2011 Shikar-Safari Honor Goes to Washington County Officer Jeff Prater

NASHVILLE --- Jeff Prater, of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, has been honored by the Shikar–Safari Club International as its 2011 Tennessee Wildlife Law Enforcement Officer of the Year.

 

Prater serves TWRA as a wildlife officer in Washington County. Shikar-Safari representative Jim Maddox made the presentation at the December meeting of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission in Nashville.

 

The annual award from the conservation-based organization honors the officer whose efforts during the year display outstanding performance and achievement among TWRA law enforcement personnel. Prater joins a distinguished group of officers nationwide who have achieved recognition because of their outstanding performance and dedication to duty.

 

Public outreach is also an integral criteria for the award. Prater routinely conducts various programs for schools, civic and sportsman groups. He assists with the annual “Shop with a Cop” event to help children during the holidays. He spent numerous hours volunteering with recovery efforts after tornadoes struck his county.

 

Prater has been a leader in his district in developing new techniques to location potential wildlife regulation violators. He developed a system to take electronic harvest information and compare the harvest data to the state’s GIS property owner’s database. He has trained other officers

 

Shikar-Safari Club International was founded in 1952 for the purpose of advancing knowledge concerning wildlife of the world, independently and in cooperation with zoological societies, universities and museums. Each year, the club sponsors an award for the Wildlife Officer of the Year in all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces.

---TWRA---

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