Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Landowner's front door with a 35.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Whaling baiting is highly illegal, and so many people think they get away with it.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: But we're watching two in the game lands in the middle of nowhere. He thought maybe there was a dead body or something in there.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to Call of the Outdoors, the Pennsylvania Game Commission's podcast. You know, when you look at the Pennsylvania Game Commission's mission to manage and protect wildlife in their habitats while promoting hunting and trapping for current and future generations, it's purely the definition of conservation. We're all conservationists, and today we're going to talk about the law side of things, and specifically ogt, Operation Game Thief, where, you know, we can, you can call in. It can be anonymous. If you see something wrong, you got to say something. And, you know, tips lead to a lot of things as you, you know, in the news. Just a month or so ago, a big case down in Chester county where dozens of bucks were being illegally harvested. And if you look on the wall behind me, this Adams county buck that is one inch shy of a state record was brought to us by a tip and illegally harvested. As conservationists, as a sportsman, it's important to say something when you see something. And the two gentlemen today that are going to join us are going to talk a lot about OGT and a lot about how things work here on the law enforcement side at the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Thanks for tuning in. And after today's episode, if you want to give us a call on the OGT hotline or Operation Game Thief, the phone number to call is 888-PGC8001.
For Pennsylvania hunters and conservationists, our roots run deep. The episodes we bring to you on the Pennsylvania Game Commission's podcast, Call of the Outdoors will take a deep dive into exposing the incredible work being done by agency staff and partners, including statewide habitat projects, science behind wildlife management, and what drives agency decisions. The Pennsylvania Game Commission's mission is twofold. To manage and protect wildlife and their habitats for not only current, but future generations, and to promote hunting and trapping in the Keystone State.
Seth and Jason, thank you so much for showing up today, and I'm excited about this podcast. But before we even get started, I'd like you all to kind of introduce yourself and where you came from and where you're at today here with the Game Commission.
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Sure. My name is Seth Mazouris. I'm a wildlife conservation state game warden now and shows how long I've been around. I've been with the agency for 18 years. I'm a regional director in the South Central region right now. I spent 17 years of my career in the Southwest and 14 years of that in the field as a. As a state game warden.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Again, thank you as well, Jason Raup, assistant counsel for the Pennsylvania Game Commission. And as you can tell, I also work as a deputy game warden for the Commonwealth and been with the agency for just a little bit longer, about 20 years for myself, and held both roles for just about that same time.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Well, thank you, gentlemen. And, you know, we got a very important topic, and it's going to go all over the place today. And so many times when something comes out there or we see it on social media and, you know, we just had a really large case in Chester county that we just hit the airwaves and there were so many questions on how we protect wildlife and how the system works. And no better, no two better folks than you to come help our folks understand and also try to get some cooperation out there. If you see something, say something, because as outdoorsmen, as hunters, it is so important that, you know, wildlife can protect itself. And that's why we're here. And, and just pick up the phone. We have many opportunities, many ways to get ahold of us, and poachers are thieves is the bottom line. But if you would, Jason, let's talk about that Chester county case. It's brand new, and there's lots of charges and there's lots of information out there, but kind of go through it and how things are working, how it's progressing, if you would.
[00:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah. So the case actually originated in the southeast of Pennsylvania, as you noted, Chester County.
To the best of my understanding, it started with a tip from the public wherein we received information relative to an individual's harvest of two deer that were both antlered. And as you're aware, you can only harvest one antler deer per person per annual year.
And that offended this tipster to a degree that resulted in them providing us with information.
And as you're aware, that's just the beginning for us. You know, we'll go through a full informal investigation into the process, which in this case included some search warrants and other investigative activities that ultimately resulted in uncovering dozens of deer that were of interest to us. This did result in a whole slew of charges, many of which are very serious, and have both high fines and incarceration as a possibility. But that's just an example of, you know, the type of involvement that, you know, the public initiates our attention to something that we would not have otherwise. Known of that case right now is still pretrial.
And for the listeners, if you weren't aware, the legal process relating to criminal charges that are at that misdemeanor and higher level involves a couple steps through the courts. It's not a fast process, and we don't really drive or control it.
And in that case, we are awaiting the preliminary hearing, which will be kind of a preliminary review of the facts of the case to some substantiate whether or not these charges can move forward to the county court, where it'll get its full review before the trial judge.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: And, you know, a lot of, you know, you read the comments and you look at people like, why did it take so long? Why did it take two years? You know, talk about what goes into a case of this magnitude, too, is, you know, why it did take two years till we could file the charges.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: You know, there's an incredible amount of complexity to a case like this when you're talking multiple deer, multiple nights. And it kind of depends a little bit, too on the information that was first provided. The detail of the tip is huge. It could have come in as, you know, Johnny shot two deer. Well, then you got to find out who Johnny is and do some legwork. And that takes a lot of time to build a case. You can't just go searching through everyone's house and what people think. You still got to follow the constitutional law. So putting together a solid case. And then it never fails. The more you start digging and opening things up, the more you find out, and then that leads to this day, and that adds onto this day. And the complexity, especially of a case like this, takes a long time and in depth. And the process, like I said, isn't when you're talking multiple search warrants, you're writing stuff up, and you want to make sure everything's in order before you do it. So it's not a short like, I just caught him, watched you shoot this deer. You have to build the case. So it can take several years at least.
[00:07:00] Speaker B: Sure. And from our side, we want to make sure that we have everything dialed up and get everything we can. Absolutely.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Well, and certainly when we get before the court, we can't afford for our cases not to be buttoned up and put together.
