Quebec hunters fined for Labrador caribou slaughter

A judge in Labrador has ordered a Quebec pensioner and his grandson to pay hefty fines for hunting endangered woodland caribou.

Jean Baptiste Malleck, 70, of Pakuashipi, Que., and his grandson Sebastian have been fined $18,000 each for killing animals in the endangered Mealy Mountain herd in February 2006.

Those fines are far higher than the $5,000 judgment brought down in a similar case four years ago.

Provincial court Judge William English, who brought down the fines earlier this week, could have imposed fines of $50,000 each.

However, English said he took into consideration the fact that Malleck is living on a pension and that his grandson worked only two months last year.

English said the men, who live on Quebec's Lower North Shore, could easily have hunted from the George River herd instead.

The Mealy Mountain herd is in a closed zone, and has been labelled as near extinction. Conservation officers had charged the Mallecks with taking a species listed as threatened under endangered species legislation.

Officials with the Natural Resources Department, who complained loudly in April following a separate caribou slaughter,did not have any comment on the fines.