Introducing: Operation Night Cat

Summary

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Bear Brook: Introducing Operation Nightcat

Podcast: Bear Brook
Host: Jason Moon (NHPR)
Reported by: Nate Hedgy
Episode: Introducing: Operation Nightcat (Ep. 1)
Date: November 25, 2025

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Overview of the Episode

The premiere episode of “Operation Nightcat” is a collaboration between Bear Brook and NHPR's Outside/In, hosted by Nate Hedgy. The episode explores the unraveling of one of New Hampshire’s largest poaching cases—Operation Nightcat—focusing on conservation officer Ron Arsenault’s investigation into illegal hunting and animal cruelty. The story delves into the hidden world of night hunting, the ethics of fair chase, and how a small-town community became ground zero for an investigation that would question the intersection of law enforcement, wildlife ethics, and personal morality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Life as a Conservation Officer in New Hampshire

(01:36–03:52)

• Nate joins Ron Arsenault on patrol along the Mary Meaton River on a cold morning, observing typical law enforcement on fishing laws.
• Conservation officers are positioned as "referees of the wild," enforcing complex laws to both protect animal populations and ensure hunter conduct.
• Ron describes his job as catching “cheaters” who break game laws:

  “Nobody likes a cheater...we’re kinda the referee for the deer...we’re catching the cheaters.” (Ron Arsenault, 03:52)

The Genesis of Operation Nightcat

(04:29–05:02)

• Ron’s exposure to cheating in sportsmanship culminates in what he calls the most bizarre and significant bust of his career:

  “Operation Nightcat… one of the weirdest, wildest, darkest investigations of his life. One that made him question aspects of the justice system he had spent the past seventeen years of his life working within.” (Nate Hedge, 04:35–05:02)

• Ron reflects:

  "If you're abusing animals like this, are you abusing humans?" (Ron Arsenault, 05:02)

Community, History, and Codes of Ethics

(07:43–13:26)

• Ron, a New Hampshire native, is deeply embedded in the Lakes Region’s hunting culture—he has ticketed his own family for hunting violations, solidifying his reputation.
• The Lakes Region is described as hunter territory, with traditions like the barbershop trophy wall.
• Introduction of Tom Kelly, social media “alpha-hunter,” whose online bravado masks a repeated disregard for hunting laws.
• Nate contextualizes the "fair chase" code—ethical hunting that avoids unfair advantages and upholds a respect for wildlife—a tradition that contrasts sharply with the poaching behaviors under investigation.

Tom Kelly and the Breaking of the Rules

(13:26–17:26)

• Tom Kelly’s prior legal trouble with baiting and hunting violations is outlined, establishing him as a person of interest.
• Ron investigates a suspicious "cattle trail" and bait site near Kelly’s home, finds photographic evidence of illegal deer baiting, and begins seizing digital evidence (camera, phone).
• Technology challenges arise as Ron navigates 1.6 terabytes of data, highlighting his dogged commitment and the growing complexity of digital evidence in modern investigations.

The Federal Law Angle: The Lacey Act & Broader Conspiracy

(20:56–24:16)

• As Ron sifts through phone data, he discovers a pattern of illegal bobcat killings by a group—sharing videos, transporting animals across state lines, possibly violating the federal Lacey Act.
• Quote:

  “The poachers are the most egregious violators in our world.” (Ron Arsenault, 20:56)

• The investigation broadens as Ron alerts U.S. Fish and Wildlife, leading to the operation’s naming:

  “She was like, Operation Nightcat. I’m like, that’s perfect. I’m, like, hired.” (Ron Arsenault on his wife coining the name, 24:05)

The Raid and Explosive Unraveling

(24:38–27:34)

• Law enforcement raids Tom and other suspects’ homes, recovering taxidermied bobcats, night vision scopes, evidence of elaborate night hunting setups.
• One participant, Randy Inman, is found to have killed at least 20 animals illegally.
• The group treats poaching as a competition, documenting and boasting about their kills via night scopes and group messages.
• Quote:

