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Diligence and Dedication Aid in Case with 18 Game and Fish Law Violations.

Georgia Department of Natural Resources

SOCIAL CIRCLE, Ga. --(Ammoland.com)- Catching poachers and other wildlife violators often involved lengthy criminal investigations and require diligence and dedication on behalf of conservation rangers. Cpl. Michael Crawley, representing Washington and Johnson counties, was named Investigative Ranger of the Year for demonstrating tenacity and excellence in his work, which included a complex case with more than 18 violations in 2011.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Resources Division names an Investigative Range of the Year annually.

“I commend Cpl. Crawley for his drive and continued efforts to apprehend violators who damaged our natural resources,” says Col.

Eddie Henderson, chief of law enforcement for Wildlife Resources Division. “His commitment to the investigative work required for this case, as well as continuing to do all other required tasks, shows great multi-tasking skills and dedication.”

Cpl. Crawley’s investigation involved a poaching case in Washington County. The case began with a complaint about trespassing on private property. Assisting Cpl. Crawley was Storm, a canine who helped in the detection of evidence, including an injured deer and tire tracks. Over the next few weeks, Crawley gathered information on the suspected violator, and in January 2011, served the suspect with an arrest warrant.

The poacher was charged with 18 total violations including:

• possession of illegally taken wildlife
• taking game above the bag limit
• violation of a crop damage permit
• additional charges from other agencies.

He was fined $2,500 and loss of hunting privileges for two years.

Other WRD conservation rangers nominated for the award for their outstanding investigative work: Sgt. John VanLandingham, RFC Josh Chambers, Cpl. Lynn Stanford, RFC Tim Hutto and Cpl. Phillip Scott.

The Georgia Chapter of the Safari Club International sponsors this award. For more information about that organization, visit www.gasci.org . For more information about Wildlife Resources Division Law Enforcement, visit http://georgiawildlife.com/enforcement/law-enforcement-section .

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By Gary Marbut, president
Montana Shooting Sports Association

Retired FWP employees, freed from the institutional FWP muzzle, tell that FWP-tolerated wolves are turning the Montana landscape into a biological desert...

Montana Shooting Sports Association

Missoula, MT --(Ammoland.com)- The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is reported to be running out of money because of decreased hunting license purchases, and is considering asking the Legislature for license fee increases.

This is the first obvious symptom of something known as agency “death spiral” for FWP.

Over the past two decades, FWP has come to focus on wildlife and biology, when it should have been focused on fish and game.

This includes FWP’s shocking tolerance and support for large predators. FWP’s total, willing, even eager cooperation with fostering excessive populations of large predator has long been predicted to end in a financial crash for the agency, as word unavoidably spreads that there is no game left to hunt so there is no reason to buy a license.

For too long, FWP leaders have leaned on the scales of public policy by making excuses for the devastation wrought upon game herds by large predators, by fudging game counts and census numbers, and by blaming any game population declines that could not be covered up on climate change, sunspots, lazy hunters, or aliens – anything but the truth.

This coverup culture has been fostered by senior staff, always near retirement, who knew they’d be long gone from the hot seat when the FWP financial bus blundered off a cliff.

If the overall FWP attitude had not been so Hell-bent on “ecosystem management,” “biological diversity,” “natural balance” and other similar catchy but terminal “green” ideas destined to end hunting, FWP managers would have predicted the current agency financial crisis years ago. Nobody at FWP noticed or cared several years ago when the editor of the NRA’s nationwide American Hunter magazine published a feature article about his fruitless elk hunting trip to southwest Montana, a trip where the only tracks he saw were wolf tracks. Nobody at FWP noticed or cared about the other hundreds of warnings from Montana citizens.

Worse, those warnings were even ridiculed by FWP in mad pursuit of its own elite agenda.

The stock mantra from FWP managers has been: We’re the professionals. We know best. The outcome that concerned citizens predict will never come to pass. The “evidence” of crashing game herds citizens offer is just “campfire stories” and is without merit because it doesn’t come from paid FWP “professionals.”

Yet when retired FWP employees, freed from the institutional FWP muzzle, tell that FWP-tolerated wolves are turning the Montana landscape into a “biological desert,” FWP dismisses such comments summarily.

For the last two decades, FWP has been busy digging a hole for itself. As it sees daylight disappearing around the edges of the hole, it still won’t quit digging.

Of course, the obvious solution for the bureaucratic-bound and reality-disconnected FWP will be to announce,

“We’ve been managing wildlife for the general public (including the non-Montana public) for years. Now we need the general public to pay the bills.”

FWP has so fouled its nest by wasting the Montana hunting resource on predators and inadvisably removing hunters from the economic equation that it will now go to the Legislature asking for relief, including increased fees that hunters simply won’t pay to access a vanishing resource, and, ultimately, asking for tax increases on the general taxpayer seeking a bailout from the results of its bad decisions.

You can bet that when FWP approaches the Legislature demanding an allowance increase as a reward for having flunked Econ 101, MSSA and thousands of Montana hunters will be there to say “Absolutely no way.” FWP has not only ignored the many warnings from Montana hunters, it has mocked and disrespected them. Also ignoring a state law requiring it to control large predators to protect game herds, FWP has bulled its way down a path surrounded with warning signs.

What FWP needs is not more or alternate sources of money, but a total change in attitude and culture. Until that happens, let FWP starve! It is not serving Montana.

About Montana Shooting Sports Association:
MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. Visit: www.mtssa.org

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