Alistair Overeem isn’t the only one with some outside distractions heading into UFC 141 on December 30. Brock Lesnar, who will face Overeem in the heavyweight main event, was charged on Thursday with three counts of violating Alberta’s Wildlife Act. The charges reportedly stem from a hunt that took place in southern Alberta in November of 2010, and which may have been captured on video.
Lesnar, along with hunting guide Chad Stryker, both stand accused of improper tagging of an animal, leaving edible game meat to rot, and illegal possession of wildlife. Neither Lesnar nor Stryker was present for the hearing in Medicine Hat, Alberta on Thursday, but a video shot by North American Hunter Television documents a hunt that it claims took place in Alberta in November of 2010.
In that video, Lesnar — with Stryker at his side — is seen shooting a mule deer buck which he then describes as a “nice old, mature mule deer.”
“Now the work begins,” Lesnar adds.
The next shot in the video is of Lesnar, with the deer’s antlers poking out of a pack on his back, climbing back up the hill through the snow with Stryker following behind and helping him along.
“My guide Chad insisted that he haul this deer out of there,” Lesnar says to the camera. “And I said, you know, I shot it, I’ll haul it out. Baddest man on the planet, with the horns and about 150 pounds of meat on my back, up 500 feet. Living the dream. This is what I live for.”
The video doesn’t show exactly how much of the deer was harvested and packed out by Lesnar or his guide, and only the trophy antlers are visible from Lesnar’s pack. Lesnar and Stryker stand accused of leaving edible game meat to rot, which, as Owen Voaklander of Alberta Professional Outfitters Society told The Canadian Press, “is a very serious crime in the minds of hunters because most everybody is hunting for meat at the outset.”
According to the website of Trophy Hunters Alberta, which claims Stryker as one of its guides and features Lesnar prominently on its homepage, one-on-one guided mule deer hunts in Alberta can cost upwards of $7,500 U.S.
The Crown Prosecutor’s office in Alberta did not respond to a request for comment on what kind of punishment Lesnar and Stryker could be facing, and Lesnar has reportedly not yet submitted himself for arraignment, opting instead to be represented only by a legal agent.
Lesnar and Stryker are due in court again on January 19, 2012.