A woman has been arrested after admitted to illegally killing a deer while chatting to a man she met online dating - who turned out to be a game warden.
The Oklahoma woman matched with the warden on the dating app Bumble and unwittingly admitted to shooting a buck during the off-season.
The admission surprised the game warden, Cannon Harrison, whose job often entails tracking down poachers as part of investigations that can last for months.
“It definitely was a shock,” said Cannon Harrison, who has been an Oklahoma game warden for two years, told Tulsa World.
“First you think, ‘This isn’t real,’ ” he continued. “You think, ‘Maybe she knows who I am and is teasing me,’ but we did some digging on who she was and where she lived and it went from there”.
Mr Harrison said that the incident occurred more than a month ago when the two matched on the dating app, but details of the incident were added to the Oklahoma Game Warden’s Facebook page on Sunday.
During their exchange, Mr Harris asked the woman if she had killed the deer with a bow, but was told a rifle was used even though it was not rifle season. He then asked if she had “spotlighted” the deer, which involves shining a bright light in the deer’s eyes to confuse the animal.
The woman and an accomplice greed to pay $2,400 relating to charges of improper possession of an illegally killed animal. Since the woman pleaded out immediately to the crime, charges for the spotlighting and for wasting the deer meat — much of it was not harvested — were avoided.
Mr Harrison said that the incident is to be expected in the age of social media, when people brag about everything they do.
“We’re reaching a day when everyone wants to talk and brag on social media, and it’s a great way to catch these individuals if you know how to use it,” he said.
