Quote Originally Posted by mfrey View Post
It's been a very long and tiring road but we've finally overcome a lot of the inexplicable prejudice within the DNR echelons.
Interesting that you mention this. It has been a topic of discussion concerning its affects here in Wyoming. I have been getting word about LE in both Utah and Wyoming drastically affecting a fellow falconer's life in a vicious unwarrented attack with a potential outcome of jail time. He has told me that when he was a minor in Utah, that he had a falconry permit and that the game dept LE invited themselves into his mothers home and started going through the computer. When she arrived home, she ordered them out and sued the dept and won. He says that when he moved to Wyoming years later, that LE in Utah and Wyoming were in contact and that is when the trouble began in Wy. With denied permits, clerical errors, and conveniently lost evidence, within the Wyoming dept., a Warden knowingly falsely charged him with unlawful posession of his birds. Intra dept emails implicate at least 3 dept personnel, all in LE.

One question, begging to be answered is: Why is LE within the dept directed to handle Falconry Permitting instead of the Permitting Office itself. Another queston is: Why are some permits issued 'at the descresion of' LE and not on the basis of 'under regulation'...that is, a qualified person applys for a permit in an official way and the permit is issued under law?

Some falconers here in Wy. seem content to sell this man down the river, saying that they don't trust him, he has never been one of us, he didn't join the state club upon arrival, ect. Others are concerned about a rewrite of the falconry regs to make them a little more even handed.

http://www.nafex.net/showthread.php?t=17151