Game wardens feel they're under the gun By Matt Weiser -- Bee Staff Writer
Even as evidence of poaching piles up, the state Department of Fish and Game has trouble recruiting and retaining officers because of budget woes and low pay
The game warden: an endangered species By James A. Swan, Ph.D.
Author of "In Defense of Hunting"
The "thin green line" that defends fish and wildlife is underfunded and
largely unheralded, and nowhere is this more evident than in California
Calif. launches offensive against black-market trade in abalone, sturgeon
Four Game Wardens Receive Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Medal of Valor
Four wardens with the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) were awarded the state’s top award for heroism on Tuesday. The stories of Gov. Schwarzenegger's four DFG Medal of Valor recipients illustrate that on a daily basis, DFG wardens place their lives in jeopardy in what is all too often called "routine patrol."
“Any contact, at any moment, can turn into a threat on the life of the warden or innocent bystander,” said DFG Chief of Law Enforcement, Nancy Foley. “We are proud of these four wardens chosen by the Governor for their heroic efforts.”
It is often a surprise to people how dangerous a game warden’s job is. Wardens are peace officers with the State of California. They routinely confront felons on their own and back up allied agencies. Wardens made law enforcement contact with over 390,000 members of the public in 2006 and wrote over 15,000 citations. A majority of the people contacted were lawfully armed with a gun and/or knife. Wardens maintain intensive training regimens as a result to do their jobs as safe as possible. Each of the stories below indicates a day when the warden set out on “routine patrol.”
Warden James Jones
On Dec. 3, 2003, Fish and Game Warden James Jones, of Fairfield, assisted The California Highway Patrol (CHP) in the pursuit of a fleeing suspect and ultimately prevented serious injury to a CHP Officer.
While on patrol in Cordelia, Jones heard the sirens of a CHP motorcycle officer in pursuit of a suspect who would not yield to his lights and siren. Jones joined the pursuit as it passed his location. During the chase, the female suspect hit another vehicle and put her vehicle in reverse in an attempt to hit the officer. Because the CHP officer was on a motorcycle, and was more vulnerable to a collision, the warden led the pursuit. The suspect drove down a dead end county lane and stopped in a long private driveway. As she attempted to turn the vehicle around, Jones positioned his vehicle to block the escape. Jones and the CHP officer approached the suspect’s vehicle, and she again attempted to flee, driving her vehicle directly toward the CHP officer. Jones ordered the suspect to stop. When she ignored the commands, Jones fired two rounds hitting her in the upper arm and she finally stopped.
Jones’ ability to quickly assess the situation and take action that saved the CHP officer from injury or death helped bring a dangerous situation under control.
Lt. John Nores and Warden Adam Kavanagh
On Aug. 5, 2005, Warden Adam Kavanagh, of Placerville, and Patrol Lt. John Nores, Los Gatos, risked their personal safety in order to save the life of a fellow game warden who had been shot.
At approximately 7:15 a.m., a team of law enforcement officers from DFG and the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Unit went into the mountains west of Los Gatos in Santa Clara County on an early morning marijuana eradication detail. DFG officers with the marijuana eradication detail included Nores, Kavanagh, and Warden Kyle Kroll.
The team hiked several miles to reach the marijuana plantation. As they moved into the area, at least two growers ambushed the team, shooting Kroll through both legs. Kroll fell to the ground, and Nores returned fire and positioned himself between Kroll and the growers in an attempt to protect his fellow warden from being shot again. Sheriff’s deputies also returned fire and later discovered they had shot and killed one of the growers.
After the initial firefight, the team was unable to locate any other growers due to dense brush. They immediately set up a defensive perimeter, and Nores assessed Kroll’s injuries and administered first aid. The gunshot wounds to Kroll’s legs were bleeding profusely so Nores applied direct pressure, covered, and tied-off both leg wounds. The team held on and radioed their situation to dispatch.
The rescue helicopter crew could not land for more than two hours until the hillside was secured from the possible sniper fire from the still unknown location of the armed growers. The wardens maintained a perimeter as Nores continued to apply first aid and monitor Kroll for vital signs. Kavanagh volunteered to break cover to cut a landing pad in the dense vegetation for the helicopter, making him a possible target for the armed growers. With a landing pad established, the rescue helicopter lowered a medic and basket to safely rescue the injured warden.
Due to the efforts of his fellow wardens, Nores and Kavanagh, Kroll survived, recovered, and ultimately returned to full duty.
Warden Frank Milazzo
On Dec. 6, 2006, Warden Frank D. Milazzo, Mariposa County, risked his personal safety to help apprehend a suicidal man.
Milazzo was on patrol near Coulterville when he overheard radio traffic from the Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office was sending an officer in response to an armed, possibly suicidal, man who was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Milazzo responded to the remote foothill location to assist. On scene, they were confronted by a man waving a loaded revolver. The man threatened to kill himself and then wanted the officers to kill him, and proceeded to point the weapon in the direction of the officers. Milazzo talked to the suspect, and encouraged him to surrender his weapon. In order to keep talking to the suspect, Milazzo was forced to move towards him, occasionally exposing himself to potential gunfire. He kept the man talking for 35 minutes before additional backup units arrived. When additional deputies arrived, they were able to subdue the man.
Game Warden Shortage About to Get Worse Tom Stienstra - San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, September 23, 2007
California's overwhelmed force of game wardens, only 200 strong in the field, will lose about 120 of its most experienced officers to retirement in the next three years, plus others who leave for higher-paying jobs.
"We face 40 percent retirement rate over the next three years," confirmed Nancy Foley, Chief of Law Enforcement for the Department of Fish and Game.
"It's tragic," Foley said. "I'll try to lure some of them back until we can fill the gaps. It's really a huge concern, the amount of memory and expertise that we're going to lose is really staggering."
In the meantime, teams of game wardens in special operations are still orchestrating landmark crackdowns, and a new recruitment scheme is in effect. But routine patrol surveillance common in other states has not existed for several years in California, said former DFG Director Ryan Broddrick before he departed last month.
California already has the lowest rate of game wardens in America, about 1 per 185,000 residents. Foley confirmed that entire counties often do not have a single game warden available to enforce laws that protect fish, wildlife, birds, streams, lakes and wildlife habitat.
"It happens all the time," Foley said. "If we have directed enforcement patrol, like for the duck opener, the dove opener, entire areas are left vacant (because game wardens from different areas will form teams to enforce laws in hot spots)."
I've seen this problem first hand many times. On the week of the duck opener in October for the Klamath Basin, for instance, I noticed that no game wardens were available to respond to on-the-spot tips to the DFG hot line that reported dozens of poachers from shore were snagging giant salmon at the Sand Hole on the Smith River. It went on for days.
The next exodus of game wardens will start in December. Some of those set to leave are legends in the game warden field, such as Dave Bezzone, John Dawson, Jake Bushey and Karen Maurer.
Bezzone is the only game warden to win the Outdoor Californian of the Year. He went under cover, worked hundreds of hours of overtime for free, and then busted the first felony abalone poaching ring in history with ties from the Bay Area to Los Angeles. Dawson, a colorful figure involved in dozens of amazing cases, worked under cover to break a bear poaching ring that he proved was linked to L.A. and Asia. Bushey, whose father and grandfather were wardens, is a former Game Warden of the Year who made a series of arrests in elk poaching cases that required months of police work and surveillance. Maurer is recognized across the board by other game wardens as one of the state's pre-eminent wildlife detectives.
In the midst of their work as game wardens, each had their life threatened by suspects. Instead of opting out and taking higher paying jobs, such as with the highway patrol or as a county sheriff, they instead transferred to new locations where they have handled additional well known cases to protect fish and wildlife.
"They will be missed terribly," Foley said. "We have to figure out how to grow past this. After December it's going to be a lot different."
Foley said a program will be developed in which new game wardens will be mentored. "We'll match experienced game wardens with newer recruits," she said. "We'll try to give them a hand on what's happening in our environment."
In order to try and provide at least one game warden for each of the state's 58 counties, she said that "game wardens will be moving around the state on a daily basis."
