EDMONTON – An Edmonton couple have each been fined $3,000 for riding their bicycles through a herd of big horn sheep on a highway in Banff National Park.

Ivan Dacko tells CTV Edmonton he will fight the fine because he doesn't think they did anything wrong.

It happened last June and Dacko says they didn't realize they were too close to the animals and says he didn't hear a park worker tell him to move away.

He says some sheep were sleeping on the highway and he woke them by riding nearby, then took photos of his wife passing through the herd.

However, he believes he caused less of a disturbance to the animals than any large vehicle nearby.

Prosecutor Anita Szabo says the pair were warned by a park worker on the scene but continued riding near the animals.

“(The worker) subsequently went and told them not to, they basically told her they were doing it for Facebook, and even after she asked them to stop doing it, they biked back and forth through the sheep,” Szabo says.

She notes that Dacko was the one who asked for the photos he took of the incident to be entered as evidence, calling that "unusual."

(CTV Edmonton)