Just as was discussed here. The complexity of some of these cases, not including this Chester county case specifically, can involve all sorts of different investigative techniques. You've likely heard of many instances where we use DNA evidence, and DNA is one example of a type of evidence that takes months for us to get results back. So if we're conducting an investigation, we're trying to match an animal to a kill site or some other piece of evidence before we can charge. We're trying to tie all this evidence together and that just takes time. And again, we're not going to rush the process unnecessarily to put us ourselves at risk. You know, quite honestly, we understand and know that when we charge somebody with serious wildlife crime, it's a big deal. The implications are potentially high. Fines, incarceration, impacts to their reputation in the community. So, you know, we want to make sure that we know that the facts that we have available to us are good and solid before we put them before the courts.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: And the way law is, you're innocent until proven guilty.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Absolutely, 100%.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: A lot of times we all forget about that. You know, we see even, you know, human stuff you see on the news, like you want that person in jail for the rest of their life, whatever it is. But I mean, they still have their time in court.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: You know, just a little bit where that case is and you know, with a crystal ball. I know it's hard, but you know, where will it go and when will we find out about the results?
[00:08:43] Speaker A: So as I stated, we're pre trial right now. There's a couple different facts that drop how fast the pretrial process works, there can be delays, some initiated by the commonwealth, some initiated by the defense. But let's just say the process goes through in a fairly speedy process. It still will not be months until you would get a trial before the court of common pleas. And that's both driven by the court system's log of other cases that they have and sometimes because of the fact that our cases aren't really prioritized. And you know, that's kind of a deep rabbit hole to get into maybe. Right.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Wildlife doesn't always win.
[00:09:26] Speaker A: Right, Right. But that's something that we face sometimes is our cases aren't necessarily docketed ahead of other cases involving, you know, murder, burglary and other important matters that are occurring in our communities.
[00:09:38] Speaker C: And more often than not, I mean, these things also after they're in there, are going to take years. He said months. When you're talking getting in there, getting attorneys, the multiple charges, this could take over a year. And then you have continuances that come into play and getting schedules worked out and getting on the docket. And like I said, like you said, you're competing with charges. Sometimes the county courts look at it, you know, you have the drug charges, everything else that's going on in that county at this level that this case goes to, you're competing with that. So it's. It's a long process. You have pretrial hearings and sometimes motions to suppress evidence and everything else. And so before you even get there. So it could be, even if you have them wanting to plead guilty and to all the charges, that could even take quite some time, you know.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: Well, in the Clearfield county case involving an elk from a number of years ago, that took four years until it was all said and done, you know, moving through the courts, because it went all the way up through the appellate courts, was denied for Alicotta before the Supreme Court. But that's a. An example of, you know, when someone exercises their constitutional right to, you know, have these challenged all the way up through, it can take quite a bit of time. I know Covid played an impact on that one, so, you know, that needs to be recognized. But all the same, it's a lengthy process and is not always, you know, as expedient as we would want it to be because, you know, the work never stops. We've got a case on the back end that we're working. We've got new cases coming in on the front end, and, you know, juggling all that can be difficult from time to time.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: Did the elk win in that case?
[00:11:13] Speaker A: That one's a unique case with some unique issues. The underlying unlawful nature of the elk was sustained. The conviction held. There were some problems with the documentation of that case that removed the unlawful take provision from the convictions. But all told, it was otherwise still a successful case.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Awesome. So here's the bottom line, you know, and why we're here today. We need. We need our hunter's help. We need our constituents, our public's help out there, because we don't have eyes everywhere. And we get so many of.
We get so many tips to allow us to start looking at things and finding bad people and finding, you know, protecting wildlife. And that's, you know, really, Operation Game Thief is incredible. And I'm excited to say that we lead the country, and folks that are not scared to pick up the phone and let us know when they see something going on out there. And that's kind of what we want to talk about today, if you would. I mean, Jason, I know you're close. Just talk about Operation Game Thief a little bit at kind of a high level.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So Operation Game Thief is a process by which the agency collects information from the public on things that they are aware of occurring.
It is available in a variety of different formats. For example, there is a call line that you can call to have it submitted through the OGT process. There's also the ability to submit written electronic comments via email.
And it allows for the process to be done both through known meaning you provide all your information and then also anonymously. We will take any tip for that matter. We do prefer tips that come with a name that we can speak to a person, gather more information.
Because incomplete tips or if we can't follow up on it does from time to time make it a little bit more difficult to get to the heart of what's going on in that incident. But at the end of the day, our goal is certainly to receive as much information as what folks would be willing to provide to us. Back to the remaining anonymous. That does help us long term down in certain investigations if we don't have a person who we can name. It does limit some of our investigative techniques from time to time. So folks have to understand we have a job to do and we have certain restraints on how we do our job, including through the search warrant process that we have to arrive at that probable cause standard. And anonymous tips often don't get us there. So we're hamstrung if we only get basic information from folks who want to remain anonymous.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Sure. And Seth, if someone calls in, you know, you kind of, you have the process of what happens. Say I call in, you know, something that I see down the road from my house, you know, and tonight this.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Process has developed and it's a lot more efficient now with our Dispatch center running 247 and one of our chiefs, Chad Eyler, has put a lot of work into this, into developing ogt. But if they call in now or do the hotline, it's going to go directly to our central dispatch and, and someone's going to be watching that and see the tip come in and instantly be able to take that information and turn around and create an incident for an officer to investigate.
It's emailed out and it's almost instantaneous process if that officer's on duty or if it's something that's occurring right in the moment. They may even try to reach out to activate someone to call them on. But it's an instantaneous process.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: I actually seem to recall there was a case last fall where there was an OGT tip called in and the officer was on duty and was able to respond and got actually tied up with the persons responsible for those violations. I have to think about that one, to remember the facts of it. But you kind of reminded me of the speed of the process and how much that's improved.
