspended, placed on probation for two years and ordered to pay resitution after pleading guilty in court.

The case began with an investigation of the poisoning of two dogs, a lab and a german shepard, that were suspected to have been poisoned in the area near the golf course in Sitka. Alaska Wildlife Trooper Jake Abbot opened up an investigation into the death of the canines, and soon suspected that an employee of the golf course had inadvertantly poisoned the dogs while trying to kill the bear that had plagued the golf course tearing up the grounds. Previous to the investigation of the dead dogs, Abbbot had looked into the bear problem and set out a trap to catch the bear. When that attempt was unsuccessful, one of the employees at the course said that if the troopers didn’t take care of the problem bear, that he would.

His investigation would find that Taranoff would later, after putting out the poison, tell fellow employees that he had attempted to poison the bear. That statement of admittance was placed in the citation and the citation served.

It was found that the Sea Mountain Golf COurse owners did not have any involvement or knowledge about the attempt to kill the bear with poison.