  “It’s like they're playing Grand Theft Auto behind their house, except with animals.” (Ron Arsenault, 26:29)

Concerning Evidence of Cruelty

(27:34–30:57)

• Ron and the podcast team review disturbing videos showing prolonged animal suffering—particularly a deer flailing for minutes before being killed, which Ron and ethical hunters find appalling.
• Notable moment:

  “He shoots at it again. So that was two minutes long before he shot again… That’s a clean shot to the head. But Tom doesn’t take it. Instead, he watches.” (Nate Hedge, 30:04)

• After the kill, Tom mutters, “Stay down, asshole.” (Tom Kelly, 30:26)

Law Enforcement and Ethics Crisis

(30:57–31:36)

• The final disturbing revelation: several members of the poaching group are themselves law enforcement or corrections officers, raising deeper questions about power and empathy.
• Ron voices concern about the possible link between animal violence and human abuse:

  “If you’re abusing animals like this, are you abusing humans?” (Ron Arsenault, 31:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Fair Chase and Ethics:

  "I hate baiting… Because it’s cheating. In my book, anybody can throw a pile of grain in the woods and shoot a deer." (Ron Arsenault, 13:26)

• On Social Dynamics:

  “She shot her first deer but it wasn’t doe season and she shot a doe...I wrote my own kid for this. They're like, oh, there’s no way I'm getting out of there.” (Ron Arsenault, 08:19)

• On Investigative Persistence:

  “My wife would be… ‘so you still working on that?’ I’m like, yep, still working on it. Like, this is what we gotta do. We gotta get it, you know?” (Ron Arsenault, 17:26)

• On the Impact:

  “It just makes you wonder, like, is this happening somewhere else too? Like, if you’re abusing animals like this, are you abusing humans?” (Ron Arsenault, 31:27)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:36 – Nate and Ron’s patrol, intro to conservation law enforcement
• 04:29 – Reference to Operation Nightcat, the career-defining case
• 07:43 – Ron’s background and reputation, community ties
• 10:22 – Social media hunting culture, Tom Kelly’s TikTok
• 13:26 – Baiting cases, start of surveillance
• 16:02 – Collection of digital evidence, Ron's persistence
• 20:56 – Define poaching, discovery of broad violation
• 23:49 – Lacey Act implications, Feds get involved
• 24:38 – Execution of search warrants, scale of illegal activity
• 27:34 – Sharing of kill videos, escalation to cruelty
• 28:00–30:57 – The disturbing deer video, absence of hunter empathy
• 31:27 – Law enforcement connection, ethical ramifications

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode balances gritty, boots-on-the-ground law enforcement storytelling with in-depth ethical reflection. Nate’s narration maintains a conversational, curious tone. Ron is blunt, passionate, and sometimes wry—a local man whose mix of humor, sternness, and sorrow at what he uncovers weaves through every segment.

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Closing Notes

The episode concludes with the promise of deeper revelations in the next two installments—focusing on broader ethical and criminal consequences as the “Nightcat” case unfolds. The episode challenges listeners to confront not just the rules, but also the attitudes and institutions that enable cruelty—especially when law enforcement is involved.

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Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Nate Hedge]

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[Ron Arsenault]

Hey, it's Jason Moon. For the past year, I've been working with my colleagues at Outside In. That's another great podcast from nhpr, all about curiosity and the natural world. It started last fall when the host of Outside In, Nate Hedge, told me about a story he'd stumbled onto about something called Operation Nightcat. I was hooked. We're dropping the first episode of Operation Nightcap right here so you can check it out. All right, here's Nate.

[Nate Hedge]

What's the name of the creek?

[Ron Arsenault]

This is Mary Meaton River.

[Nate Hedge]

Mary Meaton River.

[Ron Arsenault]

Okay. Yep. So we'll go up here.

[Nate Hedge]

Ron Arsenault is on patrol. He's a conservation officer with New Hampshire's fish and game department. We were walking along this little river looking for folks breaking the law.

[Ron Arsenault]

This is all general fishing. So this is open for anything. And this goes all the way up to Mare Meeting Lake.

