He Beheaded the Buffalo With a Chainsaw

Some wildlife crimes are difficult to comprehend. Years ago, Chester Moore traveled to a location where someone had illegally killed a buffalo, removed its head with a chainsaw and abandoned the rest of the animal to rot. What he encountered there opened a window into a side of the outdoors most people never see. In this episode of Dark Outdoors, Chester explores some of the most disturbing and bizarre poaching cases he has encountered and investigated over the years. There are poachers willing to kill wildlife simply for trophies. Criminals willing to threaten the very people charged with protecting wildlife—including a shocking case involving shots fired into a game warden's home on Christmas Eve. And then there is the international black market, where wildlife trafficking can become almost unimaginable, including a case in which U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials discovered a coat smuggled into America that had been made using the skins of five jaguars. These aren't hunting stories. They're stories about greed, cruelty and the people who operate outside the laws designed to protect wildlife—and the wildlife officers who sometimes put themselves in danger trying to stop them. Because the outdoors has a dark side.