A B.C. outfitter and a Wyoming hunter have been hit with hefty fines for wasting meat and hunting too soon after exiting the plane that took them to their destination.

Abraham Dougan, of Kamloops, B.C., and Brian Tallerico, of Etna, Wyo., pleaded guilty to the two charges under the Wildlife Act.

This morning, they were ordered to pay $15,000 and $11,500, respectively, in Yukon territorial court.

Dougan, 39, was guiding Tallerico on a days-long hunting trip near Fox Mountain in the Yukon back in 2011 when the offences took place.

“He was the individual in this situation who had the greatest expertise,” Judge Peter Chisholm said of Dougan, who runs Big Boar Outfitters in B.C. and obtained a Yukon guiding licence in 2002 and 2011.

“He has significant responsibility in terms of how this hunt was conducted and he displayed very bad judgment.”

Although Tallerico, 43, hired a guide, he too showed a lack of judgment, Chisholm said.

The sentence was the result of a joint submission by Crown prosecutor Lee Kirkpatrick, Dougan’s lawyer Kevin Church in Kamloops, and Tallerico’s Vancouver-based lawyer, Nicholas Weigelt.

Both defence lawyers phoned in to the courtroom on behalf of their clients.

On Aug. 16, 2011, the two men, plus a cameraman and a fourth person who was going to help pack, departed for Fox Mountain for a backpack hunt.

Tallerico had come to the Yukon with the goal of harvesting a Stone sheep, and was working towards a “grand slam” – hunting a Dall, Stone, Rocky Mountain bighorn and Desert bighorn sheep.

The Stone sheep would have been Tallerico’s second of the four. He’d been a hunter for about 20 years prior to this trip.

The group was dropped off near Fox Lake at about 2:30 p.m. that day.

Because they’d flown in a non-scheduled plane, they were not allowed to hunt for six hours, as per the Wildlife Act.

It states that hunting big game is prohibited during this period, after disembarking “an aircraft other than an aircraft operated by a commercial airline company on a regularly scheduled flight from one airport to another.”

Shortly after leaving the plane, the cameraman took a photo of a caribou nearby. Then, an hour and a half later, he took a photo of Tallerico with a dead caribou.

The men prepared the caribou meat and stored it in game bags, which they left on rocks covered with brush, Kirkpatrick said.

They stayed at Fox Lake that night, and left the site in the morning on foot.

On Aug. 20, Tallerico shot a grizzly, and the following day, he shot a sheep.

They packed those animals and arrived back at Fox Lake on Aug. 22. By then, the caribou meat had been scavenged and was not salvageable.

The men stayed at the lake overnight and headed on to Askin Lake, where they were to be picked up.

Tallerico harvested a moose along the way.

With the group already carrying sheep horns, a small amount of sheep meat, a grizzly skull and hide, and a caribou trophy, “this was, in the Crown’s submission, a trainwreck waiting to happen,” said Kirkpatrick.

Upon arrival in Whitehorse, the men visited the Environment Yukon office, as Tallerico required export permits to take his trophies back to the U.S.

That’s when conservation officers became suspicious.

The men only presented 211 pounds of moose meat, no caribou meat and the sheep horns, which weighed about 16.5 pounds, when typically, a boned-out moose weighs 450 pounds, a caribou is 225 pounds, and a sheep is between 60 and 65 pounds.

That’s an expected total of 740, hundreds of pounds more than what Tallerico and Dougan presented.

Conservation officers seized the trophies and began an investigation.

Given directions to the kill sites, they visited the area and found considerable meat left behind.

When questioned about the hunt, Tallerico and Dougan said the caribou had been killed a day later than it actually had been. This was false information, Kirkpatrick said.

Both defence lawyers expressed their clients’ remorse.

“He wishes to express his profound apologies to the people of the Yukon,” Weigelt said of Tallerico. “He is very embarrassed by what happened. This is out of character for him.”

As for Dougan, who is married with two young children and has worked for years as a guide, this fine and conviction will affect him economically as well, Church said.

“There’s no question there was wastage,” he said. “Mr. Dougan is more than embarrassed by this.”

Tallerico was fined $7,500 for wasting sheep and moose meat, and $4,000 for hunting big game within the prohibited period after disembarking the plane.

Tallerico has already submitted a cheque for the full amount, which will go to the Yukon Fish and Game Association’s Turn in Poachers fund.

Tallerico is also prohibited from hunting in the Yukon for 10 years.

Dougan, who as a guide “bears greater responsibility,” Kirkpatrick said, has been ordered to pay $10,000 for wastage of caribou, sheep and moose meat, plus $5,000 for the aircraft offence.

Dougan is prohibited from hunting and guiding in the Yukon for 20 years, and isn’t eligible to apply for a hunting or guiding licence in the territory until his fines are paid.

He submitted a $10,000 cheque to the court today.