08-25-2009, 02:05 PM
How much money do you think it takes to hire just one extra officer?? Try 100K a year for a full-time officer + his vehicle. I'm not very good at math so you figure out how many licenses they have to sell to add one additional officer.
He/she works a 40 hr week in 4 days, required to take 40hrs of inservice training per year, no over-time allowed, comp-time earned is to be taken off at a later date and they build up a ton every year. Many officers are the only guy for the entire county or area. These guys are not a 24-7 police department; wildlife enforcement is rarely a life threatening situation, therefore you can't expect someone to be available at all times. They have church, little league, dance class, school functions, just like you do...
The worker bees at the DWR are so poorly paid at one time they couldn't even fill the positions along the Wasatch front.
Here is the biggest problem; More often than not citizens don't supply enough information on a complaint where an officer can chase down a lead. Generally you get: 3 males fishing on the bank at lake xyz, complainant states they are in possession of too many perch OR 2 males shooting at a cow elk near Black hawk campground, driving a blue Cheve truck.
Seriously that is how the complaints come in. No physical description, no plates numbers, many times no exact location, and 40% of the time the original complainant doesn't answer his phone after he makes a complaint, 30% of the time he can't provide any additional information, 20% he is no longer in the area, 10% of the time he doesn't even leave his name.
I'm not a DWR employee, but I've tried to help them out from time to time on wildlife complaints. So if you want a decent investigation do your civic duty and provide some solid information. The real world isn't the CSI you see on TV, if ya don't want to get involved then don't make the initial call......
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He/she works a 40 hr week in 4 days, required to take 40hrs of inservice training per year, no over-time allowed, comp-time earned is to be taken off at a later date and they build up a ton every year. Many officers are the only guy for the entire county or area. These guys are not a 24-7 police department; wildlife enforcement is rarely a life threatening situation, therefore you can't expect someone to be available at all times. They have church, little league, dance class, school functions, just like you do...
The worker bees at the DWR are so poorly paid at one time they couldn't even fill the positions along the Wasatch front.
Here is the biggest problem; More often than not citizens don't supply enough information on a complaint where an officer can chase down a lead. Generally you get: 3 males fishing on the bank at lake xyz, complainant states they are in possession of too many perch OR 2 males shooting at a cow elk near Black hawk campground, driving a blue Cheve truck.
Seriously that is how the complaints come in. No physical description, no plates numbers, many times no exact location, and 40% of the time the original complainant doesn't answer his phone after he makes a complaint, 30% of the time he can't provide any additional information, 20% he is no longer in the area, 10% of the time he doesn't even leave his name.
I'm not a DWR employee, but I've tried to help them out from time to time on wildlife complaints. So if you want a decent investigation do your civic duty and provide some solid information. The real world isn't the CSI you see on TV, if ya don't want to get involved then don't make the initial call......
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