January 31, 2006

Comparing notes after the firearms deer season, agents had lots of good things to say about the new system for checking deer via telephone or computer.

Jefferson City, Missouri - Missouri's new automated system for registering deer and turkey kills gives conservation agents more time to spend checking for violations and a better handle on poachers' activities. That is the consensus that emerged from a recent meeting of agents from around the state.

Each January, regional and district supervisors in the Conservation Department's Protection Division meet to conduct a post-mortem of the recently ended deer season. The meeting allows them to compare notes about how hunters handled regulation changes, special challenges agents faced, and how new regulations affected the job of enforcing game laws.

The agenda for this year's deer-season wrap-up included a discussion of Telecheck. The consensus was positive, with supervisors from all regions reporting that Telecheck gave them much faster and freer access to deer-check records. Instead of having to visit multiple check stations and check written records at each, they had instantaneous access to records from office and laptop computers.

"The information we are getting today from Telecheck is a great addition to what we get from informants," said one agent.

Protection Central Region Supervisor Tom Strother said several of his agents told him Telecheck helped make 2005 the most efficient deer season they have ever worked. He said the violation most often discovered using the Telecheck system involved hunters who killed bucks and checked them as does.

Strother's district includes several counties where hunting regulations prohibited taking antlered deer that did not have at least four points on one side. He said ethical hunters were impressed when agents showed up at their houses to verify that the 6- or 7-point bucks they Telechecked had at least four points on one side. Violators were impressed, too, but not in a positive way.

In the St. Louis region, agents said many of the cases they made using Telecheck involved people shooting a deer and then buying a permit. It was easy for agents to pick up this violation due to short time between purchase and checking.

Protection Division Administrator Dennis Steward said agents who began an investigation based on Telecheck information often uncovered numerous other violations, such as spotlighting, road hunting, illegally taken bucks, over-limits and nonresidents hunting on resident permits. "Folks who are inclined to violate one regulation often violate others," he said.

On the whole, agents said people liked the new deer-checking system, though many hunters were concerned that it would make it easier to kill deer illegally. This didn't seem to be the case, however. One supervisor said an agent spent some time spot-checking deer at a meat-packing house, comparing deer with information that hunters gave when Telechecking their kills. He did not find a single hunter who had abused the system.

Nevertheless, a few unethical hunters did try to take unfair advantage. Many of these poachers failed to understand how quickly agents would be able to check on suspicious records. Strother commented that it was surprising how many hunters bought permits at 4 p.m. but still managed to kill deer before dark.

Agents looked into all those cases. One involved a woman who bought three deer hunting permits and minutes later checked three deer. In another case, a hunter checked five deer on one permit.

Agents generally felt that Telecheck allowed them to make better use of their time. Those in southwest Missouri reported that hunting pressure was down, but arrests were up, thanks to information provided by Telecheck.

"Although conservation agents have become much more confident with the Telecheck system, we all recognize that any checking system can be abused," said Steward. "The old check station system was not perfect, and we all know some violations occurred if a hunter was so inclined. Some folks will try to get away with breaking the law with Telecheck, too."

Steward noted that hunters do not have to check most species of wildlife and fish, but field checks by agents show that most people follow the rules. "Conservation agents are there to investigate those who don't," he said.

One problem that surfaced with Telecheck was that a significant number of hunters did not understand that they needed to put the large portion of their tag on deer after Telechecking them. Taking into account that the procedure is still unfamiliar to hunters, agents only wrote citations where they believed there was clear intent to break the law.

Another problem involved the automated voice-recognition system used for the telephone portion of the Telecheck system. Some hunters could not complete the process because of poor connections. Others found that the system did not recognize their pronunciation of certain county names, such as De Kalb.

The Conservation Department had anticipated such problems and maintained a Telecheck Help Center staffed by department employees during Telecheck hours throughout the firearms deer season. Any hunter who had difficulty with the voice-recognition system immediately had a live person on the line to help them finish checking their deer.

"We made sure we had enough volunteer operators on hand so no one ever had to wait on hold after hitting a glitch in the system," said Doug Young, technology chief for the Conservation Department in Jefferson City. "Several people commented on that. They were surprised when they didn't have to wait for service."

Young said his office is working to fine-tune the system so it works even better in the 2006 hunting season.

"Telecheck isn't a success if it isn't easy for hunters to use," he said. "Top-quality customer service is absolutely critical if this is going to be an effective, efficient part of the agency's deer-management program."

-Jim Low-