Wildlife cases are made in a lot of different ways. It may be a call from a concerned citizen or a hunter or fisherman. It could be good patrolling techniques by the area warden and sometimes it's just pure luck. In June of 1997 I made a good case for the simple fact that the deputies in Logan County knew something about wildlife and they contacted me.

The Logan County Sheriff's Department was serving a search warrant near Crescent, Oklahoma. During their search they uncovered a freezer full of wildlife. They contacted me and I was on my way. I called Warden Joel McClung and he assisted me with the call. When we arrived we were told of what had teen discovered. We ended up discovering even more. This investigation started off with us approaching the residence and nearly stepping on a giant copperhead snake near the be an interesting evening. We began in an outbuilding that contained a large chest freezer. Inside were eleven untagged bobcat hides, one whole bobcat, two beaver hides, one raccoon hide, one great horned owl and fifteen rattlesnakes! As if this wasn't enough we then went inside the residence and discovered a knife that had an owl foot as a handle, a cup full of hawk feathers and another mounted bobcat. We seized the evidence for later charges. (Thank goodness I drive a pickup.) The subject at the residence was later charged with several state wildlife charges and paid a large fine. This guy had obviously been at this for a while and had quite a collection. I just can't figure why anyone would want to pick up snakes. We have several Game Wardens who love to hunt snakes I'm just not one of them. You can call me chicken, but I call it getting along with nature.

4 freezer full of contraband.

Some of the articles found at the residence.