Corn feed, water, salt — and large-rack bucks — were plentiful on Wade Heaton’s Kane County property last summer. But no matter when or where they looked, investigators of an alleged wildlife baiting scheme could find no cattle.
Instead, Division of Wildlife Resources investigators allege the snacks were set out to lure big game and ensure Heaton’s hunting clients took home the buck of their choice. And as a result of their work, Utah County prosecutors have filed 11 counts related to baiting wildlife 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.
The charges allege Heaton’s pattern of unlawful activity, a second-degree felony and the most serious count against him, spanned the year from August 2022 to September 2023. But Mark Ekins, an investigator for the Division of Wildlife Resources, said in court documents that he and his team built most of their case while observing activity on Heaton’s ranch over the course of two weeks in late August 2023.
Investigators allege that seven deer were shot at sites baited with water and feed, court documents said, based on evidence taken from a cell phone, trail cameras, drone footage, a text chain and interviews.
According to the charging documents, all seven of the hunters had been clients of Heaton’s Color Country Outfitters guiding service and had paid $3,000 to $40,000 per hunt in 2023, with one paying $48,000 in 2022.
“Defendant Wade Heaton orchestrated and directed the baiting of deer and coordination of guided hunting trips involving the baited sites,” Ekins wrote in a probable-cause statement filed in support of the charges. “[Color Country Outfitters] was paid by the hunters for these trips.”
The other charges against Heaton include six counts of wanton destruction of protected wildlife, one of which is a third-degree felony; one misdemeanor count of taking, transporting, selling, or purchasing protected wildlife; and three counts of conspiracy, all misdemeanors.
[Read more: County commissioner and former Utah wildlife official investigated for alleged big game baiting]
A conviction on the charges can also lead to the suspension of hunting privileges. Heaton didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment.
Six other men who served as 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 has been described as “among the nation’s top antler buyers.”
Also charged are his son, Braxton Wade Heaton, 24, and his brother, Andrew Tucker Heaton, 47, both of Alton. Both were identified as a guide on at least one of the hunts and both face felony charges. Forrest Barnard, 35, of Orderville, chief of the Cedar Mountain Fire Protection District, allegedly guided one hunt and is accused of three misdemeanor counts.
(Don Jennings | Southern Utah News) Kane County Commissioner Wade Heaton in 2022.
The investigation came about after Ekins was emailed a tip about possible baiting on the Alton Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit. Heaton’s ranch is on the Alton CWMU and he is the unit’s operator. Under DWR rules, he could lose the opportunity to operate it if he is convicted of a wildlife violation.
The state established CWMUs in 1994 as a way to encourage private landowners to provide habitat for wildlife by making deer, elk and other game more profitable than pesky. Landowners within CWMUs receive vouchers for big game permits that they can sell, usually along with guiding services.
Often the permits fetch thousands of dollars since the land is typically prime hunting ground and open only to clients of outfitters and a small number of public tag holders — as mandated by the state. A conviction related to a wildlife investigation on a CWMU can have an impact on its status.
Baiting big game has only been outlawed in Utah since May 2021. The state and those around it banned it over concerns about the spread of disease through feeding stations, a growing reliance of animals on humans and the practice’s conflict with hunting’s “fair chase” doctrine.
The Utah DWR defines baiting as “placing food or nutrients to manipulate the behavior of wildlife.” The state makes an exception for food stations for cattle sharing the same range. Hunters are allowed to shoot over those food stations if nutrients were placed “as part of their normal agricultural practices for the use of their animals.”
Yet Ekins wrote in his report that “WhatsApp messages between Defendant Wade Heaton and the hunting guides showed that they had relied on baiting prior to the ban and were concerned about the ban’s effect on their clients’ hunting success rate and the guides’ time spent finding deer.”
Heaton, Ekins reported, wrote in March 2021 that he was going to change the name of Color Country Outfitters to “We got cows.”
(Utah Division of Wildlife Resources) Mule deer deer on the Alton Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit in Kane County in 2022.
During the time of the August 2023 hunts investigated by the DWR, however, Heaton did not appear to have cows.
Ekins wrote in the charging documents that more than 3,000 images were taken from a trail camera near 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. None of the photos showed any cattle.
The images came from a trail camera investigators seized from the property and secured a search warrant to review. The camera’s memory card appeared to have been deleted the morning after the deer was shot at the site, according to the charging documents, but investigators were able to retrieve the images using recovery software.
Video recorded during that Aug. 26 hunt “showed the deer standing at the feed bucket and eating out of it just before it was shot,” the charging documents said.
Heaton was interviewed as part of the investigation. The charging document said Heaton said he feeds his cattle from April to October. He told investigators he had run cows on his property from July 1 until approximately Aug. 15 and tries to clear them out before hunting. He said he continued to haul water to the bait sites, which he said is the only source of water on the property for the deer.
Investigators said text messages sent by Heaton to employees show Heaton directed them when to feed baiting sites. Steele, whose phone was confiscated and searched, told investigators he works for Heaton, “who gives them jobs and they do it.”
Clients of Color Country Outfitters selected the deer they wanted to hunt from photos provided by the outfitter prior to the hunt, several people told investigators. They could then only hunt for their assigned deer, which was designated by a nickname — from Maga to Cialis to Sling Blade and Tokyo Drift. Some of the bucks shot during the course of the investigation had racks of or close to a 27-inch spread.
The earliest count alleges that Chamberlain guided a bow hunter on Aug. 25, 2022 to a hunting blind near a baited area where the client shot a deer dubbed “Wolfman.” The client, identified as B.G., paid $48,000, the charging documents said.
On Oct. 4, 2023, investigators had 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 continued to become busier and more complicated,” Heaton wrote, according to the report, “and I no longer feel that I have the time needed to serve on the Wildlife board.”
The division’s investigation was referred in December to the Utah County Attorney’s office to be evaluated for possible charges, according to a DWR spokesperson. Charges were filed Aug. 22 in 6th District Court in Kane County. No trial date has been set.