Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 3, 1995                   TAG: 9503030095
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LEESBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

DNA TESTING AIMED AT DEER POACHERS

Two 19-year-old Loudoun County men pleaded guilty last week to various hunting offenses after investigators matched the DNA of a white-tailed deer found in the men's pickup truck with blood found on a private farm south of Lovettsville.

The men originally had claimed that they legally shot the deer at a different time and location. But they changed their story after being confronted with the DNA results, said Game Warden Bruce Lemmert.

``All we need is one drop of blood, and we can make a match,'' Lemmert said. ``It's a relatively new process that should have dramatically positive repercussions for wildlife law enforcement.''

Often, said Lemmert, the only clues that an animal was killed in a restricted area are a few feathers or drops of blood on the ground - evidence that had been virtually useless until recently.

In the November incident, though, Lemmert said he knew he was in luck. His two primary pieces of evidence were a still-warm deer in the men's truck and a patch of blood on the ground.

The men, Michael W. Jacobs of Lovettesville and Michael C. Osman of Paeonian Springs, were accused of spotlighting - shooting deer at night with the aid of lights - and doing so on private property. Osman was fined $1,000. Jacobs, who admitted firing the rifle, was fined $1,750.

At the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Ore., the blood samples went through a tissue-typing process that is nearly identical to that performed on human blood, said Wayne Ferguson, chief of serology at the lab.