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$2,500 fine in death of black bear

NEW IBERIA (AP) — A judge has ordered a Louisiana man to pay $2,500 because his juvenile son killed a Louisiana black bear in 2015.
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries also plans to sue Elie Dupre, 60, for $7,500 to make up the full assessed value of a Louisiana black bear, Adam Einck, a department spokesman, said in an email Thursday. His son was ordered to put in 100 hours of community service and retake a hunting education course. The teen also lost his hunting license for a year.
Dupre could not be reached for comment. Neither directory assistance nor an online directory had a phone number for him.
Judge Gregory Aucoin convicted Dupre on June 14 of contributing to juvenile delinquency and his son with killing an animal during a closed season, Einck said in a news release Thursday. Both are misde-meanors, he said.
Although the black bear subspecies is no longer considered threatened, there is no legal hunting season for it.
Einck said last year that the Dupres were implicated in the bear’s death after agents arrested the father in December 2015 in a separate night hunting case and confiscated three firearms, one of which matched the bullet in a 9-year-old female black bear found dead Nov. 4, 2015.
The 250-pound female had worn a tracking collar for eight years as part of state research, and had provided valuable information on black bear populations, productivity and population viability in the state of Louisiana

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