[00:15:09] Speaker C: Way more efficient than it was, you know, where there was delays in the information, but now the efficiency of it getting out to specific law enforcement, if it's good information. I mean, everything starts with a tip. Everything starts with some information. And Jason and I were talking before probably over 80% of 80 to 85%, we were saying of our cases, Investigations start with an incident. We're not there by accident. We got some sort of tip somewhere, and there's not a game warden behind every tree.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: We like to joke about that kind of fact is we certainly like folks to think that we're hiding behind every tree in the woods and, you know, come walking out of the fog to detect all sorts of wildlife violations. But, you know, as we know, it's not true. We have one officer typically assigned to every 400 square miles. And, you know, folks don't realize how big of a coverage area that is.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: One square mile is 640 acres.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: It's enormous. And then, you know, we have a number of vacancies. So you have some officers covering other districts and other areas of other officers districts from time to time that it makes it difficult to be everywhere all at once. And, you know, when you get into the heavy seasons like we're involved in this past weekend, when you had three deer seasons and bear and pheasant and other species all kind of happen at the same time, it's just, again, it's a lot of territory to cover for one guy.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: And game wardens have a lot of tasks on them. You know, unfortunately, some, you know, some people look at the uniform and get intimidated or get scared, but y'all are hunters just like everybody else. You're out there for the same reason for conservation. We're all in this game together, and we're all trying to leave it better than we found it. I mean, that's the way I look at things. And you're out there doing your job and doing it well. And now that I work for the Game Commission, I feel like I can puff my chest out a little bit because I feel we have the best agency out there and our law enforcement is top notch.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: And exactly what you say is some of the same sentiment you get from the county district attorneys that you go to with the training that these guys receive. And. And we're known for that. We're known for the investigations that we put together. We're known that it's going to be buttoned up. Your search warrants are going to be written. Well, from some of the training that we get for, we're recognized for that and we take pride in that as officers. And it's something that, with our training school and the instruction they get, just builds on the reputation and guys work hard.
I take this to heart when I go out and do this, because it's part of. I grew up hunting. I love doing this and I respect that and I want to carry that forward. And it was taught to me, and I want to pass it down to other people, too.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Sure. And you look at the Ross Loeffler School of Conservation, and you look 44 weeks, I think.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: I think right now.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: 44, yeah.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: I mean, that's longer than most police forces in this commonwealth. And the training that you all get there is tremendous.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Well, and to Seth's point, the training, you know, I think the average police officer out on duty has various functions associated with their job, but oftentimes is focused. You know, I'll use state police, for example, find an institution, and they have the resources and the manpower in order to focus people's attention on certain tasks. So they have an investigative division, they have patrol, they have, you know, the evidence teams that come out and collect evidence in high profile cases.
We have a game warden who does all of it. And I think that's an important notion is they're both the interrogator, the interviewer, the evidence collection specialist, and the prosecutor in all of their own cases. So they've got it from the beginning of the initial investigation until the end when they're presenting oftentimes in court where they're wearing both the witness hat as well as the prosecutor's hat. And it's a lot of process to know and be good at. So, you know, I think through time and experience, a lot of our game wardens, you know, from their graduation point to, you know, when they're out into the field for a long time, get greater and more experience and become very effective and efficient.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Well, the other tasks, you know, in the community involvement, you know, in, you know, the I and E side of it and out there in the public and they're helping with wildlife management, you know, a lot of the research is done. Game warden has a lot of tasks out there. I mean, law enforcement is one part of their job and a very. A very. And probably the most important part of it. But a lot of folks don't realize, you know, when you put that uniform on, there's A lot more into it than you can even imagine on a daily basis. Absolutely.
[00:19:48] Speaker C: It's not like this in other states. And the fact that they live in these communities. Communities, and they build their reputation in these communities over that, that leads to some of these tips. That leads to some of these cases. The more integrated they get and the more people know them. You know, not every tip comes through OGT or through dispatch. Some tips, some of your best tips come through personal relationships or at the.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Gas station when you're filling your truck up. I get it, man. I get it. And it's great because, again, poachers are thieves and, you know, they're taking resources from us every day.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: I actually know of an officer where I live and hunt myself that is the recipient of a lot of tips himself, but more personally from the public, where they'll directly respond and provide them to him. And he got a reputation for being that kind of officer, that if he got information, people understood that he would take it seriously. And he put a lot of time on boot crawling across the steep mountains of the northeast pa. And he got a good reputation for getting convictions out of the information that folks gave. And just as Seth was pointing out, that reputation builds on itself. So we get more and better information from folks as a result of good officers putting through the effort and getting good results that the public can see.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Right. So another thing that came up just recently, and it's a common question, but on the Chester county cases, you know, why can't the Game Commission share more details about a certain case, especially at this level? Like, you know, we just filed the charges, so, you know, especially from your side of the building, you know, just some basic reasons why we. I mean, we're sharing all we can.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Right? So it's a complicated process. As we're aware, we both have the information that we collect, that is for court presentation purposes. And then on the other side of the coin, we have what would be considered for public consumption. We collect a lot of very detailed information through criminal investigations about folks, some of which is very personal, some of which we certainly would never be expected to produce, you know, to anyone from the public.
But a more overriding complication to it is what you pointed out earlier, which is everyone is presumed innocent.
And because of that premise that's at the core of our judicial system, you know, we will release certain information early on in an investigation as to investigative steps that we've taken. If we file charges, we can identify those persons, because again, a lot of that information is publicly consumable. Already through the court system. But to get into a lot of detail in the case, to provide pretrial publicity into the core details of the case that may be evidence, can actually cause problems for us, you know, both through an over publicization of the case in advance, where we're providing information that should not have been disclosed, but that also points out information that may not ever end up in a court because there are certain limitations. Some evidence is subject to exclusion, and we recognize that in our presentations. But the, you know, the general public doesn't understand that. So again, we're balancing a lot of our roles and responsibilities in this process of trying to get out information relating to our investigative and prosecutorial efforts without over publicizing a case in advance so as to give a criminal defendant their opportunity, their day in court, if you will. We'll provide a lot more information at the conclusion once we know what the result of the case were. But at least pre trial, it's really difficult for us to share too much.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Has there ever been a case where somebody was incarcerated, jail time in a wildlife crime?
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely.
