On December 4, 2025, Chad Michael Kulow pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 3372(a)(2)(a), 3373(d)(1)(B)). Co-defendant Andrea May Major pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 3372(a)(1), 3372(d)(2)). Co-defendant LaVoy Linton Eborn is scheduled for trial to begin in July 2026.
In late 2021, Kulow, Major, and Eborn were licensed guides in the State of Idaho, employed by a licensed outfitter. During late 2021, Kulow, Major, and Eborn began illegally acting in the capacity of outfitters, booking mountain lion hunting clients, accepting direct payment, and guiding hunts in southeast Idaho and Wyoming. They booked these clients independently, rather than under the auspices of the licensed and federally permitted outfitting service for which they worked.
Between December 2021 and February 2022, the defendants unlawfully sold hunts and carried out guiding activities on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in southeast Idaho and the Bridger-Teton National Forest in western Wyoming. The illegally guided hunts resulted in the kills of at least 11 mountain lions in Idaho, and another in western Wyoming. The defendants submitted several Big Game Mortality Reports to Idaho Fish and Game that contained false outfitter business information, and at least three mountain lions were shipped directly to Texas without the required documentation. The defendants were responsible for transporting illegally killed mountain lions from National Forest land to Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, Texas, and North Carolina.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and the U.S. Forest Service conducted the investigation.
Source: US DOJ
