A hunter from Sheridan, Wyoming will not get the antlers and hide from a thinhorn ram mountain sheep that he killed during a 2023 expedition.
BC Supreme Court Justice Sandra Wilkinson granted the Crown’s appeal on Feb. 25 of a Provincial Court decision that said Zachary McDermott was entitled to their return.
McDermott, a non-resident hunter, was on a guided hunt for thinhorn sheep, also known as mountain sheep, on Aug. 21, 2023 in the West Toad River area.
McDermott paid US$70,000 in guiding fees, travel costs and a tip. During the trip, he shot and killed two rams. He exceeded his bag limit, by killing more than one ram, and it was not open season for the specific ram.
The antlers and hide were confiscated and he was fined $450 by the Conservation Officer Service, which arranged for the Wyoming Game Warden to serve the violation on Feb. 23, 2024. McDermott paid the fine five days later.
In Provincial Court on Feb. 5, 2025, Judge Brian Daley ruled that McDermott honoured his obligation by paying the fine, so he was “lawfully entitled to the hide and antlers of the eight-year-old ram.”
Wilkinson said that McDermott chose not to challenge the tickets, so the hearing judge erred by treating the application as an appeal.
“It was not open to the judge to engage in that analysis or effectively vacate the convictions,” Wilkinson ruled.
McDermott’s real estate business biography says he is the president of the Wyoming Wild Sheep Foundation.
