New Division of Law Enforcement in the Dept of Natural Resources

[oldguy]

Personally I do not like being checked and think we can do away with most of the state departments.  They are all a waste of money. I'm tired of my money being used to harass me and force me to pay more to access so called "public" land. The whole system is a joke.

I as well don't like being checked on the water or being pulled over in my auto, the laws requiring probable cause indicate to me that these tactics are recognized as abusive and invasive and not to be used. I would suggest that if you enjoy being detained from the activities you ventured out to enjoy you might question why that is.

I don't need to question why.  I know exactly why.  Because there are way too many folks that don't know or, worse, don't care, what the fish & game laws are and think they don't really apply to themselves.  Do a little research and find out how many fish, game, boat, and motor vehicle citations are issued every day, week, month, and/or year.  The numbers are staggering.  And regardless of your personal attitude about being checked for anything while perusing your favorite past-time, it is 100% needed.  I don't mind it one bit and welcome it knowing that it is helping keep John Q Public honest.  You may be squeaky clean for fish & game law violations, but it's guaranteed that you know somebody who has violated the laws one or more times.  And every one of those violations has an impact on all of us with depleted game & fish resources or access restrictions on both public and private land.

Well said Bob. i wish we had the ability to have three times the amount of officers available to check licenses, boats, etc. Soon we will have quagga muscles in our lakes, skinny little snakey fish, the list goes on. Sadly, i feel there is so many so called Sportsman outt here who could care less about laws and will take as many fish of whatever species they want home with them and could care less. The chances of them being caught are slim to nothing. Then if by chance they do get caught, its poor poor me, the damn fish cops caught me, they screwed me over. Ok, Rant over!

I couldn't agree more!

You are so right bob! I welcome being checked anytime!

[BearLakeFishGuy]

12/22/2024 - UPDATE TO POST

I spoke with a deputy director from DNR the other day and he answered some questions.  If you're interested, then read on.  If not, go about your other scrolling.

The Div of LE will begin operation on 1/1/2025.  All of the previous 4 division's LE units, that fell under the Dept of Natural Resources are combined.  This includes Div. Forest/Fire/State Lands, Div. of Parks, Div. of Wildlife, and Div. of Outdoor Rec.   The goal is no duplication off training efforts that existed in the past.  The top leadership will slowly be trimmed, due to attrition (i.e. mainly retirements).  There won't be a need for as many captains, lieutenants, sergeants.  Full encorporation into the new Div of LE will take a few years for jobs to shake down.   Some State Park rangers will possibly need to move if they chose to leave the State Parks and move over to Div of LE.  Not sure if the Div. of LE will have regional offices or not?  Replacement of positions of State Park rangers who left to the Div. of LE will be evaluated for each State Park on whether the State Parks can get by with seasonal positions or full-time, non-LE, rangers.

As far as the AIS program.  It will be enforced through the Div. of LE, but each State Park will also be checking AIS boat stickers/bow numbers too.  In addition, you will still need to put the annual AIS test sheet on your dashboards of your launch vehicle.  I asked about not having to do this since you need to go through this to obtain a sticker in the first place.   However, right now, you need both a boat sticker AND the AIS form on your dashboards of your launch vehicle.  I personally launched at Willard Bay quite a few times, Rockport 4 times, East Canyon, Bear Lake, and Hyrum state parks.  I was never checked for a sticker, bow number, or pass at ANY of the state parks.  In fact, in ALL cases, there was NO ONE PRESENT at any of the state park gate houses when I launched or left.  I mentioned that at a couple of the parks the rangers I spoke will told me that they were never instructed on what to enforce or not!   That surprised the person from DNR that I spoke with.  He said that he would bring up this topic in the new Div. of LE meeting they were going to have this week and it would be a perfect cross-training topic for other division under the Dept of Natural Resouces.  

There you go...straight from the DNR leadership to me and then to you.

[oldguy]

12/22/2024 - UPDATE TO POST

I spoke with a deputy director from DNR the other day and he answered some questions.  If you're interested, then read on.  If not, go about your other scrolling.

The Div of LE will begin operation on 1/1/2025.  All of the previous 4 division's LE units, that fell under the Dept of Natural Resources are combined.  This includes Div. Forest/Fire/State Lands, Div. of Parks, Div. of Wildlife, and Div. of Outdoor Rec.   The goal is no duplication off training efforts that existed in the past.  The top leadership will slowly be trimmed, due to attrition (i.e. mainly retirements).  There won't be a need for as many captains, lieutenants, sergeants.  Full encorporation into the new Div of LE will take a few years for jobs to shake down.   Some State Park rangers will possibly need to move if they chose to leave the State Parks and move over to Div of LE.  Not sure if the Div. of LE will have regional offices or not?  Replacement of positions of State Park rangers who left to the Div. of LE will be evaluated for each State Park on whether the State Parks can get by with seasonal positions or full-time, non-LE, rangers.

As far as the AIS program.  It will be enforced through the Div. of LE, but each State Park will also be checking AIS boat stickers/bow numbers too.  In addition, you will still need to put the annual AIS test sheet on your dashboards of your launch vehicle.  I asked about not having to do this since you need to go through this to obtain a sticker in the first place.   However, right now, you need both a boat sticker AND the AIS form on your dashboards of your launch vehicle.  I personally launched at Willard Bay quite a few times, Rockport 4 times, East Canyon, Bear Lake, and Hyrum state parks.  I was never checked for a sticker, bow number, or pass at ANY of the state parks.  In fact, in ALL cases, there was NO ONE PRESENT at any of the state park gate houses when I launched or left.  I mentioned that at a couple of the parks the rangers I spoke will told me that they were never instructed on what to enforce or not!   That surprised the person from DNR that I spoke with.  He said that he would bring up this topic in the new Div. of LE meeting they were going to have this week and it would be a perfect cross-training topic for other division under the Dept of Natural Resouces.  

There you go...straight from the DNR leadership to me and then to you.

Thanks for sharing.Do you know when we will be able to take the test and get our sticker for 2025?

[BearLakeFishGuy]

Nope. They usually don't post those until right around Jan 1st, but I've seen a year or two when they didn't post it until like March.

[TT600]

I wonder just how many AIS sticker violations they write. So needlessly complicated that when violators claim ignorance the rangers must usually let them go with a warning. Making it separate from registering has got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of. Unless the goal was actually to raise big fines from paperwork violations.

[BearLakeFishGuy]

I wonder just how many AIS sticker violations they write. So needlessly complicated that when violators claim ignorance the rangers must usually let them go with a warning. Making it separate from registering has got to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of. Unless the goal was actually to raise big fines from paperwork violations.

I've had boats in several states over the years.  In every case the boat registration sticker was separate from any other sticker (metroparks, state parks, AIS/quagga sticker, etc.).  The reason being is that the County office, Secretary of State office, or whatever agency registers  boat for that state usually does NOT want to accept, or is barred by law from accepting, any other registration/sticker/fee that other agencies determine you need to be legal.  It makes no sense, but I also understand it from the government perspective.   I definitely don't agree with it, but that's how it works not only here in Utah, but in several other states too.

[TT600]

The reason the ais sticker is so boneheaded is that it’s required for every single lake in the state just like the boat registration. Whereas the park stickers are only for certain lakes. If you go to those lakes you can pay a fee at the lake. Plus the AIS sticker is calendar year while the boat fee is 365 days. What kind of idiocy is that? The end result is a lot of people won’t have the AIS sticker, thus depriving the state of revenue and making for a lot of enforcement actions.