In the meantime, only the legislature and governor's office can provide funding to increase the number of game wardens in the field. In the past five years, every attempt to accomplish that has been rejected.
"The environment is at risk," Foley said.
"The Great Outdoors With Tom Stienstra" airs Sundays at 10 a.m. on Channel 31 in Sacramento.
Game warden facts
Time warp: About 200 game wardens are in the field in California to patrol 37 million residents. That is the same number of game wardens as there were in the 1950s to patrol about 15 million residents.
State discrepancy: Florida has about 750 wardens, nearly four times that in California.
Pay discrepancy: Jake Bushey Sr. is a third generation game warden and former Game Warden of the Year. His son, Jake Bushey Jr., joined the California Highway Patrol instead of the DFG and after four years makes about $30,000 more per year than dad.
Expertise: Game wardens traditionally catch those who are hunting or fishing illegally. In recent years, the legislature and governor have also mandated that game wardens respond to oil spills, water contamination, wildlife smuggling and animal attacks.
Requirements: Game warden applicants need 60 college units, 18 in law enforcement, and must complete an eight-week academy to become versed in the Fish and Game Code, regulations, policies and procedures, fish and wildlife issues, tactics and the use of multiple firearms.
Recruiting: To apply for the next DFG game warden academy, applications must be in mail by Friday. Current peace officers who want to transfer to the DFG receive priority. Information and applications are available at dfg.ca.gov/enforcement <http://dfg.ca.gov/enforcement>.
Poacher hot line: Game wardens must often rely on the public to report illegal activity at the toll-free poacher hot line: 1-888-334-2258.
Pot farm shooting: justified
Butte County officials find that warden fired in self-defense in the
killing of 39-year-old Bartyn Pitts of Dana Point.
By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ
The Orange County Register
The shooting of a Dana Point man by a warden of the California
Department of Fish and Game was deemed a justifiable homicide by
Butte County officials today, after the conclusion of a weeklong
investigation.
Officials found that the warden, a 10-year veteran, fired in self-
defense Oct. 8 when he shot and killed 39-year-old Bartyn Pitts in
Jarbo Gap, a remote area in the Sierra Nevada foothills.
Pitts was shot three times in the shootout when the warden tried to
take him into custody for an outstanding warrant, said Butte County
District Attorney Mike Ramsey.
Pitts fired at the warden with a 12-gauge shotgun. The warden was
not hit and returned fire.
According to testimony received from the warden, identified as
Joshua Brennan, and a witness, Matthew McQuaid, Pitts was shot but
continued to move on all fours toward the shotgun. Brennan yelled at
Pitts to drop the weapon and fired when Pitts failed to comply,
Ramsey said.
Brennan was put on administrative leave after the shooting but
returned to work today, Ramsey said.
The investigation was conducted by the Butte County Officer Involved
Shooting Critical Incident Protocol Team, which is composed of
officials from several Butte County law enforcement agencies.
Pitts, who had previous addresses in Dana Point and Hilo, Hawaii,
was living in the area working as a caretaker and proprietor of a
medical marijuana growing collective, Ramsey said.
Brennan, who patrolled the area regularly, knew Pitts from previous
cordial encounters, Ramsey said. On the day of the shooting, he
drove out to Pitts' camp to cite him for an illegal fire he had
spotted two days earlier.
The citation occurred without incident, according to both Brennan
and McQuaid. In their testimony, both said Pitts was calm and even
talked to Brennan about how he once considered becoming a warden
himself.
The warden left the area after issuing the citation and radioed in
Pitts' information. That's when he found Pitts was wanted in Hawaii
on a $50,000 methamphetamine distribution warrant, Ramsey said.
Brennan returned to the campsite and told Pitts he was under arrest. Pitts then became agitated and said he needed a drink and a
cigarette before being arrested, Ramsey said.
According to testimony from Brennand and McQuaid, this is what
happened next:
Pitts ignored Brennan's orders that he was under arrest and drank
juice as he walked in circles. He then walked inside a nearby motor
home.
Brennan took out his service firearm.
Five seconds later, Pitts walked out with a shotgun.
McQuaid told authorities he then jumped out of the truck and didn't
see the weapons being fired. He did, however, hear the shotgun being
fired and then the warden returning fire.
The warden ordered McQuaid to come out from behind the truck and
told him to lie on the ground.
McQuaid said he then saw Pitts moving toward the shotgun despite
being injured. Brennan yelled at him to drop the gun and fired twice
when Pitts did not comply.
Brennan told investigators he didn't remember Pitts firing the
shotgun - only the sight of the shotgun's barrel pointing directly
at him 53 feet away before he opened fire. Pitts was shot once in the left side of his neck, on his left wrist,
and his torso, Ramsey said.
Acquaintances and family said Pitts was suffering from mental
problems, including bipolar disorder, Ramsey said. An anti-anxiety
medication in Pitts' name was also found in the motor home.
This was the third time in the agency's history that a suspect was
killed by a warden. The last incident occurred more than 75 years
ago.
Pitts had other run-ins with the law. In 1997 he entered a guilty
plea to possession of a controlled substance.
In September 2003 he faced a student conduct hearing after he
allegedly threatened a teaching assistant after failing a course at
UC Santa Barbara, according to the school newspaper. Two months
before, he was selected to the dean's list during the spring quarter.
Contact the writer: shernandez@ocregister.com <mailto:shernandez%40ocregister.com> or 949-454-7361
A Fou Saechao, 26, sits in a state Fish and Game truck after he was taken into custody on poaching charges during a raid early Friday
State wildlife officials arrested nine Sacramento men Friday on charges of poaching salmon and sturgeon in the Sacramento River and Delta, providing another possible clue about why these species are threatened.
One of the suspects was on probation for similar crimes committed last year.
Wardens from the California Department of Fish and Game said the suspects illegally netted recently spawned chinook salmon as the fish attempted to migrate downstream to the sea. These fish were allegedly used as bait to catch oversize sturgeon, which were then processed illegally for the black-market caviar trade.
State fishing rules allow anglers to keep sturgeon that measure only between 46 and 66 inches long.
In an investigation, officials observed suspects taking two sturgeon 79 and 86 inches long. At that size, the fish are considered among the Delta's oldest and most prolific breeders. A third sturgeon was discovered during the arrests Friday but was cut into too many pieces to measure accurately.
"What poachers are doing is damaging our broodstock," said Warden Steven Stiehr, who patrols the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. "So next year we may see even tougher fishing restrictions."
It was the department's sixth major investigation into sturgeon poaching since 2003. Wardens said the arrests illustrate a problem that is outpacing their enforcement ability. California has only 200 game wardens statewide and the governor's budget for the coming year proposes to eliminate 38 vacant warden positions.
"We are at our wits' end with groups like this who continue to just poach and poach and poach for personal profit," said Warden Patrick Foy. "It's sturgeon in Sacramento, lobster in San Diego. We have too few wardens to slow them down."
Last year's fall chinook salmon run was the second-lowest on record. To protect the species, a total ban on commercial and recreational salmon fishing in California and Oregon is likely later this year, jeopardizing thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic value.
In this case, Stiehr said, the impact is especially troubling because poachers may have handicapped future populations.
Kao Fou Saechao, 27, walks out of his home after being arrested on similar charges. Wardens raided seven homes and arrested nine men on suspicion of poaching Sacramento River and Delta salmon and sturgeon. Hector Amezcua / hamezcua@sacbee.com
The surveillance operation produced enough evidence against the suspects to justify search warrants. In raids that began at 6 a.m. Friday, wardens collected fishing gear, firearms, illegal fireworks and marijuana plants at seven south Sacramento homes.
The nine suspects were booked into the Sacramento County jail. Four face felony charges, because of prior convictions for illegal commercialization of sturgeon, and were being held on $12,000 bail each.
One suspect, Su Fou Saechou, 20, served jail time last year and was on probation for poaching sturgeon, Foy said. His probation terms required him to stay away from the Sacramento River and not possess any fishing gear or sturgeon.
The other three felony arrests included his brothers, Kao Fou Saechao, 27, and A Fou Saechao, 26. The fourth is Pahin Saephan, 25.
