The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has launched an investigation into a mule deer found dead in Southwest Lubbock.

Game Warden Aaron Sims said TPWD received a call from the property owner, who said that the deer was discovered dismembered in plastic bags alongside the road off Quaker and County Road 7500.

“The hindquarters were taken, the back straps were taken, and the rest of the carcass was just left on the side of the road,” Sims said.

He said this situation was the third case of illegal poaching in the area in a two-month period.

“It really is a needle in a haystack, and we rely on eyewitnesses and landowners to let us know ‘You know what, there was a suspicious vehicle a couple days ago in that area driving the roads real slowly,’ we’ll follow up on those leads,” Sims said.

“We really have to rely on our investigative skills because deer don’t talk. And there’s not a lot of Wardens around in the state of Texas. We’ll follow up on every lead we can, and we will actually pick up patrol in this specific area to make sure this does not occur again,” Sims said.

“Game Wardens are both the detectives and the field officers, throughout the State of Texas,” he added. “Often times when we come up on a situation where a deer has been poached and been dumped on the side of the road, you’d be surprised what people leave along with that trash. Sometimes it’s a receipt that they forgot that’s in the same bag, it could be shell casings, it could be other items we will take and get fingerprints off of.”

Sims explained that the investigation into the dead mule deer was in its beginning stages.

“Right now, we’re ground zero. We’re step one in the investigation. We have an incident, we have a rough time, but we have no tips at this time. We know the warden was able to gather evidence on the scene, as far as the animal itself, we may have a pattern here, it’s in the same area as the last two incidents that occurred in the past couple of months,” he said.

“Somebody knows something of what’s going on out there but right now we’re basically at step one, we need some information to come in, and we need some people to let us know if something suspicious is going on in that area,” Sims said.

Mule deer are only allowed to be harvested nine days out of the year, according to Sims, generally a period in November.

“Any time you get hunting pressure outside of that nine days, it really, dramatically affects that population in a negative way,” he explained. “It’s very important that people abide by these game laws because we want to be able to preserve these animals for future generations to hunt.”

Sims said depending on the outcome of the investigation, the penalties range from a state felony offense for hunting without consent, to several misdemeanor charges, to potential loss of license, and possible fines.

TWPD has an anonymous tip line for people who believe a violation has been witnessed. Calls to “Operation Game Thief” can be made by dialing 800-792-4263.