Michigan students learn to investigate poaching

DEAD DEER AND SMALL FISH
Northern Michigan University students examine a fake deer carcass loaded in the back of a hunter’s truck. Students in the university’s Conservation Law Enforcement program investigate several mock crime scenes to learn how to investigate environmental crimes. JEREMY SERGEY
Northern Michigan University students examine a fake deer carcass loaded in the back of a hunter’s truck. Students in the university’s Conservation Law Enforcement program investigate several mock crime scenes to learn how to investigate environmental crimes. JEREMY SERGEY

LANSING

As a group of Northern Michigan University students huddled around the carcass of a northern pike supposedly caught earlier that day, they knew something was wrong: The fish was far too small.

Michigan law requires anglers to release northern pike if they’re less than 24 inches long in an attempt to protect fish before they mature and can reproduce.

The students approached an angler standing …