Couple who celebrated while killing bear in illegal spear hunt and left animal to agonising, slow death spared jail
20 January 2023, 05:46 | Updated: 20 January 2023, 05:48
A couple who celebrated after hunting down a bear and killing it with a home-made spear have been spared prison time, according to reports.
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Bodybuilders Josh Bowmar, 32, and his wife Sarah, 33, were ordered to pay £108,000 in fines, forfeit of items and restitution.
The poachers will also have to do 40 hours of community service and were put on probation for three years.
The Bowmars were among a group of a group people sentenced in connection with dozens of illegal hunts over several years through a provider in the US state of Nebraska.
They pleaded guilty in 2022 to a conspiracy charge, and four more serious charges relating to illegal baiting were dropped.
The Bowmars gained worldwide notoriety in 2016 when the Mirror reported that they had celebrated after killing a black bear with a home-made seven-foot spear, leaving the animal to a slow and painful death.
Josh Bowmar even fitted the spear with a go-pro camera to film the killing.
After firing the spear, he said: "I just did something that I don’t think anybody in the world has ever done." The couple found the body a day later and posed triumphantly next to the corpse.
Court documents show that the couple hunted white-tailed deer, wild turkeys and other animals without a licence and using bait.
After their successful kills, they would post photos with the dead animals to social media to show off.
One clip shared on Instagram shows Josh gloating after killing a white-tailed deer, adding that "its frickin’ antlers fell off" when he shot it.
The Bowmars took the dead animals to Ohio, which is against a law that prohibits "trafficking in fish, wildlife, or plants that are illegally taken, possessed, transported, or sold".
Some 39 people were fined more than £600,000 in total as part of the wide case against poachers.
