Discovering 26 of the birds shot dead and tucked into bushes on a hillside, Weslach grew disgusted as he worked what in effect was a crime scene, photographing the position of the birds, measuring tire tracks and taking the internal temperature to determine roughly when they were killed.
"These are the kind of guys you would like to take to jail," he said, stuffing the birds, frozen stiff in the 20-degree chill, into a bag.
But it was also clear hunters were not accustomed to seeing Maslach or other wardens. Several said they had never had their hunting documents checked or it had been years since they had.
In 35 years of hunting in Nevada, Fred Perdomo, who was legally tracking an elk this weekend, said he had encountered a game warden only twice — 12 years ago and this month. "I heard about the poachings and could not believe it," he said. "It just doesn't make much sense."
Maslach checked his papers and then Perdomo set off down a ridge toward a stand of trees where an elk waited.
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