The Report All Poachers program serves as extra eyes for Game and Fish wardens; auction coming up

NORTH DAKOTA (KFYR) – The Report All Poachers (RAP) program was started in 1983 in North Dakota, and it was designed so there would be a lot more eyes and ears on the landscape to help game wardens with hunting and fishing violations.

“The RAP program is a co-operation between Game and Fish and the North Dakota Wildlife Federation set by the legislature that the North Dakota Wildlife Federation would manage kind of the books for the program, manage the publicity, and then work with Game and Fish, with their wardens on the items that get confiscated,” said John Bradley with the North Dakota Wildlife Federation.

Game wardens do a fantastic job protecting North Dakota’s natural resources, but it’s a big state to cover with a limited number of wardens, and that’s where the RAP program comes in.

“It’s a pretty simple way where if you’re in the field and you see a violation, you can call to that RAP number,” said Bradley.

The RAP number is 701-328-9921, and it receives around 100 calls per year from people reporting hunting or fishing violations.

Every four or five years, when there are enough items that have been confiscated from hunting and fishing violations, the North Dakota Wildlife Federation holds an auction.

“The Report All Poachers Program has an auction of mainly guns, archery equipment, fishing equipment, coolers, tree stands, kind of anything that might have been confiscated during a wildlife or fishing crime. Those items get auctioned off. It’s a public auction, and that money goes to support the Report All Poachers program,” said Bradley.

There will be a RAP auction this year on August 19 in Bismarck at the Capital Ice Schaumberg Arena.

“The guns will be available for an online auction that will open up about a week beforehand. All the information that you need to get to the event, to see the items that will be there is available at the North Dakota Wildlife website,” said Bradley.

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