Wardens Remove Stuffed Wolverine, Hawk From Georgetown Bar

GEORGETOWN (CBS13) - State Department of Fish and Game wardens walked into a bar in a tiny foothills town Tuesday morning and took two stuffed animals that had been hanging on the wall for decades.

The move surprised patrons of the Georgetown Hotel and Bar, some of whom are younger than the animals that were seized.

"A hole in my heart," bartender Benny Mayes said. "There's a lot of history here."

The mounted wolverine, hanging here for at least 50 years is now gone, seized by two Fish and Game wardens.

State Sen. Ted Gaines (R-Rocklin) couldn't believe the wardens seized the animals from the bar.

"I'm angered by it," he said Tuesday night. "I'm going to dig into. I'm want to talk to the Department of Fish and Game and find out why this is such a priority and why we aren't focusing on things more critical to the citizens of the state."

Virginia Asbury bought the bar 16 years ago as is with the exact same mountings on the wall.

"They just came in and took it," she said. "I had no idea that it was I guess an endangered species."

But Virginia was told Tuesday morning that she had no choice but to give up the wolverine and a mounted red-tailed hawk.

"It's a federal offense if you don't give it to us," she said she was told.

Someone tipped off Fish and Game that illegal stuffed animals were inside the bar dating back to the 1800s.

And despite how long these wall mountings have hung here, a Fish and Game official said the wardens had no choice but to confiscate them.

"At the end of the day you're breaking the law, you can't just ignore it," the department's Andrew Hughan said. "They're police officers, that's not what he's going to do."

But why can't you have a wolverine? "Ask the Legislature," Hughan said.

So we did. "It seems to me that out to be grandfathered," Gaines said. "If these animals were shot, hunted prior to any sort of new law being passed, they ought to be able to have those and display them."

But for Mayes, Fish and Game went too far, taking the two animals without a warrant and leaving behind a receipt instead.

"He treated me as if 'I'm here to do that and there's nothing you can do about it,'" Mayes said.

Fish and Game told CBS13 the wardens didn't need a warrant if they had probable cause. And if they turned a blind eye, what would stop people from collecting other off-limit animals on their walls?

But Virginia, Benny and the small community feel violated. This bar is home, a home now with a big empty space.

"There is not one single person in this room that I've seen that likes this at all," Mayes said.

So what's next for the stuffed animals? Fish and Game says they will look to donate them to a place where they can be studied.

The department also said it's not being proactive about going after other bars with illegally mounted animals, but that it has a responsibility to take action if information is brought to its attention.

A DFG code section states that there are nine mammals that are against the law to kill or possess for whatever reason, even if they are stuffed and no matter how old. They are:

• Morro Bay kangaroo rat
• Bighorn sheep, except Nelson bighorn sheep
• Northern elephant seal
• Guadalupe fur seal
• Ring-tailed cat
• Pacific right whale
• Salt-marsh harvest mouse
• Southern sea otter
• Wolverine