The other five were arrested on misdemeanors and are being held on $7,500 bail each: Pao Sio Chiew, 30; Ricky Saechao, 21; Torn Seng Saechao, 22; Cheng Chiew Saechao, 27; and Louchio Saeturn, 26.
Fish and Game warden Steven Stiehr holds a net that was confiscated as evidence during Friday's raids. Hector Amezcua / hamezcua@sacbee.com
Lots of ocean, but few game wardens
Staff shortages, idled boats hinder state's marine watch.
By Matt Weiser - Bee Staff Writer
Published Sunday, August 19, 2007
Aboard the Albacore, a California Department of Fish and Game patrol
boat, the engine room is quiet. Sophisticated electronics at the helm
are dark. The aluminum hull swings languidly in the water, and the
deck and rigging are splattered with dried bird droppings.
The boat has been tied up in port for weeks.
The 65-foot Albacore was designed to be out on the vast Pacific,
protecting wildlife along the California coast. But along with six
other long-range patrol boats in the state's fleet, the Albacore is
idle most of the time because there aren't enough game wardens to run
it.
The boats are the primary defense against overfishing on California's
1,100-mile coast. Federal wildlife agencies don't have their own
boats and the U.S. Coast Guard has other duties. So state game
wardens enforce state and federal fishing rules as far as 200 miles
from shore.
The enforcement void is worrisome because in September, fishing bans
or restrictions begin in 29 new "marine protected areas" covering 200
square miles of Central Coast ocean. California earned praise
worldwide in April for creating the reserves. But it will be a rare
day when law enforcement is on those waters.
"I think the enforcement is wholly inadequate and does threaten the
effectiveness of the marine protected areas," said Fred Keeley, a
former assemblyman from Santa Cruz. He co-wrote the Marine Life
Protection Act that created the reserves.
The boats are supposed to have a full-time, four-member crew: a
lieutenant, two wardens and a maintenance engineer.
But the Marlin, a 58-foot, high-tech catamaran based in Berkeley, is
down one warden. The Coho in Los Angeles is down two. In Ventura, the
Swordfish is down one warden, but no matter: The boat has been laid
up six months with a blown engine.
The Albacore has no full-time crew. If its half-time skipper can
borrow wardens from shore-based patrols, the boat might sail four
days a month.
"We're seeing a lot of new laws and regulations directed to
protecting the marine environment. That's where we need to shift our
enforcement resources to match," said Lt. Bob Farrell, skipper of the
Albacore. "It is ironic and sad that we're missing that piece of the
puzzle."
California's warden force has been crippled statewide by salaries
that have not kept pace with other police agencies. Base pay for a
starting warden is $43,000 a year. That's up more than 25 percent
compared with a year ago, but still 25 percent less than a similarly
experienced California Highway Patrol officer earns. Wardens have
broader police powers and more education requirements.
Many wardens have left the force for higher pay at local police
agencies. There are 47 warden vacancies statewide.
And recruitment has suffered. The department received 429
applications for the training academy session that just concluded,
compared with nearly 1,200 applicants in 1986.
There are 210 game wardens in the field statewide, or one for every
850 square miles of land area. Texas has about 500 wardens, or one
per 500 square miles.
"We simply don't have enough wardens," said Zeke Grader, executive
director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations,
a commercial fishing group. "We just cannot continue to get by on the
cheap with our wildlife resources."
Commercial fishermen have complained about the closures caused by new
protected areas. But most of the reserves remain open to recreational
fishing, and unscrupulous anglers or poachers could still exploit
these areas.
Lt. Eric Kord, skipper of the 58-foot Thresher based in Dana Point,
in Southern California, said recreational anglers have told him that
Mexican boats slip across the border to catch tuna and dorado without
U.S. permits.
Kord has a full warden crew, but he doesn't have an engineer, which
means he handles the boat's maintenance himself -- and the paperwork
that goes with it.
That upkeep is not simple because the Thresher is one of five high-
tech, long-range catamarans in the state fleet, with a complex
aluminum hull and two turbodiesel engines.
The boats in the heart of the new protected areas -- the Steelhead in
Moss Landing and the Bluefin in Morro Bay -- are in similar straits:
They have only part-time engineers.
"I need to be out on the water 40 hours a week instead of chasing
down bills and spending time on maintenance," Kord said.
Last year's state budget included $9 million in ongoing funds for the
new marine protected areas. Part of the money was supposed to pay for
nine new coastal game wardens. But only one is on the job: Capt.
Brian Naslund, the group's supervisor. The others have not been hired.
Meanwhile, the state is poised to designate even more protected areas
on the North Coast, between Pigeon Point and Point Arena. And there's
no money to hire wardens for the new areas.
"As these protected areas are created, enforcement duties increase,"
said Fish and Game spokesman Steve Martarano. "It's a constant
juggling act because it's not only marine but everywhere in the state
that you're trying to fill holes."
Despite the vacancies, Kaitilin Gaffney, Central Coast program
manager at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, said there will be
enough "eyes on the water" to guard the reserves. This includes a
multimillion-dollar monitoring effort in which scientists will study
reserves for several years.
It will be easy for the public and researchers to report lawbreakers,
she said.
"Obviously, that's not a replacement for having wardens on the water,
but it really can be a leg up," Gaffney said.
But a game warden can't respond to a crime report if the patrol boat
is down for repair, or if there is no crew.
Also, Kord said, some regulations require that perpetrators be caught
in the act, so a knock on the door after a witness report may be
useless. And some reserves allow limited fishing, but only wardens
have authority to board and search vessels. So without an enforcement
presence, no one will know if anglers take too many fish.
"Obviously, the more time we have at sea, the better we are able to
protect those offshore marine reserves," Kord said.
Published Thursday, March 20, 2008
Story appeared in Sacramento Bee Scene Section, Page E1
In part because wardens are poorly paid compared with other sworn law enforcement officers in the state, the DFG has trouble recruiting and keeping them. About 60 percent fewer people applied to be wardens in 2006 than in the previous year, and 40 percent of those who enrolled in the last police academy left for other jobs, according to California Fish & Game Wardens Association.
Because of sparse coverage, Doody says, poachers and polluters are getting bolder and gaining an advantage.
"Sometimes it feels like you're just putting a finger in the dike," she says.
California Fish & Game warden Carolyn Doody uses a telescope to check on fishermen from a distance. José Luis Villegas / jvillegas@sacbee.com
As a woman, Doody was a novelty when she became a warden in 1990, and women remain a minority in the force. Only about 34 of 197 game wardens are female, and only 21 are field officers like Doody.
"They say you've got to be born with a fly rod in one hand and a shotgun in the other to want this job, and not many women fit that description," Doody says.
Also discouraging to many women, she says, is the fact that warden work often conflicts with parenting responsibilities. Doody has been able to balance the demands of the job, including night hours and weekends, in part because her husband, Kent Hespeler, also works for the agency, and they have managed to "tag team" the care of their two children, she says.
Doody's tenure with Fish & Game will end next year when she turns 50 and her son starts high school. She is planning to retire, she says. But for now, she is focused.
On sturgeon patrol
Tonight, it's all about the sturgeon.
Pound for pound, sturgeon are among the most valuable of harvested fish, and they are a protected species in most places in the nation. In California, anglers may take no more than one sturgeon per day and are limited to three per year. Unless the fish are between 46 inches and 66 inches, they must be released. Sturgeon 7 feet or longer are not uncommon, and some can grow much larger.
Warden Carolyn Doody, left, checks the fishing license of Michael Mattson, center, of Sacramento, as he and Jeff Schultz of Stockton fish at Sherman Island in the Delta. José Luis Villegas / jvillegas@sacbee.com
"They're one of those fish that people just can't resist," Doody says. "They're so valuable. People just can't bring themselves to throw back a fish that is 6 feet long. If you pull in a female with eggs, you've got caviar, too."
Sturgeon are so irresistible, she says, that anglers have been known to use their cell phones to summon "runner cars" to spirit away illegally caught fish before wardens can discover them.
