JACKSON - Dog owners and law enforcement officials alike scrambled Tuesday as suspicious activity up Jackson's most popular recreation trail triggered fears that poisoned baits might dot the area.

Two Forest Service volunteers saw a man wearing rubber gloves and carrying an empty container coming out of a wooded area near the popular Cache Creek trailhead just before noon, according to Jay Anderson, spokesman for the Bridger-Teton National Forest that manages the area.

"They both thought it was odd that he was wearing these elbow-length green rubber gloves," Anderson said. "The kind you use for cleaning a solvent tank. They were pretty heavy-duty industrial gloves."

He said the volunteers got close enough to see that the man was also carrying Mountain Dew bottle with a brown liquid in it.

"His reaction to being seen was like a deer in the headlights," Anderson said, recounting the volunteers account of the incident. "Both of them agreed he was acting pretty suspicious."

The man went to his car, which reportedly has Indiana plates and sat while the volunteers called to report the incident, then he left, according to Anderson.

Sheriff's officers declined to release a description of the car or license plates.

A spate of dog poisonings has had dog walkers in the Jackson area on alert since before the snow melted.

There have been 27 dogs sickened or killed from poison baits - hot dogs or meats filled with Temik, an insecticide - since March. Three poisoned baits were found in the Town of Jackson last month.

On Tuesday, three police units responded and a sheriff's deputy came to the scene.

A local Cache Creek dog walker sent out an e-mail warning people in town about the suspicious activity.

Teton County Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Hill said he responded to the area and checked the trailhead area for "anything out of the ordinary or suspicious and nothing was found."

Hill said he searched the area for about an hour along with two others, and the team looked for "anything suspicious that may or may not pertain to dog poisonings."

He said they looked on and off the trail. Hill spent 13 years in the military and said he has "an idea about tracking." Footprints, trampled grass and other clues may show investigators where people may have walked, he said.

"It's not easy to find something about the size of a quarter," Hill said.

Both Anderson and Hill cautioned that the man could have been doing many things on the trail, and people should not assume the worst.

The e-mail was sent around to Cache Creek users at about 1 p.m., and by 2 p.m. many people in the community knew about the incident. At 3 p.m., people were still using Cache Creek and there were no law enforcement officers in the area. There were also no signs posted in the area about Tuesday's incident.

There are signs at nearly every trailhead in town warning about the dog poisonings, which have plagued dog owners and community members since March when several dogs in the Buffalo Valley died.

Anderson said the existing signs, combined with Tuesday's suspicious activity, should remind dog owners to be especially vigilant on area trails. A group of local volunteers was organizing Tuesday night to scour the area.