[00:23:39] Speaker C: I've had one myself that, you know, the same people that were dealing with doing wildlife crimes are, you know, some convicted felons, some drug dealers, you know, you're dealing with a lot of. Some murderers, even you're dealing with a lot of these same people. And, and I can remember personally one that I dealt with, who shot a few deer at night, but was also up for investigation on thefts and some burglaries, and he was a convicted felon. So on my end of the case, on the deer end of the case, they sentenced him to the state, time for jail. I mean, they sentenced him some incarceration. That was early on when this was even first a possibility. But there's been numerous cases, as far as I'm aware of.
[00:24:21] Speaker A: I think one of the biggest and first act 54 cases that occurred in Pennsylvania hit that very point that you made, which is that our wildlife criminals are just criminals through and through.
It involved a case where we had a working relationship with another state, with an undercover unit, and we had information to understand that we had some folks coming down to Pennsylvania from that state and they were going to be doing some illegal hunting. And so we had situated and made some arrangements that we had an officer embedded with these folks when they arrived that resulted in, I believe it was nine defendants and dozens upon dozens of charges. And only a quarter of those charges were wildlife crime, because from the moment they entered Pennsylvania, they were involved in burglaries thefts, vandalism, wildlife crime, drug crime, you name it. And that investigation just kind of scratched the surface into all of the different affairs that these folks were involved in. And you know, in the grand scheme of things, while we did get really good results out of that case, you know, those folks aren't done committing violations. You know, they get their due here in Pennsylvania for that case and they're back into their home state, in this case, Maine, and they're committing the same types of violations up there. Criminals, career criminals, career wildlife criminals. And, you know, we will often find that we're doing the same business with state police, local police, and jurisdictions outside of Pennsylvania with the same folks.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I can see that. But, you know, one of the other things we hear too, and just this is pretty common, we hear this a lot of time at shows too. It's just like I called the Game Commission, gave you a tip and you never acted on it. You know, sometimes, you know, let's talk about that. You know, a tip that might not result in charges or you don't hear anything about it. And you know, some of the circumstances that may lead to that, because everything that comes to us is taken very seriously, 100%. I mean, we listen, our ears are always out there. I just, you know, sometimes you just have to be a little patient, I would say. But I'll let you guys talk about that.
[00:26:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I can tell you as running a district for that long, the amount of information you get that comes through, there's a lot, you know, so it's not just you have one investigation going on or anything. Again, it goes back to the detail of the information that's provided. If it's solid, detail oriented stuff, I mean, it can really progress your investigation faster and you can move along like dates, times, pictures, persons, where the who, what, where, when, license plates, you know, you can really move with some of that. But if it's pretty vague information, you have a hunch that someone is doing this in this area, that takes a lot more. And so people say, oh, you never did anything about it. Well, we'll just take a simple one for baiting, for example, if someone's hunting over bait and you get a call, and I may work into that tree stand 50 times over the course of a hunting season, just happened to not catch that guy in that tree stand. It's not that I didn't do anything about it, I worked it, never caught him there. Maybe the following year I'm gonna follow up on that again. That doesn't Go away. So that's the length of time that it goes. And sometimes just with so much that is there, you know, lengths of certain investigations, you know, it's just gonna take a little bit more time to piece it together.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Again, kind of adding to that point, some of the information provided by a known named person helps with the speed of that process. Again, anonymous informants. Again, if we can't ask that follow up question, it's going to be difficult for us to kind of get some additional traction to make that investigation move from time to time. And let's also return back to the premise. Sometimes there's actually not a crime, right? So folks may say, oh geez, you know, the Game Commission isn't doing anything about that tip. Maybe we investigated it and found out that the person was engaged in perfectly lawful behavior. I mean, I know I've been called to scenes where they're believing that people are out poaching at night and either one or two things are occurring. You have nighttime predator hunting, perfectly lawful. And number two, somebody's out there engaging in lawful crop kill for agricultural protection. And I've been on both of those calls where the initial, you know, tip was, we got folks out here poaching deer at night. And again, we take it all seriously. But when we get on scene and we can validate that the information was not accurate, you know, it doesn't result in charges.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: And if there's no way to get back to that person on an anonymous call, you can't call and give that explanation back and say X, Y and Z, you know, this is why they're not charged. You know, so some of that's why you hear that nothing ever happened in that scenario. And the other factors, you know, they shot six deer last year. This person, there's certain areas in the state you can, you can shoot six deer legally now and then hunt in the summer, you know, through ag tags. And there's a lot of programs out there. We're promoting the harvest of deer. And so it. That's a little bit different than when people were used to, you can only shoot one deer a year, or you.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Have an ex girlfriend that's mad at somebody turns into tip lines.
[00:29:33] Speaker C: Those are great cases.
[00:29:34] Speaker B: We love those tips.
[00:29:35] Speaker C: Some of those are the best tips.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: They're very honest in forthcoming.
[00:29:38] Speaker C: They're pretty detailed normally. So.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Well, another delay worth mentioning is you get into a really good case. I can think of a couple off the top of my head where the tip is in respect to one person. And when we get to investigating, we start seeing all these ties into many other individuals. It does tend to extend some investigations in order for us to be able to wrap up all of them together. Because much as you might imagine, as soon as we come in officially and start knocking on people's doors in uniform and going the formal investigative route, the gig's kind of up, especially now that the game warden's on the case.
So we do tend to try to keep some of our background, preliminary investigative processes ongoing and as wide as possible, so that as soon as we take it to that formal level, when everything tends to shut down, you know, we. We have as much as what we need to, you know, put the case forward.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: We talked about a lot of different things, and, you know, it's way broader than one podcast. But, you know, I want to go back to maybe some individual stories about maybe a tip you guys got that resulted into an investigation into a case. And I know both of you probably have a good example.
[00:30:56] Speaker C: I got.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: We're going to talk about after that. I want to talk about a good story about just crazy things that happened as a game warden, because I think people want to know. I mean, I'm sure there's groupies out there or something going on out there that we can tell a good story. But let's talk about a tip first.