Doody bristles at the behavior. "If I find a fish that's even an inch over the limit, I'm going to seize it," she says. If the angler is a repeat violator or "frequent flier," she says, "I'll take his gear, too."
In extreme cases, wardens also have the power to seize boats and vehicles.
Violations of sturgeon regulations can cost fishermen hundreds of dollars, depending on the seriousness of the infraction. Repeat offenders can do jail time.
It all starts with a suspicion that something is amiss, Doody says, pointing her magnifying scope across the water toward a cluster of fishermen on a recent afternoon. "You can tell by their body language and behavior" if they're up to no good, she says.
Doody has been patrolling the Delta since 1992. "I can't imagine working an office job," she says. José Luis Villegas / jvillegas@sacbee.com
"Those guys look fine," Doody says, lowering her scope. But she'll approach them later just to make sure.
As the sun starts to dip below the horizon, Doody steps into her marked truck and maneuvers it along the banks of the Delta. Anglers eye her warily. When she parks and walks toward them, flashlight in hand, they scramble for their fishing licenses. Doody disarms them with a smile.
"Any bites?" she asks over the sounds of croaking frogs.
"What are you fishing for tonight?"
"Very good. Good luck."
Hours pass, the sky darkens, and the headlights of Doody's truck are ablaze. Fishing lines bob across the peaceful Delta waters, but tonight, only the mosquitoes seem to be biting.
Juventino Herredia, left, and Ariel Montoya of Pismo Beach show Doody their fishing license during her patrol on Sherman Island. "They say you've got to be born with a fly rod in one hand and a shotgun in the other to want this job, and not many women fit that description," Doody says. José Luis Villegas / jvillegas@sacbee.com
The sturgeon are out there, Doody says, and so are the "bad boys" tempted to break the law.
One of these nights, she knows, she will cross paths with them.
Fighting poachers a nightmare for wardens
By Peter Ottesen
June 20, 2007
Record Outdoors Columnist
Despite arresting a number of fish poaching rings earlier this year,
Department of Fish and Game wardens are being overwhelmed in their
quest to protect two of the most vulnerable species in the
Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta from illegal commercialization -
sturgeon and king salmon.
Wardens make arrests, but the assault on fisheries never seems to
cease.
Fish and Game's Special Operations Unit and the Bay Delta Enhanced
Enforcement Team were successful in bringing down a sophisticated
striped bass poaching ring that led to $6,000 fines for each
participant, probation for three years, forfeiture of boats and
fishing gear and a court order to keep away from the Sacramento River.
Then, within weeks, wardens focused on a sturgeon bust that amounted
to more than $200,000 in illegal sales of sturgeon steaks and roe
that was converted into caviar and sold to markets and restaurants.
The sturgeon cases still are pending because courts are backed up,
which means the accused remain free.
"It's a nightmare," warden Steven Stiehr said. "They pay their fines,
as if it were the price of doing business. Recently, we completed yet
another case against seven individuals on the upper river near
Knights Landing and guess what? Some of the alleged violators are
from families we've dealt with in the past. The assault on our
resources goes on unabated."
In the latest takedown in March and April, wardens broke up gangs of
Asian and eastern Europeans and issued citations for using illegal
nets, taking salmon out of season, taking over limits of salmon,
using salmon as bait and using multiple fishing lines.
"These poachers were so ruthless they would net 3- to 4-inch salmon
smolts and then use them for bait to hook giant spawning sturgeon,"
Stiehr said. "Some were the same people we busted a month before."
Stiehr said these hardcore poachers were intercepting small salmon as
they migrated toward the ocean, entangling them in nets, and then
hooking them onto lines with multiple hooks to catch large female
sturgeon full of roe. In six nights, Stiehr and his mates wrote 25
citations.
"All this illegal activity was destroying future salmon and sturgeon
populations," he said. "These species have to run the gauntlet to
complete their life cycles and must avoid poachers, too."
Stiehr said he is tired. The cadre of state wardens who protect our
resources is severely depleted. As he puts it, "We need a lot of
people to do these commercialization cases, and we simply don't have
the resources - money or wardens. Something has to give."
One night, Stiehr said, he found himself working alone, without
normal backup. He found a vehicle on a levee and began searching for
the occupants he feared were poachers. He sneaked along in complete
darkness and slipped over rocks and under overhanging trees for a
half-mile. Suddenly, he walked up on multiple people who were tucked
underneath some trees, without lights. They were fishing, but he
couldn't see exactly what they were doing, placing himself in an
unsafe situation. To make matters worse, the suspected poachers
didn't speak English.
"I yelled, 'State Fish and Game, stay where you are at,' " Stiehr
said. "A couple of them cut their fishing lines. Others just lurked
in the rocky rip-rap. They knew they weren't doing the right thing.
They didn't comply with my commands."
Hidden in the rocks, Stiehr found jars filled with water that
contained dozens of live juvenile salmon. He arrested the whole lot
and issued citations. Though they'll be adjudicated in Yolo and
Sutter counties, most of them live in Sacramento in neighborhoods
wardens know all too well.
"I suspect their ultimate goal is to process sturgeon roe for
caviar," Stiehr said. "Wardens get great satisfaction for taking down
these guys."
He's glad to be back home in San Joaquin County, too, following the
night operations.
"When we're forced to go into other counties it means less protection
for the resources in San Joaquin County," he said. "I suspect there
is illegal striped bass activity going on here, too."
Last Updated 5:03 am PDT Monday, June 25, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A3
Public employee unions complain all the time about staff shortages
and low pay and benefits. But laments from the California Fish and
Game Wardens Association about appalling shortages and salary
shortcomings among those who protect California's wildlife and other
natural resources have the ring of truth -- and add up to a rather
shameful situation.
There are only about 200 wardens covering the entire state, a ratio
that's the lowest among the states. There are many vacancies, and
they get paid much, much less than prison guards and Highway Patrol
officers, even though wardens have higher educational requirements.
Fish and Game Lt. Jeff Longwell, his department's chief recruiter,
put it this way to a Sacramento Bee reporter: "We send these guys
out into the middle of nowhere by themselves to protect the state's
resources, and we expect them to live in hovels. We're just going to
lose everybody unless something is done."
The appalling warden shortage results from a confluence of financial
and political factors, not the least of which is that the unions
representing prison guards and Highway Patrol officers are among the
Capitol's most powerful political forces. The Fish and Game
Department, meanwhile, is largely dependent on fishing and hunting
license fees -- which have been flattening or declining -- and the
department has assumed many additional duties relating to
environmental protection.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget seeks 34 new Fish and Game
positions for environmental reviews, supported by new fees -- an
action ratified by legislative budget-writers. The Legislature wants
50 more Highway Patrol officers on top of the 240 positions added
last year. The ranks of prison guards, meanwhile, are swelling
dramatically and will increase even more as the state resumes prison
construction. But what about the wardens? So, far, nada. Nothing.
Zero. Zilch.
"We know ourselves as the thin green line," union President Bob
Orange has written. "Yet, as critical a role as we have, wardens
themselves have been a vanishing force, marginalized by political
whims, undermined by falsehoods, and victimized by economic
pressure. As warden numbers diminish, so do the wildlife, fisheries
and environment of California."
California is a huge state (163,696 square miles) with huge numbers
of wildlife species on the ground, in the water and in the air. Its
human population continues to grow by 5 million-plus each decade.
But Fish and Game has the same number of wardens it had 50 years
ago -- and just half the number authorized a few years ago.
Meanwhile, poaching has skyrocketed, in part due to the demand for
animal parts in Asia for medicinal potions.
After the Animal Planet television network filmed a segment on bear
poaching in California, British producer Amanda Feldon sent a letter
to Schwarzenegger lamenting the shortage of wardens, saying: "It
will create great consternation when the program is eventually
watched by a worldwide audience."
A bill to raise wardens' pay to the level of other major law
enforcement agencies in the state didn't even get a hearing in the
Senate. The Schwarzenegger administration says that with a 10
percent raise scheduled for next year, wardens' salaries will have
increased by one-third since 2004. They still lag far behind those
of Highway Patrol and prison badge-carriers.
