Wyoming Wildlife Forensics Expert Reflects on 35-Year Career

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's wildlife forensics lab is retiring.

Dee Dee Hawk plans to spend more time with her family, working in a family business and hunting pheasant.

She helped to solve many mysteries involving wildlife over her 35-year career.

Hawk tells the Billings Gazette one of her favorite cases involved elk poaching.

The poachers called a warden after shooting a black bear that tried to eat the elk.

Investigators got a tip the elk was killed illegally.

They linked the men to the kill site using elk DNA taken from the dead bear's claws.

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