Behind the Badge - Report All Poachers
Report all Poachers
District Game Warden Jon Peterson
“How many cases do you make every year from the Report all Poachers hotline?” This was the question someone asked while I was speaking at a local hunter education class.
This was the first time anyone asked me for a specific number of cases I’ve made and, to be honest, I really didn’t have a clue. When a call comes in to me from someone reporting illegal or suspicious activity, I don’t really care how the information is getting to me. I take the information provided and run with it and try to find the violation, if there is one, and make the case.
Anyway, this got me curious about the Report All Poachers line and I started to do some digging into old reports to see how many cases were made because someone did the right thing and made the call. What I found is that calls with information come from several sources, including the RAP hotline, cell phone calls and text messages. I can tell you there were many but couldn’t really give an exact number. Most of the violations would never have been reported had it not been for someone calling the RAP hotline.
There was one instance in fall 2024 that I would have never known about had it not been for someone dialing the RAP line. The caller was hunting waterfowl and wanted to remain anonymous, which the RAP line is perfect for. He wanted to report that a group of goose hunters hunting in a field just to the east of his location were using an electronic call to lure waterfowl into their decoy spread.
The information also provided me with a location. This was perfect. I had all the information I needed to make the case, as an electronic call is illegal to use during the fall waterfowl season. I drove to the location and sat about a quarter mile away from the group without them knowing I was there and recorded on my phone the sounds of the electronic caller. I waited for the group to finish their hunt and made contact with them. I conducted a standard field check and found multiple issues beyond the electronic caller. I found that lead shot had been used that day. The group had also driven all over a Private Land Open To Sportsmen tract without permission from the landowner. I also found multiple license violations with multiple members of the hunting party. By the time the group left the field they had received several citations, and the electronic caller was seized as evidence.
This case was by far not the biggest case of my career. In fact, I had almost forgotten about it. Had I not been looking into old cases trying to find some way to answer a question that was asked of me at a random hunter education class, I would have surely forgotten about it. That’s when it hit me that this is exactly the best way I can describe the importance of the RAP line and people doing the right thing when out hunting or fishing.
There are hundreds of these circumstances happening every day in the field, yet our wardens can’t be everywhere at once. Had I not received that RAP call, I would never have made this case. I could have been 150 miles or 10 miles from the location, and I would never have known what was going on. The individuals told me that they had been doing this for years, and they finally got caught because someone did the right thing. So, as you are out recreating, fishing, boating, hunting, trapping … if you see something, please don’t hesitate to call 701-328-9921.