Idaho town outraged over killing of popular mule deer

July 22, 2015 5:45 PM PT

For years, the big trophy buck was a celebrity around Twin Falls, Idaho.

As frisky and tame as a neighbor’s pooch, he grazed on flower patches and ate from local apple trees, often posing with his mammoth rack of horns for pictures taken by people who wanted a record of the so-called Rock Creek Monster.

But the popular deer appears to have met an untimely end: City prosecutors have charged a local hunter with stalking the animal, harvesting only a portion of its meat before cutting off its head and throwing the antlers into the Snake River.

Conservation Officer Jim Stirling said officials are not 100% sure the dead buck is the Rock Creek Monster, but that appears to be the case.

“Everything we hear makes us think it probably is, but we always err on the side of caution,” he said in a telephone interview. “That big buck featured in the papers was basically a community member.”

The community has responded with outrage.

“That buck was used to people and people were used to him,” said Forrest Andersen, manager of the Washington Street Pawn Shop, who donated nearly half of a $2,800 reward fund offered for information leading to an arrest in the case.

“To kill him like that was not only unsportsmanlike, it was downright inexcusable,” he said.

Jacob Pool, 33, has been ordered to stand trial Aug. 3 on charges of poaching the deer.

He appeared in court at a preliminary hearing last week on felony charges of killing or wasting a trophy mule deer during a closed season, concealing evidence and hunting big game with an unlawful weapon.

Pool’s reported statements to fish and game investigators have caused additional anger among residents in this town of 44,000 near Boise.

“I saw the big one and [expletive] shot him,” he related to detectives, according to the Twin Falls Times-News newspaper, which reviewed the investigation report. “I’ve never seen a deer that big.”

Pool told investigators that he shot the deer with his daughter’s .22-caliber rifle because he needed the meat and was impressed by the antlers.

“I went after that [expletive] deer by myself at nighttime,” he said, according to the newspaper report. “I was all alone, you know. Crawl across that field for two [expletive] hours to get up to them, shot him, tried to get him out of there as quick as possible, by myself. I was [expletive] exhausted, tired.”

Pool also allegedly told investigating agents that he put the bones and leftover meat into duffel bags with some dumbbells and threw the bags into the Snake River.

“I cut his antlers off,” he allegedly told officers. “They’re in the water.” Divers later recovered a portion of the deer’s leg.

Andersen said the buck frequented a three-mile stretch of Rock Creek amid quail, coyotes and pheasants; it often traveled with a small herd of mule deer.

“People watched that buck grow,” he said. “You could walk out the back door of the taco shop and just see him there at the river in all his glory.”

He said locals feel betrayed that the deer was killed.

“This place is full of hunters and any one of them could have killed that deer at any time; you could have literally killed him with a rock, he was that tame,” Andersen said.

“But nobody did. That was the great thing about it. Most sportsmen here were happy to see a creature like that grow and live among them. They wouldn’t go out and shoot him like a dog because he was standing there panting and looking at them.”

Andersen said that several people who offered tips in the case refused to take the reward. “I told one guy, ‘At least come in and I’ll give you a gun.’ But he wouldn’t do it. He said all he wanted was to see the guy who did it go to jail.”

Reportedly, even the alleged shooter has second thoughts.

“You guys, I’m [expletive] sorry, man,” Pool told investigators, according to the Times-News. “I feel like I robbed the community of that deer.”

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