GAME WARDENS

A Texas Parks and Wildlife Department drone program is helping local Texas law enforcement officers locate crime suspects and lost citizens.

State officials at first declined to name the restaurant involved in the criminal probe.

Holidays are active times for state game wardens and this past Labor Day weekend was not an exception. Statewide, wardens were out in force, logging 2,110 patrol hours of mostly water safety compliance checks. Game wardens performed a search and rescue for a five-year-old boy who was found within 10 minutes. In addition, game wardens recovered a stolen personal watercraft and a vehicle reported stolen in April 2020. Game wardens also seized a rifle connected to a deadly conduct and tampering with evidence case in El Paso County.

Students watched as police loaded the tortoises, one by one.

Texas Game Wardens made 13 arrests and wrote 781 citations and warnings over the Labor Day weekend, officials say. “We had 354 Texas Game Wardens on patrol and they made contact with at least 3,770 vessels on the water, confirming everyone aboard was equipped with life vests, children were supervised, and boats followed state law,” Jones added. The increased patrols were partnered with boater education outreach programs, and TPWD officials said it helped deliver a 43-percent decrease in boating-related accidents and a 50-percent decrease in open water drownings compared to last year. “For me, the numbers are an indicator that what we are doing is working,” Jones said. “Continuing to partner in communities across Texas, educating boaters while also supporting our wardens in the field with state-of-the-art equipment, new technology and sophisticated training, all pushes us to our goal of zero fatalities and zero boating accidents.”[email protected]

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - Texas Game Wardens pulled 133 sharks, rays and fish out of an illegal fishing net off the coast of South Padre Island last week. The United States Coast Guard Station South Padre Island called the TGW to report illegal fishing gear near the Boca Chica shoreline. 7-foot, 7-inch long shark caught off beach in Corpus ChristiWardens with the Maritime Tactical Operations Group pulled 3,000 feet of unattended illegal gill net out of the water along with six different species that had been caught in the net, including:1 Spotted Eagle Ray12 Atlantic Sharpnose Sharks7 Bonnethead Sharks19 Hammerhead Sharks27 Cow Nose Rays67 menhadenThe exact date of the find is unclear but photos of some of the wildlife and the net were posted to the TGW Facebook page on Friday. 10-foot tiger shark caught at Padre Island National SeashoreSuspects have not yet been identified. Copyright 2019 by KSAT - All rights reserved.