Maui ranch owner admits role in illegal sale, hunt of wildlife

A Maui ranch owner pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor Thursday for illegally selling axis deer and Mouflon cross-bred sheep and letting a person who did not have a hunting license pay to kill the animals.

The hunter, who told rancher Jeffrey Scott Grundhauser he was from Oregon, turned out to be an undercover agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Grundhauser, 53, who owns Arrow One Ranch in Kula, faces up to a year in jail and a $100,000 fine at sentencing in October.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Song said the undercover agent paid Grundhauser $1,200 to hunt and that he killed one deer and two sheep on June 6, 2011. Grundhauser provided the gun, and had conducted two previous hunts in May, Song said.

Grundhauser’s attorney, David Haya­kawa, noted his client wasn’t accused of transporting the animals between islands, for which veteran helicopter pilot Thomas Leros Hauptman was charged.

"(Grundhauser) took responsibility for what he did wrong: taking an unlicensed hunter on a guided hunt, which will never happen again," Haya­kawa said after the hearing.

Hauptman, Grundhauser’s friend and neighbor, pleaded guilty Monday to illegally possessing game animals by transporting axis deer to Hawaii island in December 2009 from Maui. He also admitted transporting Mouflon cross-bred sheep from Hawaii island to Maui.

The state wants to prevent the spread of Mouflon cross-bred sheep from established populations on Hawaii island, and the spread of axis deer that are established on Maui because of the damage the introduced species cause to native habitat.

A new law this year prohibits the possession or interisland transport of wild or feral deer. Penalties include up to a year in jail, the cost to eradicate the transported animals and their progeny, and fines of at least $10,000 for a first offense to a minimum $25,000 for a third offense within five years.

Grundhauser swapped only three axis deer from his ranch on Maui for an undisclosed number of Mouflon cross-bred sheep from Hawaii island, Haya­kawa said.

Arrow One Ranch boasts of having Mouflon/hybrid sheep and herds of more than 1,000 axis deer for hunting.

Hayakawa said the ranch has state-of-the-art fencing that prevents animals from escaping and that all of the sheep Grundhauser received from Hawaii island are accounted for. He also said there already are hundreds of axis deer on Hawaii island.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.