Last week, with the budget nearing final form, legislative budget
conferees approved a $3 million augmentation to improve warden
recruitment and training and provide some overtime pay to boost
retention. But it's a stopgap at best. It does nothing to close the
yawning salary gap and, most importantly, does nothing about the
shameful shortage of wildlife protectors.
PITTSBURGH -- Fish and wildlife departments around the country are on
the hunt -- for more wardens.
From California to Pennsylvania to Florida, states are struggling to
recruit and train officers, and those already charged with enforcing
wildlife laws are stretched thin. Though hard numbers are difficult
to come by, officials say poaching of fish and game is rising,
habitat and other projects are being delayed, and environmental
enforcement is sometimes lacking.
"I think the nefarious people realize there's a good chance they're
not going to get caught and are taking more opportunities," said
Nancy Foley, chief of the law enforcement division of California's
Department of Fish and Game.
Besides enforcing hunting and fishing regulations, wildlife wardens
respond to calls about injured or nuisance wildlife, protect and
educate the public about the environment, and in some states even are
the first responders to hurricanes or other natural disasters.
"If a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast, we are the first responders out
there," said Col. Pete Flores, director of the law enforcement
division for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
The danger of the job and falling interest in outdoor activities may
also be to blame for shortages, officials say. But mostly, it's the
pay - often thousands less than traditional police officers make.
Thomas J. Kamerzel, director of law enforcement for the Pennsylvania
Fish and Boat Commission, competed with 6,000 applicants when he
applied to the agency nearly 30 years ago. The agency's latest
graduating class numbered just 360, and Kamerzel has tried direct
mailings, posters and newspaper ads to boost the number of
applicants.
"We never had to go to this effort in the past," Kamerzel said. The
efforts have yielded only several hundred potential recruits.
Pennsylvania's Fish and Boat Commission operates with about a half-
dozen vacancies in its complement of 80 field officers. California's
Department of Fish and Game has about 75 vacancies out of 300
officers, and Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has
about 50 vacancies out of about 470 field officers.
"They can't be out in the field when they've got 500 square miles to
cover," said Melody Zullinger, executive director of the Pennsylvania
Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, which represents more than 100,000
sports clubs and individuals.
Nevada has three vacancies in its 32-officer unit, which is
responsible for 110,000 square miles, said Rob Buonamici, chief game
warden for the state Department of Wildlife.
California loses about 40 percent of its trainees in academy, mostly
because of their concerns about the starting pay, which was recently
raised to $48,000 from $44,000, Foley said. The disparity could be
because officials don't view conservation officers as valid law
enforcers, she said.
"In their minds, they only see the police departments, the sheriffs'
departments and highway patrol as real cops," Foley said.
"To think a conservation officer is any less important than a state
police officer ... they're not thinking about it in the right way,"
said Col. Julie Jones, director of law enforcement for the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and president of the
National Association of Conservation Law Enforcement Chiefs.
In Pennsylvania, starting annual pay for waterways and wildlife
conservation officers under the state's Fish and Boat and Game
commissions is about $9,000 less than for state troopers, Kamerzel
said.
Game wardens recently switched from the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees union to the Fraternal Order of Police
in hopes of obtaining a pay increase and retirement benefits more in
line with those of the state police, said Brian Witherite, a wildlife
conservation officer in southwestern Pennsylvania.
"We are police officers by definition, so we should be compensated
based on what the state trooper pay scale is," Witherite said. Their
four-year contract ends June 30.
Game wardens in California are probably more likely than traditional
officers to encounter illegal marijuana crops and drug smugglers
because they are in the field. California's wardens issued about
45,000 to 50,000 tickets last year, about one-third of which fell
into categories associated with traditional policing, Foley said.
And the job can be more dangerous than traditional policing, simply
because of whom and what they patrol. Statistics show a warden is
about 2.5 times more likely to be assaulted with a deadly weapon than
are other officers, said Buonamici, Nevada's chief warden.
"Virtually everyone we deal with is armed," he said.
With fewer young people hunting, fishing and participating in outdoor
activities, Kamerzel said that's another reason that few are
interested in the field.
It hasn't helped that for years, these officers have traditionally
worked quietly behind the scenes. Now, there's a growing effort to
educate the public and others about what they do, Jones said.
"The Game Commission isn't really a career. It's more a lifestyle,"
said Wildlife Conservation Officer Gary Toward, who covers about 600
square miles in western Pennsylvania.
Toward, who became a full-time officer 14 years ago, tools around in
his mobile office, a dark green, four-wheel-drive 2001 Dodge Ram that
covers 30,000 to 35,000 miles annually.
During deer hunting season, he's more likely to focus on law
enforcement. During spring and summer, he's got more time to devote
to education and youth field days.
On a recent spring morning, Toward gave a presentation about black
bears to a fourth-grade class, responded to a homeowner's call about
a nuisance beaver damaging trees, and fielded a call from a business
that's been plagued by goose droppings.
Finally, Toward checked on a pair of bald eagles recently found on
private land.
Toward thought the nest might also contain eaglets and took GPS
readings of the location so it could be monitored.
"A lot of people seem to think you spend all day in the woods,
checking hunters or doing whatever they think you do in the field.
And that's not the case," Toward said.
As California continues to lead the way in preserving and conserving its natural beauty and resources, the responsibility of protecting the state's environment becomes both more urgent and more difficult. There is a severe shortage of California Department of Fish and Game wardens and the expected retirement of 25 percent of the workforce in the next three years will place an even greater burden on the force.
Fish and game wardens are law enforcement officers who protect the state's land and waters, who work to stop exploitation of important species that fall prey to poaching - including several of the state's endangered and threatened species -- who fight dangerous criminal activity throughout the state and who play a critical role in the Homeland Security network.
Fewer than 200 wardens patrol the entire state of California -- that's less than Florida with 700 and Texas with 500. But our wardens must patrol more than 1,100 miles of coastal lands, 220,000 square miles of ocean and 159,000 square miles of land. This means California has approximately one warden per 185,000 residents. Compare that to Texas' one warden per 46,500 residents and Florida's one warden per 24,600 residents. The state's total warden staff allotment has decreased by about 100 positions since 2001, at a time when the state is adding areas to protect, passing more comprehensive environmental laws and adding more responsibility to wardens statewide. For the nine-county Bay Area, there are 28 warden positions but only 21 are filled. Despite increased duties, warden staffing levels in the Bay Area remain similar to levels in the 1970s, and unfortunately even this consistency has created further shortages elsewhere in California as the state suffers from an overall lack of wardens. Core responsibilities, such as patrolling the San Francisco Bay for poachers, are affected as a result of such thin staffing.
California is second only to Hawaii in the number of threatened and endangered species, and the shortage of wardens is placing those populations at risk. Tough environmental protection laws involving hazardous waste disposal and oil spill prevention place a heavy burden of enforcement on understaffed fish and game wardens.
Wardens also help enforce federal laws by assisting the FBI and patrolling an additional 200 miles out to sea.
Recruiting new warden applicants remains difficult when compensation and benefits are significantly below the packages offered to other law enforcement officers. Although the requirements for wardens are equally as stringent as the California Highway Patrol, and their duties include both law enforcement and environmental protection, pay levels fall far below the CHP in almost every category. A comparison of pay shows that wardens make less than half the pay of CHP officers.
It is critical that the Legislature address this problem now and provide the necessary funds to increase recruitment and bring parity to the compensation and benefits for fish and game wardens.
California must find the funding for a full functioning force of fish and game wardens -- we have people, wildlife, lands, and oceans that depend on their protection.
Tom Raftican is the president of United Anglers of Southern California, Kim Delfino is the California program director for Defenders of Wildlife and Kate Wing is a policy analyst for the Oceans Program of the Natural Resources Defense Council. These organizations are part of a coalition that includes the Safari Club International and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, among others.
State Fish and Game warden ranks endangered
By Dennis Anderson, Kim Delfino and Kate Wing
Article Launched: 06/10/2007 01:51:27 AM PDT
It's not often that disparate organizations such as the Safari Club International and the Natural Resources Defense Council come together on an issue, but today we are presenting a united front in support of California's Fish and Game wardens.
