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Show WILDLIFE REPORT By Jon Leatham VrM "7 A El ' Conservation Officer i One of the primary responsibilities re-sponsibilities of the Division Di-vision of Wildlife Resources Re-sources Code was signed into law in 1971, all Conservation Con-servation Officers were given peace officer status. sta-tus. This means that CO's are sworn and authorized to uphold not only wildlife wild-life laws, but all laws in . the state. This increased responsibility, coupled with mounting public de- mands on the wildlife re-! re-! sources, has greatly ex-j ex-j panded the scope of the I conservation officers job. Division enforcement personnel, as peace offi-i offi-i cers, are now required I to complete eight weeks of j intensive basic training at ! the Utah Law Enforce-j Enforce-j ment Academy. In addi-I addi-I tion, a minimum of forty hours per year of in-ser-I vice training is required. These classes are sponsored spon-sored by the Police Off- icers Standards and Division, and cover a var-i var-i iety of law enforcement j subjects. There are currently 57 district conservation off-3 off-3 icers throughout Utah, j These CO's are respon-sible, respon-sible, not only for law en-j en-j forcement activities in their districts, but game I and fisheries investiga-5 investiga-5 tions as well. CO's also h attempt to carry on effec-j effec-j tive information and ed- ucation programs as well j as promote hunter safe-H safe-H ty. i The Moab CO district , . includes essentially all of '3 Grand County and part 3 of San Juan County; ap-l ap-l proximately 3,500 square il miles (2.2 million acres). Consequently it is very difficult for one officer to J be everywhere in the dis-i dis-i trict at once. That is why 1 we encourage public sup-; sup-; port in reporting viola - tions of the law to the ' nearest officer. ! As with any large group j of Americans, there are li ll H ll ll ll li ' ' among hunters, a minority minor-ity who fail to abide by the laws and rules of sportsmanship. These people, when their activities activ-ities are not checked by effective law enforcement and the disapproval of the public, especially the sportsman, can have undesirable un-desirable impacts on local lo-cal wildlife populations and create unfavorable reactions to hunting and hunters. Although the law enforcement en-forcement program is e-ssential e-ssential to the protection and management of wildlife, wild-life, inflation is limiting the program. Limited budgets have resulted in the establishment establish-ment of a policy which limits the number of miles a conservation officer off-icer mav drive his ve hicle. Large districts are affected most by such limitations. The price of gasoline is the main reason rea-son for such a policy. While the numbers of officers for the division has remained about the same since 1964, the number num-ber of hunting and fishing licenses sold have almost double. In 1964 there were 54 Conservation Officers and 338,861 license holders; hold-ers; a ratio of 6,275 license li-cense buyers per officer. Nine years later, in 1973, there were 523,203 license li-cense holders (54 increase) in-crease) and only 57 officers; off-icers; 7,800 hunter-fishermen per conservation officer. It appears that Utah needs additional personnel to cope with the increase in hunting and fishing pressures. Without additional revenue re-venue to combat the problem, prob-lem, law enforcement will suffer. At a time when protection of our wildlife resources is so important, import-ant, any reduction in this area would be unfortunate for the sportsmen and for the wildlife. |