GAME LAW ENFORCEMENT 223 



owing no doubt to their interest in a common undertaking. 

 Such lack of cooperation as there is comes not from the 

 absence of a desire to cooperate but rather from the lack 

 of organization to that end and from the absence of legis- 

 lative authorization. 



Cases of extradition under the game laws are compara- 

 tively rare, possibly because violations of such laws are 

 usually misdemeanors and because of lack of attempt on 

 the part of game conservation officials. 7 A great effort 

 should be made by state enforcement agencies to arrest 

 game-law violators even after they have crossed the state 

 borders. 



The most usual form that state cooperation takes so far 

 as enforcement goes is to authorize wardens of neighbor- 

 ing states to act as wardens within the state. This provision 

 is of great value along the border areas between states. 



Federal Cooperation in Law Enforcement: Fortunately 

 the federal and state law-enforcing officials work in equally 

 close cooperation. The skeleton warden force maintained 

 by the federal government, numbering in all 27 men scat- 

 tered over the entire country, does not permit any great 

 amount of patrol work by that force. They are more in- 

 clined to contact the state wardens, many of whom are 

 deputized to act as federal wardens and to intervene only 

 when state laws do not cover a particular act or when they 

 believe that a prosecution in the federal courts will be more 

 successful than in the state courts. 



An excellent example of cooperation between federal and 

 state officers is found in a recent Illinois case. There the 

 United States protector had been given information that a 

 certain group of men were engaged in hunting ducks for 



7 No cases of extradition in recent years have come to the writer's 

 attention but a number of instances are cited in Williams, R. W., Game 

 Commissions and Wardens (Government Printing Office, 1907), p. 51. 



