Corn feed, water, salt – and big bucks – were plentiful on Wade Heaton’s Kane County property last summer. But no matter when or where they looked, investigators of a suspected wildlife baiting program couldn’t find any cattle.
Instead, investigators with the Division of Wildlife Resources allege the snacks were laid out to attract big game and ensure that Heaton’s hunting clients took home the buck of their choice. As a result of their work, Utah County prosecutors have filed 11 counts of wildlife-related luring against Heaton, a 51-year-old Kane County commissioner and former Utah Wildlife Board member who operates a big game guiding service on his land.
Prosecutors allege that Heaton’s illegal activities spanned the years from August 2022 to September 2023. This is a second-degree felony and the most serious charge against him. But Mark Ekins, an investigator with the Division of Wildlife Resources, said in court documents that he and his team built most of their case while observing activities on Heaton’s ranch over a two-week period in late August 2023.
Investigators claim that seven Deer were shot at sites enriched with water and food, according to court documents based on evidence from a cellphone, trail cameras, drone footage, a text chain and interviews.
According to charging documents, all seven hunters were customers of Heaton-based hunting guide service Color Country Outfitters and paid between $3,000 and $40,000 per hunt in 2023, with one paying as much as $48,000 in 2022.
“Defendant Wade Heaton orchestrated and directed the luring of deer and the coordination of guided hunting trips to the baited locations,” Ekins wrote in a probable cause statement filed in support of the prosecution. “(Color Country Outfitters) was paid by the hunters for these trips.”
Other charges against Heaton include six counts of willful destruction of protected wildlife, one of which is a third-degree felony, one count of taking, transporting, selling or purchasing protected wildlife, and three counts of conspiracy (all misdemeanors).
(Read more: County commissioner and former Utah wildlife conservationist under investigation for alleged big game baiting)
A conviction on these charges could also result in the loss of hunting privileges. Heaton did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Six other men who worked as tour guides for Color Country Outfitters have been charged in connection with the alleged baiting scheme. They include Jeremy Chamberlain of Glendale, 50, owner of Braggin’ Rights Taxidermy; Joshua Jennings of Glendale, 46, owner of J Bones Taxidermy; and Jared Steele of Santaquin, 37, owner of Great Basin Antler Buyers, who is described as “one of the best antler buyers in the country.”
Also charged are his son, Braxton Wade Heaton, 24, and his brother, Andrew Tucker Heaton, 47, both of Alton. Both were identified as hunt guides on at least one of the hunts and both are charged with a felony. Forrest Barnard, 35, of Orderville, chief of the Cedar Mountain Fire Protection District, is accused of leading a hunt and is charged with three misdemeanor counts.
(Don Jennings | Southern Utah News) Kane County Commissioner Wade Heaton in 2022.
The investigation came about after Ekins received an email tip about possible baiting at the Alton Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit. Heaton’s ranch is on the Alton CWMU and he is the operator of the unit. Under DWR rules, he could lose the ability to operate it if he is convicted of a wildlife violation.
The state created CWMUs in 1994 to encourage private landowners to create wildlife habitat by making deer, elk and other game more profitable than nuisance deer. Landowners within CWMUs receive vouchers for big-game hunting permits that they can sell, usually along with guide services.
Often, permits are worth thousands of dollars, as the land is typically prime hunting ground and is only accessible to outfitter customers and a small number of public license holders – as required by the state. A conviction related to a wildlife investigation in a CWMU can impact its status.
Baiting big game has only been banned in Utah since May 2021. The state and its surrounding areas have banned it because they fear the spread of disease through feeding stations, the animals’ increasing dependence on humans, and the practice contradicts the “fair chase” doctrine of hunting.
The Utah DWR defines baiting as “the placement of food or nutrients to influence the behavior of wildlife.” The state makes an exception for feed stations for cattle that share the same territory. Hunters are allowed to shoot over these feed stations if nutrients were placed “as part of their normal farming practices for their animals.”
But Ekins wrote in his report: “WhatsApp messages between defendant Wade Heaton and the hunting guides showed that they had relied on bait even before the ban and were concerned about the impact of the ban on their clients’ hunting success rates and the time the guides spent searching for deer.”
Heaton, Ekins reported, wrote in March 2021 that he would change the name of Color Country Outfitters to “We got cows.”
(Utah Division of Wildlife Resources) Mule deer in the Alton Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit in Kane County in 2022.
However, during the hunts investigated by the DWR in August 2023, there appeared to be no cows in Heaton.
Ekins wrote in charging documents that more than 3,000 images were captured by a trail camera near the site where a deer was killed with an arrow on Aug. 26, 2023. The images, taken between Aug. 2 and Aug. 15, 2023, showed grain on the ground and “two feed buckets of corn and mineral mix” nearby. The images showed mule deer eating corn, Ekins wrote. No livestock was visible in any of the photos.
The images came from a trail camera that investigators seized from the property and obtained a search warrant to examine. According to charging documents, the camera’s memory card appeared to have been erased the morning after the deer was shot, but investigators were able to recover the images using recovery software.
Video recorded during that hunt on August 26, “shows the deer standing at the feed bucket and eating from it immediately before it was shot,” charging documents say.
Heaton was interviewed as part of the investigation. The indictment states that Heaton claimed to feed his cattle from April to October. He told investigators he kept cows on his property from July 1 to about August 15 and tried to move them away before hunting. He said he continued to bring water to the bait sites, which he said were the only source of water on the property for the deer.
Investigators said text messages Heaton sent to his employees show Heaton gave them instructions on when to feed bait sites. Steele, whose phone was seized and searched, told investigators he works for Heaton, “who gives them jobs and they do them.”
Color Country Outfitters customers chose the deer they wanted to hunt based on photos provided by the outfitter before the hunt, several people told investigators. They could then hunt only the deer assigned to them, which were given a nickname — from Maga to Cialis to Sling Blade and Tokyo Drift. Some of the bucks shot during the course of the investigation had antlers with a 27-inch or nearly 27-inch span.
The first count states that on August 25, 2022, Chamberlain led a bowhunter to a hunting blind near a baited area where the client shot a deer named “Wolfman.” The client, identified as BG, paid $48,000, charging documents say.
On October 4, 2023, investigators submitted a 62-page report on the baiting scheme to the DWR. Five days later, the Utah Investigative Journalism Project reported, Heaton resigned from the Utah Wildlife Board.
“My life has become increasingly busier and more complicated,” Heaton wrote, according to the report, “and I no longer feel I have the time necessary to serve on the Wildlife Board.”
According to a DWR spokesperson, the department’s investigation was forwarded to the Utah County District Attorney’s Office in December for possible charges. The charges were filed in Kane County’s 6th District Court on Aug. 22. A trial date has not yet been set.