In California, we pride ourselves on our commitment to environmental protection. The rugged beauty of the state attracts thousands of visitors each year who want to hunt and fish, and to see our bears and bobcats and whales in the wild. California's Fish and Game wardens make it possible for all of us to enjoy the outdoors safely and protect those valuable natural resources for now and the future. Without the wardens as the first line of defense, we risk undermining the state's environmental goals.
Unfortunately, the number of wardens in the field has declined over the past decade. Right now, California has about 200 warden positions to cover the entire state - more than 160,000 square miles of land, rivers and coastal waters. Roughly one-third of those 200 positions are open, and the outlook is bleak as many wardens are expected to retire or transfer in the next few years.
Many areas of the state have no wardens on duty and others have minimal coverage. The Klamath River area - where Chinook salmon populations are in serious trouble - lacks any protection from wardens. California now has approximately one warden per 185,000 residents. This is a fraction of the force in other big states, like Texas and Florida, which have four to five times more wardens covering their fields, forests and coasts.
It takes a unique set of skills to be a warden - a love of the outdoors, training in biology and law enforcement, and a knowledge of everything from the penal code to water-quality standards. Wardens break up drug rings and bust wildlife poachers. They assist the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI on land and at sea. They routinely work alone in remote areas and face armed suspects.
Yet they are asked to perform these duties for far less compensation than other law enforcement officers. Under recent contracts, new warden salaries are $40,000. By contrast, California Highway Patrol officers' well-deserved entry-level pay is $57,000. Without similar compensation for long hours and benefits, it is easy to see why wardens leave for other law enforcement jobs to support their families, no matter how much they may love their jobs as wardens.
We are joining dozens of diverse organizations for a common goal: sufficient funding to attract and retain the Fish and Game wardens who protect the state's natural resources; who work to stop the poaching of abalone, sturgeon, bears, and many of the states threatened and endangered species; and who fight dangerous criminal activity throughout the state.
The time for addressing these inequities and boosting the ranks of Fish and Game wardens is long overdue. Voters have approved bonds funding for more parks and other lands to be set aside for preservation and recreational purposes. It is critical that we protect this investment by providing the Department of Fish and Game the funding for a qualified and secure staff of wardens.
Now it's up to the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration to make good on pledges to protect the environment and public safety and to take action to rebuild the ranks of the state's Fish and Game wardens. If this issue is not resolved, we will lose the rich wildlife and natural resources that define California.
Lack of game wardens filters to Central Coast
By MEGHA SATYANARAYANA
SENTINEL CORRESPONDENT
SANTA CRUZ
The new Central Coast marine reserves will be vulnerable to poaching for at least a year after they become official this summer because of an ongoing shortage of game wardens, state wildlife officials say.
The 29 marine protected areas, designed to protect marine creatures and their habitats, create a chain of conserved chunks of ocean from Pigeon Point in San Mateo County to Point Conception in Santa Barbara County. More than 40 percent of the marine protected areas are completely off-limits to fishing and recreational boating.
A result of the Marine Life Protection Act of 1999, the Central Coast marine protected areas plan was approved April 13, and should be official in a few months. The 2006-'07 state budget included $632,000 for nine officers, said Nancy Foley, chief of law enforcement for the Department of Fish and Game.
But the money, she said, is a drop in a leaky bucket.
Department of Fish and Game hasn't recovered from 2001 budget cuts and the subsequent hiring freeze, Foley said. Coupled with low pay and dangerous working conditions, the department has about 45 vacancies it cannot fill.
In addition, the warden academy is seven months long, and trainees learn both police codes and wildlife law enforcement. Then they have extra field work. The next academy starts in January 2008, and the current one should fill some of the 45 open slots. With the high cost of living along the Central Coast, few seasoned wardens will transfer, Foley said. Many of the field officers will be new.
These compounding factors mean the marine protected area positions will stay empty until at least December 2008, said Foley, leaving the division scrambling to police the areas from this summer onward.
"We'll bring in wardens from other areas; we'll do whatever we can to make it work," she said.
Besides the nine marine protected area positions, there are 351 warden positions statewide; 202 are field officers and the rest are administrative, said Jerry Karnow, a warden and legislative representative for the state warden association. The area they cover is nearly twice the size of California.
California is the third-largest state, encompassing 163,707 square miles. Karnow said wardens also patrol waters up to 200 miles off the coast, an area that equals roughly 154,000 square miles. This equals one officer per 1,572 square miles — an area 1.3 times the size of Yosemite National Park.
In addition to catching illegal hunters, game wardens deal with oil spills, water contamination, wildlife smuggling and animal attacks. They also are actual police officers, with the same training as California Highway Patrol officers in addition to their wildlife expertise.
They are often the first people to arrive at the scene, said Karnow. In rural areas, he said, they are sometimes the only law enforcement available.
"We are in the areas people poach, but also theft, rape, molestations, cases with kids in the woods — and with only 200 guys," he said. "Often, we're the only cops in the middle of nowhere"
California's population is nearly 37 million, mostly clustered along the coast. In contrast, said Karnow, there are 500 game wardens for 23 million people in Texas, the second-largest state, and 750 wardens for 18 million people in Florida, the 22nd largest state.
"It doesn't make sense, does it?" he said.
Wardens usually work alone, even at night. There is little overtime pay for a work week that can go well past 40 hours, Karnow said.
"I'm on 24/7/365," said Lt. Don Kelly of Capitola, a 28-year veteran who polices the Central Coast from San Mateo County to San Luis Obispo County. He should supervise eight officers but only has four; three of his four vacancies have been open for years, including one in Santa Cruz.
In contrast, there are 530 uniformed California Highway Patrol officers for the Central Coast area, said CHP spokesperson Jaime Coffey.
Lt. Kelly's jurisdiction takes three to four hours to drive. He said he is continuously frustrated when people call in about violations in progress, and he must say, "I wish I could help you, but I don't have any officers in the area"
In addition to scouring for abalone poachers, Kelly handles everything from mountain lion calls to water pollution. On the way to field a call, he sometimes catches another crime in progress.
"No matter what we intend to do on a daily basis, something else happens," Kelly said.
His Monterey-based supervisor, Capt. Doug Huckins, hopes the new marine protected area wardens will ease some of the coastal policing burden. Some of his marine officers are patrolling in boats during the day but must serve as backup to land officers. The marine protected area officers, he said, will back up the marine officers or land officers as needed.
Most wardens are also cross-deputized with the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both of which are also understaffed, said Huckins.
"We're trying to do everything with nothing," Huckins said.
Karnow and other wardens have repeatedly asked state legislators for equal pay to California Highway Patrol officers. In a 2005 union report, an entry-level warden who must have two years of college made $37,128. A CHP starting officer, who needs no college, made $53,808. A four-year warden made approximately $48,000 in 2005, with no extras. A four-year CHP officer, guaranteed a partner after 10 p.m., made $92,000, with holiday and overtime pay possible.
Little has changed in two years, Karnow said.
Paul Mason, legislative representative of the Sierra Club, said, "You can walk across the street and double your salary instantaneously. The warden situation is dire"
Mason thinks part of the wardens' plight is the public's misunderstanding of what wardens do. People don't realize they are police officers, as well as wildlife and nature specialists. People identify more with CHP keeping streets safe than wardens keeping abalone safe, so wardens, he said, do not get the support they deserve. The cost to the environment is huge.
"Up here, near Sacramento, we're poaching sturgeon to near extinction because there is no enforcement," Mason said.
In light of the shortage, policing the marine protected areas will have to be cooperative, said Capt. Brian Naslund. Fish and Game plans an outreach program about the new off-limits areas, starting with brochures in sporting-goods stores. The boundaries of the no-take zones will depend on landmarks, in lieu of signs. Enforcing trespassing laws, he said, will be challenging.
You can't fence off the water, he said, and since some marine protected areas allow fishing, checkpoints may not work. Mostly it will be surveillance, he said, with boats, planes and old-fashioned help from fishermen and recreational boaters who legally use Central Coast waters.
