53 



Mr. Vento. Well, in this case, in other words, there is no history 

 of having actually attempted to, in fact, bring action against the 

 landowner, even though they have given permission to hunt on the 

 land and may have, in fact, been directly responsible for habitat 

 manipulation, adding foods and grains and so forth in this case. 



Mr. Streeter. To my knowledge, yes, sir, but I would like to call 

 on Mr. Halcomb to respond to that too, sir. 



Mr. Vento. Yes, Mr. Halcomb? 



Mr. Halcomb. Yes, Mr. Vento, let me answer first your question 

 in a broader perspective and then specifically with relation to Mr. 

 Sanchez, the owner of the field in question. 



First of all, sir. Fish and Wildlife law enforcement, as a special 

 agent, we do attempt to find out who put the bait on the field. That 

 is our primary objective. We want the person who in fact commit- 

 ted or caused the baiting violation to be cited. If they hunt on the 

 field itself, they will be cited for baiting. We also would cite them 

 for aiding and abetting baiting or placing bait on an area and then 

 having other innocent hunters or other hunters come into that area 

 and hunt. 



Mr. Vento. If it is an absentee landlord, and someone has man- 

 agement responsibility, then they would be involved on that par- 

 ticular basis; is that correct? 



Mr. Halcomb. Yes, sir. We want the person who put it on the 

 field. It may not be the landowner; it may be a manager; it may 

 be a neighbor; it may be one of the hunters themselves. And that 

 is the problem or one of the concerns that I would have with trying 

 to establish the landowner as the primary individual who would be 

 charged or subject to any charges because of the intent. How do we 

 prove what that person intended? 



Mr. Vento. Well, I guess that is a problem. But obviously, if they 

 had given permission and had promoted this, obviously, there may 

 be money involved. Obviously, none of this affects any artificial 

 game farms or anything; is that correct? In other words, if they are 

 not dealing with a game farm — can you actually have a game farm 

 with, I do not really know the answer to this question, with ducks 

 or geese? Not with migratory waterfowl on them. If they are sta- 

 tionary, it does not affect them. For instance, I know they have 

 various ranches to hunt pheasants and so forth. But there is a spe- 

 cial case for them; is that correct? 



Let me ask another question, and you can answer that for the 

 record. How frequent is this baiting, this particular charge? We 

 have this incident in Florida which has received a lot of intention. 

 There is another incident that is being talked about in Illinois. But 

 how frequent is it? This policy has been the policy, as I read from 

 Mr. Streeter's testimony, for 60 years. In other words, this is not 

 a new policy. It has been a regulation. It may be new to the treaty, 

 but how many violations of this are there in a year? It is being por- 

 trayed here as a very common problem. We are having discussions 

 here about changing the law to modify it because there is so much 

 misunderstanding about it. And so then, if that is the case, then 

 I expect that there would be many, many instances and violations 

 of this particular law. And so, do you have any numbers for any 

 recent year as to how many violations of this actually occur in a 

 State or region or nationwide? 



