Saturday, December 11, 2010

Help Needed to Solve Poaching Cases



Book Cliffs -- Seven deer have been poached recently in the Book Cliffs in eastern Utah.

Now officers with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources are asking for your help to find those responsible.

Bryan Clyde, a conservation officer with the UDWR, says a gut pile was found recently about 65 yards up the hill from the bottom of Bitter Creek Canyon. “At the scene were two sets of footprints and drag marks where they pulled the deer downhill,” he says.

Clyde says the animal the pile belonged to was killed on or before Nov. 23. He says a cow elk hunt was happening in the area when the animal was killed. But the size of the gut pile and other evidence indicates the animal the poachers killed wasn’t an elk.

“This was a deer—taken illegally—as the deer season is closed in this area,” Clyde says.

In addition, six other deer have been shot and left to rot in the Book Cliffs. They include a buck deer shot in the Rainbow area (the poacher cut the animal’s antlers off and then left the animal to rot); a buck poached on the Kings Well Road near the Greek Corrals; a buck killed in Three Mile Canyon; a buck poached in Park Canyon; and a doe and fawn killed near Watson.

If you have information about these cases, contact Clyde at (435) 790-4630 or UDWR officer Clint Sampson at (435) 790-2206.