[Nate Hedge]

It's a cold, windy spring morning, not too great for fishing. And there's no one really on the water. Ron is bundled up in a green fishing game jacket, black boots. Same uniform he wears every day. And then Ron spots something.

[Ron Arsenault]

Oh, look at what we have here.

[Nate Hedge]

A length of rope just under the water. He starts pulling it in.

[Ron Arsenault]

These are always fun. Never know what you're gonna get. So this is somebody's minnow trap, and they're supposed to have their name on their trap. So looks like a crayfish in there.

[Nate Hedge]

Oh, yeah. Ron pulls out a small mesh Wire crate. The kind anglers use to catch live minnows for bait.

[Ron Arsenault]

So this trap is illegal. There's no name, no nothing. So I'll let the crayfish go and we'll confiscate this trap. Unless I see a name on here.

[Nate Hedge]

Oh, so you'll just take it then, huh?

[Ron Arsenault]

Yeah, because it's illegal.

[Nate Hedge]

What's he got in there? Cookie. Looks like a cookie, huh? Or no, it's a sausage patty.

[Ron Arsenault]

Yeah, sausage patty, huh? All right, Mr. Crayfish. Bye.

[Nate Hedge]

Most of Ron's days are like this. Walking or driving around central New Hampshire, enforcing all the hunting and fishing regulations here. And make no mistake, Ron is a cop. He carries a gun, he makes arrests. But this job is different from most forms of law enforcement. Hunting and fishing laws were made to prevent game animals from being wiped out and to keep people safe. Also, hunting is considered a sport. Yes, it involves killing animals, but there is a code of ethics, rules about what is and isn't fair, enforced by hundreds of laws. And that makes Ron a kind of referee of the wild.

[Ron Arsenault]

Nobody likes a cheater, you know, Any game, any ball game. Once you're a cheater, you're a cheater, you know, so that's kind of where the referee for the. For the deer, you know, or the game animal or the fish, you know, we're catching the cheaters. That's what we're doing.

[Nate Hedge]

And over the years, he's seen plenty of cheaters. But nothing in his career compares to the bust he and his colleagues made in the spring of 2023. When you write your book after you retire, where will Operation Nightcat land?

[Ron Arsenault]

I haven't decided because that could be a book in its.

[Nate Hedge]

Operation Nightcat, one of the biggest poaching cases in New Hampshire history. A case that Ron stumbled upon one cold December day in 2022. A case that slowly unraveled into one of the weirdest, wildest, darkest investigations of his life. One that made him question aspects of the justice system he had spent the past 17 years of his life working within.

[Ron Arsenault]

If you're abusing animals like this, are you abusing humans?

[Nate Hedge]

I'm nate hedge from NHPR's document team. And outside in this is a special three part series, operation Night Cat.

[Ron Arsenault]

This is a kind of gleeful celebration of violence. It's like they're playing Grand Theft Auto behind their house. Except with animals.

[Nate Hedge]

They can do whatever they want and.

[Ron Arsenault]

Get away with it. Nobody can see over that wall.

[Nate Hedge]

Episode 1 why did the deer cross the road?

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[Nate Hedge]

Twas the night before Christmas when all.

[Commercial Narrator]

Through the barn, Harry and David's Royal Riviera pears were wrapped. Heading out from the farm, the children.

[Ron Arsenault]

Were nestled snug in their beds while towels of Moose Munch popcorn danced in their heads. When what on our doorstep should magically appear.

[Commercial Narrator]

Harry and David delivering holiday cheers.

[Nate Hedge]

Harry and David exclaimed as they drove out of sight.

[Commercial Narrator]

Happy holidays to all and to all.

[Ron Arsenault]

Of a good bite.

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[Nate Hedge]

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[Ron Arsenault]

From.

[Nate Hedge]

NHBR's document team and outside in this is Operation Nightcat. I'm Nate Hedgey.

[Ron Arsenault]

Let's see if I can close this this bag. I've had this forever. I got this bag in 2003 when I was in Iraq.

