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Show 7B toll free line for reporting any wildlife violations. leading to the arrest and conviction of poachers. In the future, it plans to have a Poaching Rampant his district against poachers. With varied responsibilities for wildlife, a conservation officer is able to spend only about 20 of his time in law enforcement patrol. The Division is short of officers, and some districts have been left completely unattended. In the Northeastern Region, officers were able to arrest more deer poachers last year only by working many long night hours, according to Clair Davis, regional law enforcement officer. Clark Warren, law enforcement officer in the Southeastern Region, say officers often get reports of deer hangingvin camps. By the time they arrive, the deer are gone. - Poachers are killing and wasting thousands of big game animal each year in Utah. Poaching is a serious year-round threat to all Utah's wildlife; the mule deer is the hardest hit. With the recent heavy snow, Division officers expect ex-pect deer poaching to increase, in-crease, because the deer are being pushed down into areas more accessible to people. In at least one neighboring state, studies have indicated deer poaching exceeds the annual legal harvest. Jim Ware, Division law enforcement chief, does not know if this is the case in Utah. However, it is estimated Utah may lose up to 40,000 deer to poachers each year number of people involved in the incident. Poaching may be reported to any law enforcement agency. Timing is also important. "If the incident is six weeks old, it is difficult to make a case," says Delbert Atkinson, Atkin-son, regional law enforcement enforce-ment officer for the Central Region. In the Southern Region, Law Enforcement Officer Dall Winn is plotting, on a map, areas of most serious poaching. There is "big money" in commercial poaching, says Bob Elswood, law enforcement enforce-ment specialist. Poaching rings slaughter large numbers num-bers of deer in Utah. Commercial poachers are not selective. They will take pregnant does and fawns. Many times they will not even dress out a deer, but will simply cut off the loins and hindquarters and leave 'the rest to spoil. Since deer poaching is only a misdemeanor, com- mercial poachers say they make enough in a week or ten days of poaching to pay , v. v' for the fine. Taking - a domestic animal is a felony;' Elswood believed .de'er . poaching should be made a felony' also."', 1 ' -The Division has a reward program for information Two years ago, the Northern North-ern Region initiated a campaign cam-paign to encourage the. public to report wildlife violations. Today, 80 to 85w percent of the arrests made for poaching in the Northern t Region come; from the public notifying the Division, According to Paul Woodbury, Wood-bury, regional law enforcement enforce-ment officer He encourages persons to report all informa-' tion, particularly license plate numbers, and the "Sportsmen should be alarmed about this problem, and should be concerned enough t6 report incidences of poaching or any evidence, of illegal? wildlife activity," says Ware. : ; The public's cooperation is absolutely essential in helping help-ing to Reduce poaching activities in Utah. It is impossible for a conservation officer toj adequately patrol |