Feds squeeze poachers' pal out of sausage business

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10287911

Published Thursday | March 20, 2008
Feds squeeze poachers' pal out of sausage business
BY DAVID HENDEE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Attention, deer poachers: Jack McClanahan is out of the black market sausage business.

McClanahan, who federal agents say churned out and sold tons of tainted summer sausage from a filthy garage, was fined $10,000 and sentenced to three years of probation Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

Federal officials said McClanahan's processing operation was widely known among deer poachers, who fed his meat grinder with about 150 deer a year from Nebraska and Iowa.

Many of the animals were poached — shot illegally at night or out of season, said Mark Webb, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent.

McClanahan also told federal undercover agents that he sometimes shot deer at night with a rifle from the bathroom window of his home in Omaha's Ponca Hills neighborhood, retrieving carcasses in the morning.

He baited deer with corn scattered under trees about 100 yards from his house. When he would wake in the early morning hours to use the bathroom, McClanahan would shine a spotlight on a feeding deer to freeze it in place and shoot.

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