North Carolina man sentenced for importing coyotes to the county

By JIM TALBERT\Staff
ABINGDON – A North Carolina man, who pleaded guilty to bringing coyotes and foxes into Southwest Virginia, will spend six months in prison.
Howard Glen Blevins, 67, of Asheville, NC, was arrested last December and charged with five counts of trafficking wild animals in interstate commerce. Evidence presented at Blevins’s sentencing showed that for several years he purchased coyotes and foxes in several states and brought them to Tazewell, Russell and other counties in Virginia for resale.
Blevins was selling the animals to fenced hunt clubs known as “fox pens.’ The owners of the pens would charge hunters a fee to enter their property and hunt the animals.
The evidence also showed that during a year long undercover operation, agents with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries bought 54 red foxes and 47 coyotes from Blevins in five separate transactions.
Testimony at the hearing also showed that two dozen or more animals were often transported together in the enclosed bed of a pickup. An agent testified that he witnessed animals with injuries and one occasion where a coyote died in transport and wsa discarded on the side of the road.
In addition to the six months in prison, Blevins will pay $6,970 in restitution to the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and a $500 special assessment. He will be on three years supervised [probation following his release.
Tazewell County’s board of supervisors pays a $50 per carcass bounty on coyotes in an effort to protect the county’s farmers from the predators. The Farm Bureau Federation assists the county government with funds for that project.
The Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office assisted the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries in the investigation and Commonwealth’s Attorney Dennis Lee, who serves as a special assistant U.S. Attorney helped prosecute the case.