Missouri State Conservation Department Discovers Illegal Activity

The Missouri State Conservation Department has had their biggest roundup of illegal hunters in the history of the department.

For the past few years, an investigator for the department has been working with several hunters in some southern Missouri counties. Regional supervisor Gary Cravens explains how they discovered the issue was occurring

“We had several complaints from several citizens in this are complaining about the illegal activity in Shannon and surrounding Missouri counties, so we attacked that by putting a special investigator in to find out what’s going on”

The investigator had quite a discovery about the amount of wildlife illegally brought into the local taxidermist, says Craven

“We were surprised to find out that investigators documented that 62% of the wildlife brought into a local taxidermist shop was taken in some illegal manor”

According to Craven, most of the wildlife brought in was road hunted along with many other illegal procedures

“A lot of road hunting, trespass hunting, wildlife taken out of season…just a whole sort of different illegal methods”

The total amount turned out to be about 425 violations from 68 violators in total

“There was 425 violations, we uncovered about 300 with the special investigator, when we sent more agents out to interview these 68 individuals, we uncovered another 126 so that put us up to 425 total violations involved in this investigation”

Craven says most of these folks turned themselves in by boasting about their catch to the taxidermist that they didn’t know was working for the conservation department. 

The Missouri State Conservation Department has had their biggest roundup of illegal hunters in the history of the department. For the past few years, an investigator for the department has been working with several hunters in some southern Missouri counties. Regional supervisor Gary Cravens explains how they discovered the issue was occurring

 

“We had several complaints from several citizens in this are complaining about the illegal activity in Shannon and surrounding Missouri counties, so we attacked that by putting a special investigator in to find out what’s going on”

 

The investigator had quite a discovery about the amount of wildlife illegally brought into the local taxidermist, says Craven

 

“We were surprised to find out that investigators documented that 62% of the wildlife brought into a local taxidermist shop was taken in some illegal manor”

 

According to Craven, most of the wildlife brought in was road hunted along with many other illegal procedures

 

“A lot of road hunting, trespass hunting, wildlife taken out of season…just a whole sort of different illegal methods”

 

The total amount turned out to be about 425 violations from 68 violators in total

 

“There was 425 violations, we uncovered about 300 with the special investigator, when we sent more agents out to interview these 68 individuals, we uncovered another 126 so that put us up to 425 total violations involved in this investigation”

 

Craven says most of these folks turned themselves in by boasting about their catch to the taxidermist that they didn’t know was working for the conservation department.