Movies can be scary — but scary enough to make you break the law?
One man says he poached a black bear because of the movie “The Revenant,” which is about a real-life frontiersman guide who was mauled by a grizzly bear and abandoned by his friends.
“The Revenant” (photo via wideopenspaces.com)
It takes place in Montana in 1823 and stars Leonardo DiCaprio.
Chris Keown, 40, shot the black bear near his home in St. Louis. He said he had never seen a bear in Missouri and feared for his life.
“That bear was big,” Keown told the Post-Dispatch. “I thought it was a grizzly.”
But, alas, there are no grizzlies in Missouri. Keown said he actually doesn’t know that much about bears and that a black bear could actually have brownish fur, like the one he shot.
“I’m sorry that I did do it,” he said. “My adrenaline was pumping. About three weeks before that, we watched ‘The Revenant’ and it was just going through my mind.”
But that may just be a facade to the truth.
A man who just poached a black bear (photo via 98.7 The Coast)
He ended up following the bear and shooting it in a ditch, and then he took the paws and meat from it. He said, as a hunter, he just tries to use every part of an animal.
“I’m not an evil, mean person,” he said. “I love animals. I did it for one reason: For my son, because he plays in this road and rides his bike up and down this road.”
He ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor, paying the courts a $103.50 and a $99.50 fine.
He pled guilty to a misdemeanor in June and paid court costs of $103.50 and a $99.50 fine in the case.
Even though the authorities say Keown should’ve let the bear go, he still holds to his decision.
“If I see [another one] right here, I’m going to kill him,” Keown said. “What are you supposed to do? They say, beat on pots and pans and make noise. What is my son supposed to do? Run around here with pots and pans?”
