On Friday November 9. 2001. the day before the sheep season opened in the area surrounding Las Vegas, I was accompanying a hunting companion on his sheep hunt and was doing some preseason scouting. It was about dark as we came over Sandy Valley Pass in Clark County. We pulled off the road where there were several vehicles with red lights flashing.

"Meanwhile, all this time the animal is gasping for air and suffering."

I questioned the game warden who was at the scene whose name is Roddy Shepard asking him what he was going to do. He said he didn't know but loaded his shotgun up with 00 buck and told everyone to step aside and move all the trucks down range which we did. He did not want (was afraid) to pull the trigger because he didn't know what might happen. 1 told him that a shotgun would make a big mess and ruin a very valuable sheep cape which would probably be worth $2000 at NDOW's auction.

In his official report, Roddy Shepard wrote that no rifle was available. This is absolutely untrue as he knew my group was composed of hunters with rifles! I suggested they use a pistol with a single shot behind the head. I was told by the Metro officer and the game warden that they didn't want to dirty their firearm and have to make a discharge of weapons report.

1 then offered to the game warden that we would stop the unnecessary suffering of this animal and would kill it and tag it and we would then keep the cape. He refused saying we could kill the animal but we would not be allowed to keep any parts of it. I then told the game warden he should take care of the animal and get it disposed of humanely. lie said he had no means to transport a dead sheep as his Bronco was clean in the rear compartment and he didn't want to put it in his vehicle and get it bloody. Meanwhile, all this time the animal is gasping for air and suffering..

A couple of chukar hunters from Arizona jumped on the sheep and tried to strangle it, causing more suffering. This did not work and the game warden had no idea of how to put this animal out of his misery. They then jumped on the animal again with a large knife to slit his throat. This is not a fast death or a humane way to dispose of an animal. 1 told them and the game warden again that they were wasting a valuable cape but the game warden just did not care and was at a loss on how to proceed. The Arizona hunter slit the animal's throat and bled him to death because the game warden obviously had no training on what to do and said that he had never fired his shotgun before.

What a fiasco.. Metro wanted to leave and wash their hands of the whole mess but the game warden argued that they were the primary investigators and couldn't leave the scene. They argued back and forth for a while as the animal continue to suffer. Everyone was just standing around not knowing what to do.

In his report, the game warden said he did not want to load the dead animal in his Bronco truck because he considered it a biohazard. This is a farce. Apparently all of the sheep hunters must be in extreme danger with this kind of stupidity. If our game animals are a biohazard, Nevada Division of Wildlife is extremely liable in damages done to all hunters from game animals killed in the state. Do they know something they are not telling us? The game warden would not touch it! Also in the report, the supervising warden, David Pfiffner authorized taking the whole carcass to a pit at Lake Mead and just

burying it. What a waste of a trophy animal!

In my opinion, failure to dispose of a wounded animal properly is cruelty.

A double standard continues to exist at NDOW.

Let's look as if a hunter did the following:

• Allowed a wounded animal to be in severe pain for over two hours.

• Wanton waste of one of the most coveted game animals in the state.

• Waste of a cape that possibly could

bring $2000 or so into NDOW's fund at their auction.

• Wanton waste of meat from a complete animal.

Nevada Revised Statutes states that sportsmen will be cited for this and severely fined or penalized.. Game wardens go through butcher shops inspecting carcasses that were spoiled so they can issue citations. If a hunter wastes a few pounds of meat, they will be issued a citation by a warden, yet NDOW can waste a whole animal and nothing happens to them.

Now I ask:

• Is this just another cover-up by NDOW?

• Was anyone reprimanded for

disciplined over this?

• In the private sector, employees could be terminated for less.

• Is this the way Administrator Crawforth trained his people?

• Remember the head of NDOW Terry Crawforth's background is in law enforcement. You would think law enforcement would be a fine tuned part of NDOW, especially when 20% of their employees are game wardens and $2 million is spent on law enforcement every year.

• Show us the training NDOW personnel have to handle these types of situations as surely they must often come upon wounded animals such as deer on our highways. Or is the training lacking or inadequate?

An ethical hunter would not think of such a thing as leaving an animal suffering in a stressed and wounded condition as this animal obviously was. Waste of a game animal is a direct violation of Nevada Law. Were any citations issued? There would be if this had been a hunter.

Any sportsmen's groups who profess to be conservationists and protectors of Nevada's hunting rights should be alarmed and take action to make the Wildlife Commission and Nevada Division of Wildlife answer these difficult questions.

We as sportsmen have an ethical and moral duty to challenge this travesty.

By Gerald Lent, President Nevada Hunters Association