Hunting Firm Owner Denies Taking Relics

As Channel Islands National Park officials continued their investigation Thursday into alleged desecration of Chumash burial sites, the owner of a Santa Cruz Island hunting company maintained his innocence and criticized a government raid on his business as excessive.

Jaret Owens, who has not been charged, said federal and state attempts to link him to the crimes are baseless and that neither he nor any of his employees ever collected human remains or artifacts from the numerous Chumash burial sites on the island.

However, Channel Islands park official Carol Spears confirmed Thursday that human remains and cultural relics were among materials seized when federal authorities raided Owens’ Island Adventures hunting facility Tuesday.

“They’re digging very hard to find something on me,” Owens said. “But that’s [desecrating Chumash graves] the last thing I’d ever do.”

Owens, whose home was searched Wednesday by investigators, admitted to collecting some small artifacts like arrowheads, but claimed those collections were legal because they were found on private land and were collected more than 10 years ago.

“As soon as the park service told us to stop, we did,” he said. “After that, I wouldn’t let my employees tie their shoes without being very careful.”

Despite those denials, however, Chumash representatives reacted angrily Thursday to the news that ancestral burial plots had been disturbed.

“It’s offensive, very offensive,” said A-Lul-Koy Lotah, a member of the Chumash Owl tribe. “This has always been a problem, and I’m happy they’re doing something about it.”

During Tuesday’s raid, federal agents arrested one Island Adventures employee on suspicion of destroying Indian graves and removing human remains. The other two were accused of misdemeanor violations of state fish and game regulations.

Federal agents raided the camp after a two-year investigation into allegations made by an area Chumash leader that Indian graves were being violated and relics removed by employees and patrons of the hunting camp. The allegations were substantiated by former employees of Island Adventures, officials said.

Company employees are suspected of desecrating the burial sites and guiding hunts and serving food without the proper permits.

Owens claimed that during the past year, federal agents posing as customers talked him into guiding them on wild pig hunts. Island Adventures is permitted to conduct sheep hunts, but it does not have state licensing to hunt pigs.

Owens said he was suspicious of the undercover agents. They claimed to be experienced, but knew very little about hunting and wanted to use handguns, he said.

Though no one was injured in the raid, Owens and his lawyer, Dave Lederer, criticized agents as being overzealous and using excessive force.

More than 20 federal agents armed with automatic weapons swooped into the camp on a Blackhawk helicopter Tuesday and arrested three employees of the hunting camp on charges of grave desecration and state fish and game violations.

Brian Krantz, 33, is suspected of felony destruction of a Chumash grave site, removal of human remains and misdemeanor offenses of guiding an illegal hunt and serving food without permits.

Rick Berg, 35, and Dave Mill, 34, both face misdemeanor charges relating to illegal guiding and distribution of food without permits. All three are free on bail and are scheduled for arraignment Feb. 10 in Santa Barbara.

“It [the raid] was inconceivable,” said Lederer, Owens’ lawyer. “We’ve been raised to look at the park service as friends, you know, like Smokey Bear, and it’s hard to understand why they would have used such force.”

Lederer said his client has been a fixture in the community for more than a decade and could have been asked by authorities to come in and answer questions about the allegations.

But Santa Barbara Deputy Dist. Atty. Darryl Perlin defended the actions of agents, saying that the force used in the raid was necessary.

“It’s just laughable they would try to characterize this as a return to Ruby Ridge,” Perlin said. “When you’re going to serve arrest warrants you don’t know what they’re [the suspects] going to do. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

Perlin added that the raid required 20 heavily armed agents because the island is open and needed to be secured so none of the suspects would escape or destroy evidence. Also, he said, the suspects were armed as hunters and, in order to make sure there were no injuries, a lightning raid was required. But the suspects have said they were unarmed during the raid.

Owens, meanwhile, accused the National Park Service of damaging burial sites.

He cited an incident several years ago during an erosion-control program, when the park service sliced into a mountainside with a backhoe and exposed a Chumash burial site.

When queried about the incident, however, Don Morris, the park’s resident archeologist, said the park service has never disturbed any Indian sites.

Perlin would not comment Thursday about whether Owens would be arrested, but said the district attorney’s office has a strong case against the other three men.

“What we’re really talking about isn’t just a crime against the citizens of California,” Perlin said. “It’s a crime against a people and their culture.”