[00:31:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I can tell you, for me, one of the best tips. We go back to those detailed tips. Conversation is ended. A long day of first day of rifle deer season is usually one of the longest days of a game warden's season. You know, it really hardly ends. And I finally get home at 7pm and. And at 8pm my phone rings about a person who was a mile back in the gamelands in the middle of nowhere and went to sit down on a brush pile, and he sat down on a tarp that was camouflaged tarp that was covered up with leaves and everything else. And he was afraid to open the tarp because, you know, you don't know what you're gonna run into in the game winds in the middle of nowhere. He thought maybe there was a dead body or something in there, but he opened it and found a bear. And bear season wasn't in yet, so someone had obviously harvested it that morning. And bear season didn't come in until later in the week. And instead of turning it in, they covered it up and covered it up with leaves. And he took detailed GPS coordinates of where this was. I mean, this was a weird thing to stumble onto in the middle of nowhere.
And then we had to Go out that night. We went out that night in the dark at midnight and walked the whole way into that thing using a GPS handheld, Old time GPS to find it.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Old time gps.
[00:32:24] Speaker C: Old time gps. Because it accomplished it didn't really work. I mean this one was an old issued one, it didn't work that great. But when we got back in there, here we find this 300 pound bear and it's not even field dressed. And so now my mind's turning like what's going on here? Are they coming back for this? And I suspected that they were going to come back and try and take it to a check station. So we marked that animal inside the lip with a special tattoo so I could identify it, what was going on with it. And then we covered it all back up and walked out. And needless to say, once we got out to the road I realized I left one of my gloves cleaned back in there. So. And I didn't had to turn around and get the whole way back in in the dark again and come back out. And then we waited for two days and it hadn't showed up at any of the check stations. So I sent one of my officers out there to just kind of nose around and work his way, hunt his way into it. And he was hunting out there and see if he could see anyone around, see if it was still there. And as he got close to it he found them. They were there on scene, field dressing at that time. There was two guys and he calls me on the phone and he's watching, they never saw him. And so he's following. I'm on a day off and I'm heading out there. He followed them the whole way out of the woods to the point he was so close to them that he could watch what they were doing and hear their conversations. He watched them drinking beer on game lens and then taking those cans, crumple them up and putting them in a stump. And he picked up those beer cans as he was coming out too. And so he had those and, and he called me and I met him just as they were getting close to the road. I got there and I met him carting this bear out and, and sure.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: You let him drag it the whole way.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely. And I surprised him and, and I got talking to him about their bear and you know, at this time it's pretty ripe, it was warm, it hadn't filled, rested, it was, I don't even think the hide was any good anymore. But they were taking it out. They were non residents and I talked to them a lot about the number that was tattooed on that bear's lip before I even looked at it. And they were kind of shocked. And I told them their whole story of how they gutted it. Their wheel broke on their cart, they were drinking beer and shoved all the beer into the stumps. And I didn't even knew they were drinking Budweiser. And they were amazed. And that's when I called for my buddy to step out from behind trees. And the guy I was working with and he stepped out and then they were, you know, their head, you normally see the head sink like this when they know they're caught, the head sunk down and, you know, some, some old time game warden work there. But it all started with a tip, you know, the tip and getting them out there. And again, they paid some pretty hefty fines for that one, shooting it out of season. And, you know, there is a method, you know, for making mistakes too. You know, there is, but. And when you're intentionally trying to cover up crimes that you do instead of, you know, going the method that is, provided there's a whole different story.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Talk about that method. I mean, because we all make mistakes out there.
[00:35:18] Speaker C: Yeah, everybody makes mistakes. You know, we have antler restrictions. We have, you know, various seasons and bag limits that are out there for various areas. You know, it's your responsibility, first of all, to know, you know, if you're going hunting, you should at least be flipping through the digest, seeing what's in, seeing what you're allowed to harvest and go. But we'll say for an antler restriction case, if you accidentally shoot one that you think has enough antler or enough points on one side and you get up to it and you don't, there's a method that you just call us and you report it. You tag it as if it's a legal buck, you drag it out, field dress it, we'll come meet you, and it's $25. You fill out some forms and we give you a new tag. And then you go hunt and we take that deer and we donate it to a needy family. Oftentimes we get a lot of calls about, you know, the shoot first, and then they walk up and they see that it's sublegal and they just walk away from it. And we don't want that. You have to make an effort to do the right thing and identify if it's truly a mistake. You know, if it's, you know, if it's truly a mistake and you tried, there's a process in place.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Yeah. And we want to use that resource the best we can.
[00:36:22] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: I mean, again, everybody makes mistakes.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: And, you know, there's nobody in this agency to be mad about that. I mean, if it's a true mistake. I mean, for sure.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Actually, we get frustrated when we have folks that otherwise had a legitimate mistake kill that they didn't call in and that they took efforts to basically cover up afterwards.
[00:36:41] Speaker C: Kick the horns off.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Kick the horns off. Or conceal it or just not tag it at all, that we then end up coming across that through an investigation, and we end up charging him for an illegal deer as a result of it, for something that would have not been an illegal deer had they done it the right way in the first place.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: I mean, as sportsmen, as conservationists, we all owe it to the animals, the resources out there to do the right thing when that happens. I mean, I think it's important. And a lot of people don't know that. They don't know that, like.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: And a lot of people do do the right thing, too. It's not all that they don't. I mean, there's overwhelmingly more people that do. I don't want to sit here and think, you know, these give everybody. This is. Hunting is a bad name, because it is. And I would say 95% of the people are out there and they're doing stuff the right way.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: I would even say more than that. It's the 1%, really.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: Right. And, you know, we're lucky because we have almost 900,000 hunters in this state. So we have a lot of people that are out there right now, as we speak, you know, out there enjoying, enjoying and helping and true conservationists. I mean, that's what I love about Pennsylvania. But I know you have a good case that came in from a tip.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we all have a couple.