[Nate Hedge]

Before becoming a fishing game warden, Ron Arsenault bounced around a bit. He served in the Navy for eight years, got deployed to Iraq and when he got out of the military he did some work as a landscaper then at the town dump. But like that bulky green fishing game issued coat he wears almost every day. Now, this job fits him in part because he is very chatty, good at explaining all the myriad hunting regs to people and in part because he really believes in those rules. I mean, he's even dinged his own family members for breaking the law, including his own son and his niece.

[Ron Arsenault]

She shot her first deer but it wasn't doe season and she shot a doe. She thought it was a buck, went right to the check station right in front of everybody and wrote her ticket. And everybody at that point was like, talking and spreading the word. And Ron will get anyone. Yeah, he's like, he wanted his own mother. So it's good because that goes around town. And then when the guy's like, gives you all the excuse, I'm like, I wrote my own kid for this. They're like, oh, there's no way I'm getting out of there.

[Nate Hedge]

Riding around with him, I could see how easily the idea of Ron being a bit of a hard ass could get around town. He's kind of like a small town sheriff. Everyone we saw knew his name or seemed to recognize his truck. It helps that he grew up here, a part of New Hampshire known as the lakes region.

[Ron Arsenault]

Down the road there, I played little league in the ball field. And this is where I took my hunter Ed when I was a kid. Like, that's what I mean. Like, yeah, I'm invested, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Nate Hedge]

This is like deep, deep ties. The lakes region is a maze of tight, winding roads. Quaint little New England towns. Yes, Big lakes and also dense leafy woods. It's the kind of place where if you see a deer crossing sign, you're like, what's the point? Because there are deer everywhere, which makes it a hunter's haven. It's the kind of place where the town barber posted photos of everyone's deer on the wall of his shop. Ron remembers it well.

[Ron Arsenault]

When I was a kid, you know, I'd go there and they'd, you know, we'd see yellow bucks on the wall, like thousand pictures probably on the wall.

[Nate Hedge]

It was a kind of locals only trophy room. A place to brag about the deer they hunted. And many of the photos on that wall, Ron told me, were taken by a local family named the Kellys.

[Ron Arsenault]

You know, the Kelly family was a well known name, you know, around town for killing big bucks.

[Nate Hedge]

Back in the day, the older Kellys would show off their big bucks at the barbershop. But nowadays the next generation shows off their kills on TikTok.

[Ron Arsenault]

I just smoked an absolute stud in Illinois.

[Nate Hedge]

Tom Kelly has more than 20,000 followers on TikTok. He mostly posts videos of himself hunting.

[Ron Arsenault]

Sat here as long as I could, and he came walking up through and I smoked him with the old.308.

[Nate Hedge]

And in these videos, you can see Tom is a young guy. He's in his early 30s, shaved head, decked out in expensive camouflage he's pretty fit, lost a ton of weight on the keto diet, and he looks like an extra in some war movie like Black Hawk Down. In one video, he's trembling with excitement after he kills a deer in New Hampshire.

[Ron Arsenault]

Just killed a big buck. I can't even talk. There's blood everywhere. I absolutely smoked him.

[Nate Hedge]

In another one. Tom uses that AI generated TikTok voice to call himself the alpha in these woods before shooting a coyote predatorcontrol nighthunter. I am the alpha in these woods. Now. I want to be clear. Most hunters follow all the regulations out there. They care about safety and making sure there are still animals to hunt for generations to come. But Tom Kelly, he was developing a reputation as a guy who sometimes broke the rules to get his trophies. These rules were inspired by a hunting code of ethics. It's known as fairchase in the United States. This code dates back more than 130 years, to when Teddy Roosevelt, before he was president, got together with a group of his hunting buddies. They wanted to stop the mindless killing that almost wiped out entire species. Here, the idea was to level the playing field, to give animals more of an edge at surviving. It's why there are now regulations about, say, using a truck to chase down a deer or killing a bear at night or throwing some seed down to attract ducks. The consensus is it's not fair. But in practice, these laws can also be really confusing. And I know this because I am a hunter myself. There are different licenses you need to get, restrictions on what firearms you can use, where you can hunt animals, what time of day, which season. And these rules, they can change year to year and differ state to state. Like an animal that might be protected in New Hampshire could be fair game in neighboring Massachusetts. But it's a hunter's job to know these rules. And Tom Kelly, the guy who loved to smoke bucks for TikTok, he'd been caught cheating. For instance, Tom got in trouble in Maine for something called baiting. This is where you put out food to lure an animal into a certain spot and then you shoot it.

