Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, on Monday introduced legislation that would raise the penalty for poaching and illegal hunting of trophy animals from a gross misdemeanor to a felony.
SB135 was referred to the Senate Natural Resources Committee for study.
It specifically imposes felony charges on anyone who kills or helps some one else kill a bighorn sheep, mountain goat, elk, deer, prong horn antelope, mountain lion or black bear outside the legal hunting season, by other methods than their hunting tag allows or without a valid tag.
The only exemption is if the killing is necessary to protect some one's life.
The bill would make it an aggravating factor in setting sentence if more than one trophy animal is killed.
In addition, anyone possessing an animal killed in violation of that law would be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.