This one's actually kind of interesting because it started as part of a staged scene, and you would kind of put it into the box of truth is Stranger Than Fiction. And this case involved a location right along a railroad bank, and the tracks are still active. And a lady who lives in that local community was walking down the tracks and found a carcass laying on either side of one of the rails. And it appeared, although it was not factually accurate, that the deer had been separated into its respective parts by the operation of the train passing through that area.
So she called, thinking it was odd, something strange about the scene, which got us onto the property. And when our initial responding officers arrived, they, of course, find that carcass and start turning circles. And there were like nine or ten other additional carcasses in that area, all in varying states of decay, obviously having been processed, meaning the meat materials had been removed and there were bones and other decaying parts.
So that started a fairly big investigation. And fortunately for us, it was not terribly difficult because the drag marks from that deer were quite obvious and evident to be going to a very specific property. So it didn't take a ton of investigative technique to identify some potential suspects as to who was involved.
And the end result of it was us uncovering two teenage young men who at the time were driving around drinking and killing deer.
It was kind of an interesting case in the sense that we knew we were chasing a group of folks in that area, but every time we were working in one location, they were shooting in another location. And when we would move over and be targeting that location, they'd be hunting in a different location at night. So we were aware that there was a group kind of engaging these behavior. And it wasn't until that tip that we actually got locked into whom was responsible. And the rest, they say, was history because it resulted in some investigations of that scene where we talked to dad, recovered some evidence at the scene, did some interviews with the potential participants. One was a student up at the college. We interviewed him right in his dorm room, got some information. And then we were able to collect some meat evidence from both individuals homes.
And we got a ton of charges out of that case.
Like I said, there was multiple carcasses. This was not just single individual poaching event. It was a spree where every weekend they were out killing deer every single.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: Week, and they take them all to the train tracks.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: And in this instance, I think they were maybe trying to be creative, maybe in their own kind of wicked art form to laugh about their activities. I'm not really totally sure what their intent was, but that action was their undoing. Because in this instance, that was what led to us being able to locate the whole. We already knew the deer were being killed. We just could never locate them. I mean, one of the deer were shot in The, I think 12ft from the landowner's front door with a.35 whaling. And as you can imagine, that was quite a production for the landowner to wake up to that kind of business. And they recovered that deer, shook the windows. Yeah, we did not get a phone call from that individual that night.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: No kidding.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: I've had that too. 58 shots that I recovered. Empty shell casings and a one night poaching spree and I got one phone call.
[00:41:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's amazing.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: Actually shot somebody's house too and shot the house. Phone call.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: So you have any advice for our hunters out there? Like you said, you know, hunters are 99, 99% of the people out there doing things right. But like, like something that happens out there that you have to stop somebody and you know, whether it's an orange hat or you know, what advice. What's one of the most common things out there that you see that people probably doing wrong that shouldn't be doing that. That shouldn't be doing it, should be doing it the right way?
[00:42:06] Speaker C: I would say a couple of the most common things I've run into. You know, your orange, your orange regulations are probably one of the highest, most common things we run into.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: And if you look in the digest, it's spelled out, it's pretty clear.
[00:42:16] Speaker C: And we simplified them over the last couple years.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:42:19] Speaker C: There's pictures, there's graphs, everything. We give you that digest for a reason. I mean it's a reference. Look at it, it's there. So my advice for hunters is open up that book and if you're out there and you see this stuff, call it in. Now, oftentimes you'll run into people. Where were you at three weeks ago while I was still here doing my job? Why? What happened? I saw this. Well, you didn't call then. Call it in now. Take pictures with your phone. Timely information, accurate information, that is the best because hunters are our biggest resource.
I know if it's me and you come and you do something in my area and you're poaching, it's going to offend me because that may be a deer that I'm trying to go after and I'm going to be upset about it. And that's the driving force behind a lot of tips like putting in a lot of time and resources. I mean you're putting your energy in. You don't want to be cheated out of something.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: Little bird told me you're after a pretty big buck.
[00:43:15] Speaker C: I might be. I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: How about you Jason, you have any.
[00:43:21] Speaker A: Well, back to the common violations, I would say during in season, you know, if you would talk about non poaching related errors that are made by hunters. You know, tagging violations are another pretty common one. You know, we come across folks that have animals that they're moving that they haven't put the tag on. They have full intentions of doing it. We'll often Have a conversation with them, you know, how far they moved. It may determine whether or not, you know, we give it any, you know, criminal prosecution attention.
Incomplete tags, you know, where they don't fill out all the information. Sometimes we can resolve that very easily in the field if the person doesn't know what township they're in, because sometimes that happens. We can provide that information to them. But, you know, the date and the time are often really critical pieces of information to show that you've made the effort to, you know, use up that tag so that it can't be used again.
But, you know, to the point of, you know, calling in.
You know, one point that I would just add to Seth's statement is anything that you can get, I mean, dates, times, people, if you know them, license plate numbers, things of that nature. If you can snap a surreptitious photo, that's even better. But what we don't expect.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: What kind of photo was that?
[00:44:34] Speaker A: A surreptitious.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Explain that one.
[00:44:37] Speaker A: Something that you're taking a photograph without evidencing that you're taking a photograph. You know, you can. Oh, let me dial my phone. Click, click, click.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: Cell phones have had to make getting that information a lot better nowadays, right?
[00:44:53] Speaker A: Yes, yes, because everybody's got a cell phone in their possession, at least most people.
But back to the point of we don't expect people to do the investigations themselves. Don't put yourself in a position where you are confronting violators in the field trying to demand, you know, names and information that's really not their role and quite honestly, can put people at risk creating confrontations with folks that are, quite frankly, armed.
And we just don't want to see folks getting involved in any sort of, you know, issues with folks in the field when that's really more our deal. We're more capable, and certainly if you just get us en route, we can go ahead and take what they have and run with it.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: And that's one of the things about being a game warden, that everybody that you're dealing with out there is armed. And, you know, you think about that.
