CRAIG — A Colorado Division of Wildlife officer never knows what he or she will find during a day in the woods.
Jay Sarason, DOW chief of law enforcement, said he once investigated a man who was selling eagle feathers and trophy heads, and at the same time was growing marijuana, driving a stolen car and dealing methamphetamine.
“He was kind of the prototypical criminal living off anything he could,” Sarason said. He later added, “The commercial violators have diverse portfolios. They make money on things from drugs to stolen equipment to wildlife.”
It was one of about 2,000 wildlife cases the DOW pursues each year.
The biggest poaching case in District Wildlife Manager Mike Swaro’s young career started with a simple phone call from a concerned citizen, but it soon blossomed into an investigation that included more than 20 wildlife officers in three states.
The case, which began in November 2008 and recently wrapped up in Moffat County District Court, led to the confiscation of about 25 antlers, three big game skins, a trophy elk head, 78 packages of meat, six rifles and about $22,000 in fines.
Three men from West Virginia — John Davidson, 41, Jeremiah Tyson, 33, and David Park, 38 — were charged with 49 crimes against wildlife before pleading guilty to reduced charges.
Read the rest of this report, including what happened to the three poachers, at .
