3 Charged in Big-Game Hunt of Captive Beasts

Two Northern California ranchers and a taxidermist have been charged with importing aging wild cats, including mountain lions, Bengal tigers and spotted leopards to their Lockwood ranch and charging wealthy hunters thousands of dollars to shoot the animals at close range.

The Monterey County district attorney’s office charged Floyd Lester Patterson III, his wife, Dawn Patterson, and taxidermist Kenneth Oravsky with a total of 38 misdemeanor counts stemming from what state investigators called an “orchestrated big-game hunt” last summer.

“It’s highly unusual to have any kind of hunting of tigers or leopards here,” said Lt. Bob Koch, a supervisor for the state Department of Fish and Game. “In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like this.”

The Pattersons allegedly catered to wealthy big-game hunters who made the 150-mile trip south from the San Francisco Bay Area to the sprawling, 4,000-acre ranch. At least six customers are believed to have paid the couple $3,000 or more for a chance to shoot one of the animals, thought to have been retired from zoos. One witness told investigators that some hunters paid as much as $10,000.

Attempts to contact the Pattersons and Oravsky were unsuccessful.

The only hunter identified by investigators was Nicholas Miljevich of Saratoga, who faced charges of illegally possessing body parts of a tiger, a leopard and a mountain lion. He could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

The Pattersons raised cattle, wheat and barley on their vast ranch, which is tucked in the coastal foothills of southern Monterey County. In the past, the couple has allowed legal hunting of wild boar and turkey on the premises.

Since the drought started, their business has fallen on hard times, and investigators said they believe the Pattersons may have turned to forbidden big-game hunting as an extra source of income.

Based on interviews and evidence collected during raids, officials said the couple started offering the excursions last May, and that at least six cats--some valued on the black market at more than $10,000--were shot in the following three months.

The Pattersons wheeled the big cats in boarded-up six-wheel horse trailers to their secluded hunting cabin about a mile from the main ranch operation, officials said.

“The cats were brought into the ranch and taken to the hunters,” said special agent Bill Talkin of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Then the cage was opened and the cats were supposed to escape. They were never more than 100 feet away from the cage when they were shot.”

Some of the animals, accustomed to being dependent on humans, refused to exit their cages, he said, and were shot while still confined. Hunters then dragged the carcasses out of the steel enclosure and had their pictures taken next to the dead “trophy,” investigators said.

In a raid on the Patterson ranch last November, officials recovered a tiger skin and skull and a spotted leopard skin, all suitable for mounting. They also found videotapes and photos recording the hunts and a computer disc containing the names of 500 prospective customers nationwide.

At the latest count, three Bengal tigers, three spotted leopards, a jaguar and at least two mountain lions, many of them former zoo animals but some also believed to have been bred exclusively for the hunt, were killed between May and July on the ranch.

“I think the zoos decided they could sell the cats through the back door to a broker,” said John Foster, an investigator for the state Department of Fish and Game. “The broker then would sell the cats to the rancher, who would sell them to the client. Everything was strictly illegal.”

Some zoos have adopted safeguards against the illegal brokering of animals that are sold after they are retired from exhibits. At the urging of Los Angeles Zoo directors, the City Council last year banned the sale of surplus exotic animals to such “hunting ranches” and established a tracking system to ensure that brokers do not endanger the animals.

Monterey County Assistant Dist. Atty. Klar Wennerholm, who filed the charges against the Pattersons and Oravsky, said most of the animals at the ranch were no longer suitable for display in zoos, and were probably secreted into Monterey County from outside the state shortly before the planned excursions.

“A lot of them had lost their teeth and were aging,” he said. “But at least one may have been bred for the hunt.”

The Pattersons and Oravsky face up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine for each misdemeanor charge.