Alaska lawmakers allow big-game trophy sales in divorce

Married couples have a lot of issues to deal with, generally their divorce attorneys are tasked with determining how to divide up their community assets. And in Alaska they may have trouble figuring out what to do with those stuffed big-game trophies donning their homes.

This is exactly what happened to an Anchorage attorney who ended up with a stuffed sheep head when she and her husband divorced. Mary Jane Sutliff told the Anchorage Daily News, “I inherited trophies from a divorce, I did not want them. I want to sell them.”

Selling big-game trophies is illegal in the state of Alaska, so one of divorcing spouses was stuck with them. Until last month, hunting trophies could only be sold if they were part of an estate sale, a bankruptcy, or a taxidermist was stuck with an unclaimed mount, but the Alaska Board of Game decided to include divorce as an exception to the long-standing rule.

In a divorce settlement, one of the spouses will end up with the house and all of the furnishings which include game mounts. This is an issue that neither the divorcing parties nor their Alaska divorce lawyer considered when dividing the assets until they got stuck with a moose head staring down at them in the den.

The Board of Game didn’t have a hard time approving the measure since few Alaska divorce lawyers and their clients have to deal with this issue.