Contact Megha Satyanarayana at jcopeland@santacruzsentinel.com <mailto:jcopeland@santacruzsentinel.com?subject=Lack of game wardens filters to Central Coast>.
Game wardens shoot 2 mountain lions after hiker attacked in California
ARCATA, Calif. (AP) — Wildlife officials on Thursday credited a woman with saving her husband's life by clubbing a mountain lion that attacked him while the couple were hiking in a California state park.
Jim and Nell Hamm, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month, were hiking in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park when the lion pounced.
"He didn't scream. It was a different, horrible plea for help, and I turned around, and by then the cat had wrestled Jim to the ground," Nell Hamm said in an interview from the hospital where her husband was recovering from a torn scalp, puncture wounds and other injuries.
After the attack, game wardens closed the park about 320 miles north of San Francisco and released hounds to track the lion. They later shot and killed a pair of lions found near the trail where the attack happened.
The carcasses were flown to a state forensics lab to determine if either animal mauled the man.
Although the Hamms are experienced hikers, neither had seen a mountain lion before Jim Hamm was mauled, his wife said. Nell Hamm said she grabbed a four-inch-wide log and beat the animal with it, but it would not release its hold on her husband's head.
"Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, 'I've got a pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye,"' she said. "So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn't want to go in as easy as I thought it would."
When the pen bent and became useless, Nell Hamm went back to using the log. The lion eventually let go and, with blood on its snout, stood staring at the woman. She screamed and waved the log until the animal walked away.
"She saved his life, there is no doubt about it," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game.
Nell Hamm, 65, said she was scared to leave her dazed, bleeding husband alone, so the couple walked a quarter-mile to a trail head, where she gathered branches to protect them if more lions came around. They waited until a ranger came by and summoned help.
"My concern was to get Jim out of there," she said. "I told him, 'Get up, get up, walk,' and he did."
Jim Hamm, 70, was in fair condition Thursday. He had to have his lips stitched back together and underwent surgery for lacerations on his head and body. He told his wife he still wants to make the trip to New Zealand they planned for their anniversary, she said.
Nell Hamm warned people never to hike in the backcountry alone. Park rangers told the couple if Jim Hamm had been alone, he probably would not have survived.
"We fought harder than we ever have to save his life, and we fought together," she said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Game warden makes $600,000 bust
By Ryan Lillis and Matt Weiser -
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, September 21, 2006
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B3
Fish and Game Warden Brett Gomes was on patrol in western Colusa County on Monday night, searching for people "spotlighting wildlife," when he came across a suspicious-looking SUV. The two men inside weren't spotlighting -- an illegal hunting tactic in which a powerful floodlight is used to stun animals long enough to shoot them -- but they were still worth a look, Gomes thought.
So the six-year veteran of the department followed the truck along Bear Valley Road and, after noticing the vehicle's obscured license plate, turned on his emergency flashers to pull it over.
The driver sped up, then suddenly slowed to about 20 miles per hour. What happened next surprised even Gomes, who admits to seeing "all kinds of freaky stuff" in the woods.
Both the driver and a passenger jumped out of the moving truck, landed on their feet and darted into the woods.
"They were like a couple of running backs, the way they were running," Gomes said.
The truck slammed into an embankment and Gomes called for backup. A California Highway Patrol unit arrived about 20 minutes later and within minutes found the alleged motivation behind the daring escape from the moving truck.
Sitting in the back of the 1999 GMC Yukon were six duffel bags and one large plastic bag holding 139 pounds of processed marijuana, Gomes said. On the street, that much pot would fetch somewhere around $600,000.
"I immediately knew what I had," Gomes said. "I've done lots of marijuana eradication in that area."
Gomes and the other officers were processing the evidence when, just a few minutes later, another vehicle pulled up. The driver handed over an invalid Mexican driver's license and was arrested, and a search of his truck turned up another duffel bag with about 30 pounds of processed marijuana, Gomes said.
Gomes said both vehicles were registered to the same address.
The warden said finding massive amounts of marijuana in that part of Colusa County isn't rare. He was a part of three pot-garden raids this summer and said authorities believe the pot confiscated on Monday was probably grown in the area. But he hasn't heard of a bust this big that involved marijuana processed for sale.
"We run into all kinds of freaky stuff," he said. "When you go to work in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, you're going to run into some strange things."
The Colusa County bust wasn't the only one in a remote section of Northern California over the past few days.
On Saturday morning, Fish and Game Warden DeWayne Little arrested two men in Shasta County who allegedly had 19 pounds of marijuana that had been processed for sale into 1-pound bags. Little made the arrest in the
Shasta-Trinity National Forest on Fenders Ferry Road at 10:30 a.m. after two men in a Jeep Cherokee nearly ran him off the road in his patrol vehicle.
After stopping the Jeep, Little said, he found the packaged marijuana in garbage bags in the back seat and cargo area. Celerino Martinez Gomez, 39, and Juan Delacruz Vazquez, 21, both of Yuba City, were arrested and booked into the Shasta County jail.
Forest Service officials are pursuing the investigation, Little said, in hopes of finding where the marijuana was grown.
"I believe they had just harvested marijuana and were transporting it from a garden," Little said. "The area is known for its high frequency of illegal marijuana gardens related to drug trafficking organizations."
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — When the sun sets on Southern California's Whitewater Canyon, it comes alive with snakes, frogs and lizards out to enjoy the warm desert air. It also comes alive with reptile enthusiasts and poachers.
The enthusiasts obey the law and troll for pets; the poachers ignore the law and snatch up slithering creatures to sell on the global market for wildlife. There's a license for the enthusiasts; there's not one for the poachers. The former would watch Snakes on a Plane with fascination; the latter with dollar signs in their eyes.
The canyon and countless ponds, streams and prairies on public lands across the USA are the front lines of a cat-and-mouse game between reptile poachers and the people who watch over protected wildlife.
"Some nights are busy, some nights you don't see anything," said Kyle Chang, a game warden for the California Department of Fish and Game, who quietly stakes out the Whitewater Canyon several times a year.
On a busy night, Chang might make 10 stops, most to verify collectors are carrying a state fishing license, a prerequisite for catching reptiles such as the Whitewater rosy boa, a docile snake that makes a good pet.
Chang uses a rope taped to resemble a California king snake as a decoy. When somebody stops for the fake snake, he pulls up and checks for a license, bag limit or other violations.
While legitimate collectors — sometimes called "herpers" — don't cause problems, unlicensed poachers gathering for commercial gain can decimate an area.
Poachers flock to places such as Whitewater and Borrego canyons and Joshua Tree National Park in California and plentiful hunting grounds in Arizona, South Carolina, West Texas and countless spots in between. "It is definitely a problem," said Jeff Lovich, deputy director of the U.S. Geological Survey's Southwest Biological Science Center in Arizona.
Chang says California fines can be as low as $10 for people who forgot their license at home to $385 or more for blatant poaching offenses.
In nearby Joshua Tree National Park, federal penalties for pilfering wildlife can include jail time and fines up to $250,000, depending on the types and quantity of reptiles taken. Joe Zarki, a park spokesman, said penalties vary depending on whether the offender is part of a commercial ring or simply a child catching a lizard for a pet.
Rangers at Joshua Tree National Park say it's tough to quantify how much poaching occurs. That's because it's not enough to catch poachers with the tools of the trade — snake hooks, pillowcases, cages, Zarki said. "One of the problems is you have to actually catch people with the reptiles in hand," he said.
Lovich said Gila monsters are popular poaching targets. Named after the Gila River Basin in Arizona, they are one of two kinds of poisonous lizards. Those bred in captivity can be traded legally, but a price tag that can exceed $1,500 on the open market makes wild Gila monsters, which are a protected species, attractive to poachers.
Venomous snakes, and their non-poisonous cousins, are popular, too. The rosy boa sells on the Internet for $100 to $300.
"There is ... a bit of a thrill for people because there is a great deal of phobia among the general population," said Jack Crayon, a biologist and former herper (from the Greek word for reptile) who lives in Indio, Calif. "There is some satisfaction in handling something a lot of people are afraid of."