[00:45:42] Speaker C: We've come a long way. I mean, most people when we show up, Game Commission, when I started, would think you were there to collect the lottery tickets. And now through some of the efforts that we've had in the outreach and some TV shows, I mean, people have a better understanding of who we are and what we do. And it's true. I mean, everybody. It's almost somewhat of an advantage sometime because I know I walk in at a high level to start with, because somebody's got a gun, a knife, or something like that that can hurt me or stab me or stick me in one which way or another. So.
[00:46:12] Speaker A: But, you know, we're all hunters, too, at least predominantly in our, you know, group of wardens. Almost everyone is, you know, working for this agency because they care about the resource in some respect, and many of those folks are hunters themselves and have family members that are hunters. So we appreciate and understand the business and the motivations of folks who want to go out and recreate. And in the long run, we're not really there to give people a hard time. I know when I check waterfowl hunters, one of the biggest surprises, everybody's thinking like, oh, my gosh, we have to unload our guns. Well, eventually we'll maybe one at a time have you unload, so we can determine if you got a plug in your shotgun. But at the same time, I might tell you, leave your gun loaded and if the birds come in, go ahead and torture them. Yeah, I mean, so I'm not there to interrupt the hunt. So, you know, there's kind of some, you know, good examples of, you know, birds are coming in, and I'm diving down into the weeds behind the blind.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: On your duck call.
[00:47:05] Speaker A: I, I sound terrible.
But, you know, in the long run, we, we, we appreciate the motivations. And what folks are out there doing it is recreation, and they've got just as much passion as the rest of us. So we're there to do a job.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: We're all on the same team. We want to, we want to make it better.
[00:47:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: Hunting. Hunting and trapping and, and preserve wildlife and for the future generations to come. I mean, that's, that's what we're all here for. If you're in uniform or not, for whatever. When you work for this agency, there's. There's one mission at hand.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I just like sometimes getting lucky. You know, when you're, when you're out there, you know, there's a lot of, A lot of good and skill involved in the process, but being out there.
[00:47:43] Speaker C: Is the important part. If you're out there, sometimes you're just lucky and run into the right moment at the right time that you, you had no idea what was going on, and this is what you ended up in.
[00:47:53] Speaker A: Yep. Bonanza.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: Do you have any other good game warden stories you might want to share?
[00:47:56] Speaker C: Yeah. You know what? Advances in modern technology have helped out a lot, and we have some equipment that helps us with some night vision. Goggles And I remember I had some calls and complaints about, you know, an old strip mine area that people were supposedly poachers and a lot of shooting and everything. And I was sitting in there one night and I had my night vision goggles and had to be 12 o'clock at night. And I followed this group up through. They had no idea I was following them through as they were driving up in. And then they got up and I saw their spotlight come out and I saw it come on a deer. And I actually witnessed them shoot with a nine millimeter, of all things, right out the window at these deer. And then, you know, I'm right behind them and they're shooting with a 9 millimeter at probably about 80 yards at these deer. And typical deer in the headlights, whenever I turned on the red and blues behind them, being right there watching them, and they had no clue. So, I mean, some of that being out there, right place, right time, you know, it's. That's satisfying to me too, because, yeah, that validates that complaint of this is going on up in here and it is here. Not only were they shooting, but they.
[00:49:01] Speaker B: Didn'T hit that deer.
[00:49:01] Speaker C: No, they didn't hit that deer. They were. They were drinking, they were high, they had drugs, and you name it, everything else was involved with that too. But no, they didn't hit the deer at all. But doesn't make it any. Any better. They're still trying.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: So as a game warden, when you come up in that situation and you know they're drinking and have drugs, you immediately call for backup or.
[00:49:19] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I had backup out there that was coming to help, you know, that night I called them on as I was starting to approach to come over that way. Some of my deputy force was out with me that night and had him come over. But that, you know, once you get involved in something like that, that's a long night. Now you're talking about, you know, you're out all night doing the breathalyzers and DUIs and taking them for testing and all that. You know, it's, you know, one of these cases like that will tie you up for weeks on end.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: And our officers are trained on that. I mean, at the training school, we were just talking about that earlier, you know, and how to recognize if someone's under the influence and, you know, which guns and alcohol shouldn't be together.
[00:49:57] Speaker C: No, I mean, some of the crazy stuff you see as a game warden, I mean, most people will never. You can't even hardly put it into words. I mean, our guys get involved in search and rescue stuff. They get involved in tracking, they're called. Now, our tracking team is recognized not only statewide, but nationally by some of the people for what they do, you know, and what they're trained in and experienced in. Tracking people through the woods. There's no one better at it. You know, just the oddball stuff the marijuana grows that you come across. And I found fishing hooks hanging from trees. And that wasn't to catch an animal. That was to catch people that were riding ATVs through a property they didn't like.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: Ouch.
[00:50:38] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. You would think there's some crazy stuff that you run into and you're out there on your own and you find this. You gotta be kidding me. But some of the places you get to see finding that stuff, I mean, that's some of the best part about being a game where I would have never saw some of the sites in Pennsylvania if I wouldn't have been out there doing my job.
[00:50:59] Speaker B: No two days are probably the same out there.
[00:51:01] Speaker C: You know, they're fantastic.
[00:51:02] Speaker B: Talk about baiting just real quick and, you know, which is highly illegal in most of the state. And, you know, quite honestly, nowadays you're seeing corn available at tractor supply and Bass Pro and Walmart everywhere you go. And, you know, and especially in, like, DMAs, like disease areas where you're at, you know, you can't even feed the deer. But, like, baiting is highly illegal, and so many people think they get away with it. But we're watching, I mean, because it's not the way we do things here in Pennsylvania. And I'm sure y'all, that's probably a lot of your time is taking a look at it, taking a look and trying to find people that are doing it.
