The president of a large electrical co-op is facing a slew of shocking wildlife violations including unlawful killing of game animals, molesting game with an aircraft, illegal sale of landowner tags, and paying for unlicensed guiding—among other charges. If convicted, southeast Idaho resident Karl Studer could spend more than a decade in jail.
In a 67-page affidavit obtained by East Idaho News, an Idaho Department of Fish & Game (IDFG) warden said Studer and a licensed pilot named Kevin Sielaff hunted down mule deer and elk with a helicopter—and that Studer paid Sielaff more than $130,000 to fly employees of his electrical company over an area where they were shooting coyotes.
The affidavit goes on to state that on July 30, 2023, a unnamed man was scouting for deer and elk near Mormon Reservoir—a 1,500-acre impoundment about 65 miles northwest of Twin Falls—when he saw a red helicopter charge a herd of deer that then broke up into two groups. IDFG later used a serial number on the helicopter’s tail to trace ownership back to Sielaff, the affidavit reports.
The officer obtained text message exchanges between Studer, Sielaff, and another man named Bobby Wilcox indicating that the trio used information garnered during helicopter flights to harass, drive, and locate “multiple large trophy class mule deer.” During the fall of 2023, hunters in the area reported seeing the same red helicopter flying low to molest more deer and elk. Those reports began in August 2023 and continued on through November, the court documents state.
In another disturbing twist, the court documents allege that Studer drove around with a wounded but still-living pronghorn antelope in the back of his pickup truck. In a video clip unearthed by investigators from Studer's iCloud account, "a pronghorn [is seen] gasping with its head up in the back of a brown Toyota truck," the report reads. That footage was described in the affidavit by IDFG charging officer Meghan Ross.
In a synopsis of the affidavit obtained by Field & Stream, Ross wrote that Studer went into the field to hunt on the same day that Sielaff took him on a scouting-related helicopter ride. At one point, he killed two trophy bull elk then failed to tag the animals before “taking a third and continuing to hunt after that, attempting to overlimit on elk.” That same year, the documents allege, Studer illegally marketed and sold his IDFG-issued Landowner Appreciation Tags.
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The penalties could be stiff for Studer, who is scheduled to appear in court in Twin Fall tomorrow and could face a total of 15 years in prison for his charges, according to East Idaho News. Sielaff pled not guilty on August 15 and won’t face a preliminary hearing until mid-October.