[Ron Arsenault]

I hate baiting.

[Nate Hedge]

Why do you hate it?

[Ron Arsenault]

Let me just say that. Why do you hate it? Because it's cheating. In my book, anybody can throw a pile of grain in the woods and shoot a deer.

[Nate Hedge]

In 2020, Tom was charged with baiting and shooting a deer on some property his family owned in Maine, a state where you are not allowed to bait deer during the hunting season. Those charges were ultimately dropped. But then he was charged again in Maine, this time for illegally Hunting a black bear over a bait site. Those charges stuck, and Tom lost his hunting privileges for a year. Point is, Tom was on Ron's radar as a person to watch when he got a call from a local police chief. It was a cold December night in 2022, and the chief said he was driving near Tom Kelly's house when he noticed something odd. So the chief calls Ron and he.

[Ron Arsenault]

Says, we were heading to a call and four or five deer just crossed right by his house. And I'm like, oh, I bet he's got a bait right there. I'll check it out tomorrow morning.

[Nate Hedge]

So the next morning, Ron swung by Tom Kelly's property. It's a little two bedroom house on six acres of land. A big yard surrounded by dense forest.

[Ron Arsenault]

When I pull off the side of the road, there's like, it looks like a cattle path that is going into the woods. I followed the path. It was only probably 150ft maybe. And I got to the edge of the yard, took out my binoculars and looked, and I could see the pile of grain with a big bale of hay in front of it. So it was very clear that it was bait.

[Nate Hedge]

Deer love to eat grain. And according to New Hampshire's baiting laws, Tom had left them an illegal feast. But then Ron noticed something else. A motion sensor camera aimed at the bait site. Ron suspected Tom Kelly could be using this camera to alert him whenever an animal came by the bait site so he could grab his rifle. And this potential shortcut for bagging game could also be evidence for Ron. So a couple days later, Ron comes back with a search warrant. He seizes Tom's camera and starts digging through the SD card. And sure enough, Ron found evidence confirming his suspicions. A picture of a deer at the bait site that Tom later killed.

[Ron Arsenault]

Like the night before he killed it, it was there at the bait eating. So I'm like, well, he shot that deer and he used that bait to lure in the deer. So that's the aid and use of taking a deer over an illegal bait. So I'm like, well, I have a charge right there, but I want to go more because I want the phone.

[Nate Hedge]

Considering his history, Ron suspected that Tom had illegally killed more than just one deer.

[Ron Arsenault]

So if he's killing a deer illegally, he's gonna tell his buddy and he's gonna say, hey, buddy, come meet me, cause I shot this, blah, blah, blah. And you're gonna have all this information on this phone.

[Nate Hedge]

So a few days before Christmas, Ron goes to Tom's house, knocks on the Door shows him another search warrant and seizes Tom's phone.

[Ron Arsenault]

There's just so much data in that phone. It was like 1.6 terabytes of data.

[Nate Hedge]

Wow. So these are photos.

[Ron Arsenault]

There's photos, there's text messages, there's videos, there's instant messages.

[Nate Hedge]

Now, Ron, he is old school, not very good with technology.

[Ron Arsenault]

You know, give me a chainsaw, give me the wood, I'll cut the firewood, I'll split the firewood, you know, I'll drag the deer out, whatever. But you start getting into this technical stuff, and it's like sims and mims and texts and, you know, I had no idea, like, what the heck is this?

[Nate Hedge]

But the thing about Ron is that he is obsessive. He's like a bird dog that once it catches a scent, he cannot break away. So we found younger colleagues to help explain how to comb through a phone's data. And then every night, Ron would spend hours on this old, heavy laptop, searching through Tom's text messages using keywords like deer bait, night hunting.

