Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens are searching for poachers who killed eight deer in the Whitefish area during the first two weeks of August.

The investigation so far has led to a suspect being cited for a completely unrelated poaching case from several months ago in the Bigfork area, Warden Chris Crane said.

“We’ve chased down a few leads in this case and that led to this other one,” he said, referring to the poaching of a cow elk and two deer in the Bigfork area.

Crane said the same poachers are believed to have killed eight deer in the Farm to Market area west of Whitefish and in the Dillon Road area southeast of Whitefish.

“There are ties between them,” he said, adding that all of the killings were carried out after dark. “It’s possible they have night vision or spotlights.”

All of the deer were shot with a small-caliber rifle at different times during the first two weeks of August, and the perpetrators are believed to have been driving a light-colored car or truck.

“In other parts of the state we’ve had killings like this but not here lately,” Crane said. “They are just leaving the carcasses, but they’ve taken a couple of heads.”

Anyone with information related to the shootings is urged to call the game warden’s tip line at 1-800-847-6668.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.