Game and Fish touts successful year for catching violators

Wyoming Game and Gish has released its 2018 Law Enforcement Report, a document that highlights the operations and accomplishments of game wardens, wildlife investigators and other employees across the year in protecting this state’s wildlife resources.

“Game and Fish and our law enforcement partners invest significant manpower and resources protecting our exceptional wildlife resources and ensuring public safety,” said Scott Edberg, acting chief of the wildlife division, in a press release announcing the report’s release.

“We are proud of our dedicated employees and support from the public who contribute to our wildlife law enforcement efforts.”

The report delves into the achievements of game wardens in each of Wyoming’s regions. A total of 51 district game wardens watch over Wyoming wildlife across eight regions.

Within Crook County, the two active wardens are split between the Sheridan Region, represented by Moorcroft Game Warden JD Davis, and the Casper Region, represented by Sundance Game Warden Chris Teter.

Within the Casper Region, a total of 898 wildlife violations were documented in 2018, including 440 citations, 402 written warnings and 56 cases in which a suspect was never identified.

The report looks at decoy operations within the region and notes that, of the 15 decoys used last fall, nine were white-tailed deer decoys deployed by Teter. These operations were in response to the common complaints by landowners and hunters of deer hunting at night and shooting at deer from the road in this area.

Within the region, two citations and two warnings were issued during the fall as a result of decoy operations.

Sheridan Region wardens meanwhile documented 832 violations in 2018, including 355 citations, 389 warnings and 88 investigations in which a suspect was never identified or developed. The region has identified several areas of current concern, including take of big game out of season, for which there were eight violations; fishing without a license, which led to 30 violations; failure to properly tag big game, for which there were 45 violations; and ethics related violations.

This final category includes such issues as shooting from a public road, waste of big game and trespassing to hunt. A total of 20 instances were documented of hunters taking animals of the wrong sex, with dim-light conditions and shooting at long distances thought to have contributed to many of these violations.

Water-based violations were also common in regional bodies of water such as Keyhole Reservoir, including 39 for failing to provide life jackets, 20 for operating a watercraft at night without lights and 32 for failing to purchase an aquatic invasive species decal.

The report also acknowledges the assistance of the public in identifying and solving cases, particularly through tips to the Stop Poaching hotline. In 2018, 349 tips were received and the resulting investigations led to 47 citations and 15 warnings.

Defendants charged as a result of tips made to the Stop Poaching Program paid $10,730 in fines and restitution.

“Suffice it to say, many of the successful cases documented in this report would not be possible without help from the public,” said Edberg.

The report in full is available at wgfd.wyo.gov/law-enforcement.