[Ron Arsenault]

My wife would be. She's sitting there doing her games on her computer. And so you still working on that? I'm like, yep, still working on it. Like, this is what we got to do. We got to. Got to get it, you know?

[Nate Hedge]

And as he started sifting through all these texts and images looking for evidence of more illegal kills, Ron found what he was looking for. He also discovered something that he did not expect. Something much bigger. That's next after the break.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Ron Arsenault]

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[Nate Hedge]

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[Commercial Narrator]

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[Nate Hedge]

Sort of. My cousin Freddie showed up to surprise us.

[Commercial Narrator]

Oh, sounds like a real nice surprise.

[Ron Arsenault]

Exactly.

[Nate Hedge]

So now I have to get him a gift. But I haven't gotten my bonus yet, so. So if we could make it something really nice but also not break the bank, that'd be perfect.

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[Nate Hedge]

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[Ron Arsenault]

The poachers are the the most egregious violators in our world.

[Nate Hedge]

And as Ron was digging through hunter Tom Kelly's phone, he found something that made him think poacher.

[Ron Arsenault]

Here's a video of Kelly. This is the bobcat. Let's play it.

[Nate Hedge]

In this video, I could see a pair of red crosshairs trained on a bobcat. Its eyes are glowing because the camera is in night vision. And it's attached to Tom Kelly's rifle. The bobcat keels over dead. Bobcats are a protected species in New Hampshire. During the 20th century, they were hunted almost to extinction in New England. And I should say that it's also illegal to hunt most species at night for safety reasons. Ron thinks Tom lured this bobcat into his backyard using meat scraps from deer. He shot it and then he sent the video to a group of friends. But that wasn't all. What Ron found next really Got his attention. Tom's friends were sending back their own videos of themselves killing bobcats too. Ron sat me down in front of his work laptop to show me some of those kills.

[Ron Arsenault]

There it is. That's bobcat. Bobcat. None of the bobcat. Bobcat.

[Nate Hedge]

This group seemed to consist of at least five guys, including Tom, Kelly, and Iran. The evidence from Tom's phone showed all of them looked like poachers with a capital picture. Not only because they were violating state law by killing a protected species, it seemed they were also violating federal law. Ron says he saw evidence of Tom and the others taking their dead bobcats across state lines. Then they would register or tag them in states where it's okay to hunt bobcats, making their illegal kills look legit. And this appears to be a violation of a federal law called the Lacey Act. It was written by a Republican congressman from Iowa, John Lacey, back in 1900. Because at the time we were raining hellfire on America's birds. Commercial hunters were killing them by the millions to sell as food and to literally put a feather in women's caps. While some states allowed this, others didn't. So in order to get around these state laws, these commercial hunters would launder their birds, pretending that they killed them in states that allowed this kind of hunting, when in reality, they killed them in states that didn't. The Lacey act put an end to that. So Ron called up his colleagues at the U.S. fish and Wildlife Service, and he told them about what he was seeing.

[Ron Arsenault]

Hey, we got some bobcats getting cranked in New Hampshire at night, and they're tagging me legally going across state lines.

[Nate Hedge]

The feds, Ron says, were intrigued. And this is the moment this bust became wide enough to earn its own name. Ron's wife was the one to coin it.

[Ron Arsenault]

We were sitting at the table one night, and I'm like, hey, we're gonna meet with the feds. We're gonna make this an operation. We gotta think of something. She was like, operation Nightcat. I'm like, that's perfect. I'm, like, hired.

[Nate Hedge]

In his nearly two decades on the job, Ron had never stumbled onto a case this big. He was so jacked.

[Ron Arsenault]

And it all started with four or five deer walking across the road. Because if you look at it all the way to the beginning, it was like, why the deer cross the road? Kill a bobcat? It's like. It's crazy.

