Extreme Huntress enters into agreement

SANDPOINT - A Bonner County woman who was crowned Extreme Huntress is entering into a pretrial diversion agreement to resolve hunting violations in North Dakota.

Amanda Rochelle Lowrey was charged with making misrepresentations on her application for a hunting license by stating she lived in North Dakota for at least six months. She was also charged with possessing an illegally obtained buck mule deer.

The misdemeanor charges are from 2013, when Lowrey was competing for the huntress title on the NBC Sports program "Eye of the Hunter." She went on to win the accolade.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game asked the North Dakota Game and Fish Department to see if Lowrey was licensed to hunt there due to a Facebook post which included a photo of herself and a buck and remarks that she harvested the deer in North Dakota, according to court documents.

Geotagging data embedded in the digital image, which included latitude and longitude coordinates, indicated the photo was taken near Epping, N.D.

Investigators discovered that Lowrey had purchased a resident North Dakota hunting license. However, Lowrey had identified herself as a Sandpoint resident while competing for the huntress title.

Lowrey was confronted by officers from game departments in Idaho and North Dakota and she said was splitting her time between the two state because her husband was working in North Dakota. She initially claimed that the deer was actually harvested during Idaho's archery season and the photo was taken in her father's shop.

Lowrey, a probable cause affidavit states, later recanted that explanation and confessed that she had lied. She told investigators that she struck the deer with her truck in North Dakota.

Lowrey told North Dakota Game Warden Brian Updike that she posted the photo to Facebook "to gain publicity for the 'Extreme Huntress' competition," court records indicate.

Despite the alleged confession, Lowrey pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor offenses, a plea she is allowed to maintain under the terms of the pretrial diversion agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, the charges against her will be dismissed if she commits no new similar offenses for a year. Her privilege to hunt in North Dakota will also be revoked during that time period, according to the agreement.

Lowrey accepted the terms of the agreement on May 1, Divide County court records indicate.