[00:51:38] Speaker C: A lot, a lot of the calls, the tips that come in are good with the baiting. It goes on. Just because they sell it doesn't mean you can use it and put it out in the woods. Or just because you see it on a TV show doesn't mean that, you know, it's legal to use.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: In some states it is legal.
[00:51:54] Speaker C: Some states it is legal.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: In Pennsylvania, that's how they hunt deer.
[00:51:56] Speaker C: It currently is not for most of the state, you know, so for most of the state, when it's out there, you know, people put it out for various reasons. Some people try to inventory their. What's around their stand before the season, but they fail to clean up all the residue that's laying around there before, you know, the deer are still going to come there. You know, I've seen as things go, as far as people using camo corn, you know, in different fake stumps and different feeders and setups, but, yeah, you. It's. It's not good for the deer. It's similar. I like to relate it to Covid. I mean, you remember when we congregated, everybody together, everybody got sick. You do that with a deer, and there's a disease in deer. Guess what?
[00:52:36] Speaker B: The problems we face today with, you know, CWD in. The worst thing we can do is, I mean, deer get together all the time in the wild, but the worst thing we can do is add something more to bring those deer together.
[00:52:48] Speaker C: Yeah, we don't want to. We don't want to make it spread rapidly, more rapid than it already is. We're in the business of trying to contain that and have healthy deer healthy for us.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: And the signs, if somebody's baiting deer, the signs that you leave are very easy to find. I mean, when they are found. And it's.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Well, to the extent that you might be surreptitious in your efforts to put the bait out.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Use that word again.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: But you can't hide the evidence that wildlife leaves when they're visiting that area. And, you know, they're going to engage in behaviors looking for that bait, whether it's a mineral or corn, that is something that's going to draw our attention. So, you know, as much as, you know, folks get really creative out there, and trust me, they do, you know, there's still often going to be signs that we can detect mineral being one of the most insidious in that it seeps into the soil or the stump or whatever they're putting it on, and it's there for months, if not years afterwards, because you can't really get that out of the soil without either digging it out or covering it. But to Seth's point earlier, they sell a lot of stuff, and technically, in most of the state outside of the DMAs, it's perfectly lawful to feed deer.
And, you know, I think that there's a disconnect with some folks that say, well, oh, geez, you can feed them, but why can't I hunt them? Or what's the difference between the stuff off the rack and Walmart versus a food plot that I planted? And, you know, there are differences and there are exceptions built into the law, for example, for food plots.
And. But it doesn't cover baiting. Baiting is and remains 100% unlawful. And. And I think we can continue to do a good Job of trying to connect with hunters to define that difference and help educate and make sure that people understand maybe the why behind the law, not just that it's illegal and maybe get some buy in as a result of that.
[00:54:43] Speaker B: Right. And you know, to that point, if you see something, say something. Absolutely. With operation Game Thief OGT, the hotline is 247365 days 1888 PGC 8001. That's the number. You can also call our toll free number 833pgc hunt or pgc wild. That's 247 to our dispatch center. I mean you can get online at, you know, pgc.pa.gov and last year we had one shy of 1200 OGT submissions. And it's pretty incredible that our folks out there saying something and I think, you know, both of you appreciate you coming on today and talking about a lot of this. It probably won't be our last time. We're going to get a lot of questions when, when people watch this because the law is pretty intriguing. And one thing I wanted to say before we, we end like when it goes to court, anybody can go watch that. That what those court proceedings.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: Public and it would encourage people to maybe I didn't even know that like even in my county that I can go that the public's invited to court. And if you want to see how that works, I mean if you have the day offer, take the day off and go to your local courthouse and any proceeding to watch how the law really works because so many people don't really understand it and it is very complicated.
[00:56:01] Speaker A: Well, and you know, we take a lot of that for granted. Quite simple. You know, we live and work in that environment at a regular basis. And I think we fail to appreciate something sometimes that the public doesn't understand that process. And I think that's a really good tip to invite them into the process. Pennsylvania doesn't broadcast their legal proceedings. It's actually a violation of rules to do so. So you're not going to have TVs in the courtroom like you have in maybe California and other jurisdictions. But any member of the public can view any of these proceedings as they're occurring because it is a public process. And I think that would be very interesting for folks to see that process and understand what it takes to cross that bar of beyond a reasonable doubt. And it's a tall showing for us, but it is the constitutionally mandated threshold for us. We take that process seriously and certainly we're going to put the effort in to make sure we can do our jobs.
[00:56:57] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:56:57] Speaker C: Not to change. But with ogt, the other valuable thing is, you know, people can be rewarded. There's a reward for that, up to $250. If something comes through the OGT and these fines, it can add. A lot of times we'll get someone that says, you know, the fines were never enough, weren't added, but you can get a, you can get another additional fine added onto an OGT case of up to $500, of which $250 can go to pay, sort of like a reward witness system reward program to two people through a successful prosecution.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: And I think our agency also, even in those cases where sometimes the courts don't elect to apply that additional $500 fine, we'll still often support the tip with a gift card, at least historically, I recall that occurring. So we're big about, you know, folks providing us information, and if we can reward that with the court order, $250 or, you know, some gift card that will help kind of promote that activity for members of the public being willing to tip, you know, hey, we'll, we'll do what we can.
[00:58:04] Speaker B: We're all on the same team. I say that all the time. I mean, I think it's important. Well, gentlemen, appreciate y'all coming down and joining us today. Hope we got a lot of great stuff we talked about and thank you. And the Game Commission is lucky to have both you guys. I promise you, it's a, it's a, it's an office full of, of great folks. Even though we don't see you every day, but you're here once in a while.
[00:58:23] Speaker C: Probably a good thing.
[00:58:24] Speaker B: No, it's a great, It's a great thing that people sometimes probably take for granted out there of the professionals and the workforce that the Game Commission has out there, you know, protecting the resource and just promoting hunting and trapping for future generations. And thank you guys for your careers and what you do every day.
[00:58:43] Speaker C: Thanks for having us.
[00:58:44] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:58:45] Speaker C: Thanks.