[Nate Hedge]

Before sunrise on January 12, 2023, a month after those deer crossed the road in front of Tom Kelly's property, Ron and his buddies in Law enforcement executed a search warrant on Tom's house. Inside, the officers find a taxidermied Bobcat, rifles with night vision scopes and mounted cameras and the bait site in his backyard. They also find what looked like a sniper's nest on Tom's back deck, made so animals can't see him getting ready to shoot. Ron showed me pictures of it.

[Ron Arsenault]

This is where his. He's shooting from up here. See how he has the plywood around the railing? So it's like a blind. Yeah. So he had tripod up here with his.22 with a night scope. And this is the bait puddle, like right here I'm standing at. And he would just get a. He had a motion sensor there. It would go off, and he would.

[Nate Hedge]

Shoot right out of his.

[Ron Arsenault]

Right out of his porch. He'd just open the slider and come out and pew.

[Nate Hedge]

As Ron is searching Tom Kelly's house, his colleagues at New Hampshire Fish and Game, along with local police and federal agents, arrive at the houses of the other guys in the poaching group. One of them is a man named Randy Inman. Randy apparently got tipped off that law enforcement were gonna search his house.

[Ron Arsenault]

Randy, I think, calls in sick. He's at work. He says he's sick and comes screaming home.

[Nate Hedge]

This is conservation officer Sergeant Kevin Bronson.

[Ron Arsenault]

Honestly, at the beginning, when I got the information from Ron that he'd been shooting some cats, my hackles were still not really up. And I thought it would be like, okay, so we've got a cat somewhere and a red fox. And it wasn't. It was way more than that.

[Nate Hedge]

They uncovered evidence that Randy had illegally killed at least 20 animals there at night. Foxes, bobcats, coyotes.

[Ron Arsenault]

It's like they're playing grand Theft auto behind their house, except with animals.

[Nate Hedge]

Randy was shooting so much that his girlfriend at the time later told investigators she couldn't sleep. It was like Tom and Randy were in some sort of competition. Who could get the most kills. To show me, Ron scrolled through examples of photos and videos on his computer.

[Ron Arsenault]

Gray fox, bobcat, gray fox, bobcat, red fox, red fox, gray fox, gray fox, red fox, coyote, bobcat, coyote, crow, bobcat, red fox. They kill everything.

[Nate Hedge]

They would shoot these animals using a night scope, record it, and then share the videos with the group.

[Ron Arsenault]

And they could talk to each other, like, hey, nice shot. They communicate with their phones. Like, they all get the message. They all get to watch it. Like, they. They would get a message sent to their phone, and they could watch the video and then be like, hey, nice shot. Oh, you shot that one in the eye, you know, whatever.

[Nate Hedge]

With all this evidence, Fishing Game felt confident they could charge these guys for poaching related crimes. They allegedly killed dozens of animals illegally. And yet some of the most concerning stuff they found wasn't a violation of legal code. They were violations of moral codes. The stuff that goes beyond fair chase and into cruelty. And so what is this video?

[Ron Arsenault]

So this is the deer video.

[Nate Hedge]

Ron wanted to show me a particular video that disturbed him. So me and my producer Loren Chulgin met him at a little cabin next to a lake to watch it. I had seen the first part of this video before on Tom's TikTok. It's from one of his scope mounted cameras. This time it's daylight in a forest and Tom shoots a deer.

[Ron Arsenault]

And then he cut it about here. But it gets worse. I mean, it looks like the front two legs are broken and it's plowing and jumping and just. I don't know why he wouldn't shoot it again.

[Commercial Narrator]

It looks like a fish that's like.

[Nate Hedge]

Flapping when you pull it in the boat.

[Ron Arsenault]

This is like my one insight into your world is that like the fish is like pissed at you. This is the beginning. Somebody else would be shooting at this animal. Well, it's, you know, clearly it's right there. He has the scope up to it. You should be shooting it again to put it out of its misery.

[Nate Hedge]

What Ron Lauren and I are watching here, a deer flailing around on its back legs. It is an ethical hunter's worst nightmare. Bad shots do happen, of course, but it's your job to kill an animal quick, quickly, and with as little pain as possible, especially when it's as close to you as this deer was to Tom. You can see that he's got a pretty clear shot too. Right through those two trees.

[Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Ron Arsenault]

It's wild to think that the camera.

[Nate Hedge]

Is on his gun. So he's, he's, his gun is pointed at the deer. Right.

[Ron Arsenault]

Because he wants to get everything on video so he can put it on, you know, whatever app that he has. No, he shoots at it again. So that was two minutes long before he shot again. But when it was laying there, not moving would probably been the best time to do it. Now it looks like he's chasing the deer.

[Nate Hedge]

Yeah.

[Ron Arsenault]

And there, there it is again.

[Nate Hedge]

That's a clean shot to the head. But Tom doesn't take it. Instead he watches. And he kept watching it through the scope for another couple of minutes before finally putting it out of its misery. And after the deer was dead. He said something.

[Ron Arsenault]

Stay down, asshole.

[Nate Hedge]

My producer, Lauren, looked up from the video, a little stunned, and turned to Ron.

[Ron Arsenault]

You ever called a deer an asshole?

[Nate Hedge]

No.

[Ron Arsenault]

He's not the one that put the bullet in him. Yeah, When you take it all together, you're like, oh man, these guys are really bad. Yeah, these guys should never hunt again.

[Nate Hedge]

The protected bobcats, the killing at night, the videos, the bragging. It all bothered Ron. Not just because Tom and the other guys appeared to be poachers breaking the law and they also seem to be having a good old time. Doing bothered Ron, because a lot of these guys knew better because they were law enforcement themselves. Former and current corrections officers at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men. And this is what really unnerved Ron.

[Ron Arsenault]

It just makes you wonder, like, is this happening somewhere else too? Like, if you're abusing animals like this, are you abusing humans?

[Nate Hedge]

Next time on Operation Nightcap.

[Ron Arsenault]

Hey, it's Jason again. Thanks for listening to the first episode of Operation Nightcat. To hear the next two episodes, open your favorite podcast app and subscribe to Operation Nightcat. Operation Nightcat is a special three part series from NHBR's document team and Outside In. This episode was reported and written by Nate Hedge with help from Lauren Chulden and me, Jason Moon. I also produced and mixed this episode and wrote the music. It was edited by Taylor Quimby and Katie Collinari with help from Rebecca Lavoy, Jackie Harris, Dan Barrick, Justine Paradis, Felix Poon and Marina Hanke. Special thanks to Rick White and Bill Chapman. Fact checking by Donya Suleiman. Taylor Quimby is the executive producer of Outside In. Rebecca Lavoy is director of On Demand at nhpr. Operation Nightcat is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.

[Nate Hedge]

If someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it? No. But there is something to be said about leaping into the unknown. That's what our podcast Outside in is all about. It's a safer way to explore all the weird, wonderful and uncomfortable questions you have about the natural world. Like, what's it like to decompose all.

[Ron Arsenault]

Of the germs and bacteria? Is saying, okay baby, we gotta get rid of this person or why the.

[Nate Hedge]

Hell do we have lawns? Who the hell needs five acres of ornamental grass?

[Ron Arsenault]

Grass?

[Nate Hedge]

I'm Nate Hedgey, host of Outside In, A podcast where curiosity and the natural world collide. Sometimes it's serious, sometimes it's ridiculous. But it's always a wild journey. That's Outside in from New Hampshire Public Radio.

[Commercial Narrator]

Welcome to Walgreens. Looking for a holiday gift?

[Nate Hedge]

Sort of. My cousin Freddie showed up to surprise us.

[Commercial Narrator]

Oh, Sur. Sounds like a real nice surprise.

[Ron Arsenault]

Exactly.

[Nate Hedge]

So now I have to get him a gift. But I haven't gotten my bonus yet. So if we can make it something really nice but also not break the bank, that'd be perfect.

[Commercial Narrator]

How about a Keurig for 50% off?

[Nate Hedge]

Bingo savings all season? The holiday road is long. We're with you all the way. Walgreens offer valid November 26 through December 27. Exclusions apply.

[Commercial Narrator]

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