Chang says poachers occasionally will go to great lengths to snatch wildlife. He described finding people in Whitewater Canyon with frogs, toads and lizards stuffed into jars and snakes loose on the floorboard.
To sell native California reptiles within California, sellers need to produce documentation the reptiles were bred in captivity, not caught in the wild, Crayon said. California reptiles, however, can crop up without documentation in other states, and Lovich said he has encountered people offering wild-caught reptiles for sale.
Legal commercial operations, such as turtle farms in the southeastern United States, can lead to poaching, said Allen Salzberg, the New York-based publisher of Herp Digest.
"There is constant pressure for wild-caught males and females to bring into these farms," he said.
For some people, though, collecting reptiles isn't about money or thrill.
"They are so fun," said Mathew Bartol, 22, of Valencia, Calif., as he handled an 18-inch rosy boa he picked up on Whitewater Canyon Road. "What makes it so fun is the search."
Bartol, who had a license and could legally catch the boa, chatted with Chang and two other collectors. They talked about the weather and collecting conditions.
Chang said Bartol, who was collecting with his dad and a family friend, is more representative of snake-enthusiasts than poachers.
"Some people like fishing over hunting. Some people like reptile collecting over fishing," Chang said. "Like any sport you have good people, bad people and people who walk the line."
Contributing: Spillman reports daily for The Desert Sun in Palm Springs
Inside a giant freezer in Rancho Cordova, state game warden Alan Weingarten combs through the gruesome evidence.
A pair of pheasants, still beautiful in their showy plumage. Bags of illicit salmon roe. Severed fish heads the size of basketballs. A whole female deer, solidified in death's icy claw.
Each carcass and body part is evidence in an unsolved crime against the Golden State's natural resources, a violation of hunting or fishing laws that game wardens are hired to prevent.
But those carcasses also prove another problem: a severe shortage of California game wardens. The frozen gore might not be here if the state had enough wardens to investigate these crimes.
"All we need to do is follow up -- find blood on a vehicle, blood in someone's residence," said Weingarten, who patrols Folsom Lake and Sacramento County. "But wardens just don't have time because we're always working new cases."
The Department of Fish and Game has 192 field wardens on the job to protect an area spanning 159,000 square miles, a landscape second only to Hawaii in wildlife diversity.
But hiring is difficult because a starting warden earns $37,000 a year, said Nancy Foley, the department's chief of enforcement. That is two-thirds the pay of a starting highway patrol officer.
At least 40 wardens are expected to leave this year because of retirements and low pay, said Bob Orange, vice president of the California Fish and Game Wardens' Association. The state already has 64 warden vacancies that are difficult to fill because of the pay inequity, he said.
"We're losing the battle big time, quite frankly," said Eric Mills, coordinator of Action for Animals, a Bay Area animal-rights group. "Morale is way down (among wardens) and there's major poaching going on all over the state right now, everything from deer to crab, surf perch, all kinds of stuff. It's a nightmare."
A few areas, including the imperiled Klamath River, have no wardens on duty. Many others have bare-bones coverage, notably the Bay Area.
Only one-third of calls from the public on the wardens' enforcement hotline, (888) 334-2258, get a response.
"It is a critical time for game wardens," said Foley. "There reaches a level where we can no longer be effective in the field anymore. I'm afraid that if something doesn't happen to allow us to recruit and retain our officers, the environment will see some serious impacts."
California has one warden per 185,000 residents, one of the lowest ratios for a state its size.
Texas has 491 wardens, or one per 46,500 residents. Florida has 722, or one per 24,600 residents.
Before a hiring freeze from 2001 to 2004, California had 450 warden positions, some of which were supervisors, said department spokesman Steve Martarano. As vacancies occurred, those positions not only didn't get filled, they also were eliminated.
Fish and Game now has 352 sworn officer positions, of which 288 are filled, Martarano said. Of those, 192 are field wardens who do the legwork to protect California's wildlife.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that California doesn't need more wardens.
"I think we have a lot of them," he said during an online forum in which the public asked questions via e-mail. The warden question came from a woman in Selma.
"I think we have enough, but I think that as we have more money available we can have more," he said.
The governor's staff said later that he meant the total of 352 sworn positions is enough, and that he wants to fill vacancies.
That may be difficult, despite a $7.5 billion budget surplus this year. Wardens hoped for $17.5 million in the new budget for higher pay, and hiring and retention bonuses.
But in a June 10 budget hearing, the Legislature joined the Governor's Office in approving $15 million to be shared with state firefighters, park rangers, CHP dispatchers and others.
"We believe this will allow Fish and Game to attract qualified candidates and fill vacancies," said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of the state Finance Department, which represented the governor in budget talks. "What we've done is to deal with an identified issue in the short term."
Labor negotiations are the proper forum for long-term solutions, he said. The wardens' labor contract comes up for renewal in mid-2007.
A warden carries full police powers, and many have left the force for better pay at other law enforcement agencies. Replacing them is difficult, because few recruits sign up for the state's warden academy. In April, 10 warden cadets graduated.
An average warden patrols 600 square miles and rarely has backup or even contact with a dispatcher. Wardens also enforce water quality and invasive species laws.
"I will always miss being a game warden. It was the best job I ever had," said Scott Spain, 36. "But I've got to think first about my family -- putting food on the table and shoes on my kids."
Spain wanted to be a game warden so badly that he first worked as a Vacaville cop for eight years to afford a house. He became a warden in 2004, taking a pay cut from $100,000 a year to $52,000.
He could make it work only two years, and recently became a Napa County sheriff's deputy.
"I did it as long as I could, and the salary didn't pan out," he said.
Josh Nicholas began his warden career in pricey Marin County in 1998. His home was a 32-foot travel trailer in Novato. Renting a place to park the trailer consumed half his salary.
"I could go to the state of Washington and be a game warden, and I could actually make more money and lower my cost of living considerably," said Nicholas, 29. "I've looked at this. It's really attractive."
He transferred to Tuolumne County in 2000, but wonders how he will put his two children through college. After topping out on the warden pay scale, he now earns the same as a starting CHP officer: $55,000 a year.
The San Francisco Bay Area has been hit hard by the warden shortage. It is a global shipping port, a major entry point for invasive species, a hub for commercial and sport fishing.
But the Bay Area, with 6.7 million people, has two game wardens on duty at any given time.
The Klamath River has none. The chinook salmon population there has plunged to dangerous lows, prompting cutbacks in commercial fishing. Reviving that fishery depends, in part, on stopping poachers.
Charles Bucaria of the Northern California Council of Fly Fishers is trying to protect the adjacent Smith River. Its healthy salmon runs are threatened by poachers who catch migrating fish in nets, or snag them with hooks in shallow water.
"All the laws in the world don't do any good if you don't have enforcement," Bucaria said.
Sierra County went without a state game warden for a year after the previous warden died of cancer. The county has 20 unsolved bear poaching cases over the past two years.
"The word on the street among poachers is that there are no game wardens: 'You're not going to get caught, so you might as well just kill everything you can get your hands on,'" said Jerry Karnow, a Nevada County game warden.
"We have to fix the money issue. It is all about the money, period," Karnow said.
Game warden Alan Weingarten holds up a frozen deer stored as evidence. Sacramento Bee/Bryan Patrick
California wildlife officers on Thursday arrested 17 people involved in three separate poaching rings that treatened to deplete native sturgeon and abalone populations.
The state Department of Fish and Game called it the biggest single-day roundup of poaching suspects in state history. A total of 85 wildlife officers made arrests in at least eight California cities. One arrest was made in Oregon, and three more are pending in California.
The sturgeon poaching ring was centered around an illegal caviar-producing operation in Sacramento. It involved six Bay Area men who caught white sturgeon illegally in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and four men in the Sacramento area who processed the roe or eggs from the fish into caviar.
California Fish and Game warden Sean Pirtle, left, escorts Kaofey Saechao from his Sacramento home Thursday during a statewide roundup of suspects in a sturgeon poaching ring. Sacramento Bee/Carl Costas
Arrests in that case include Alexandr Krasnodemsky, 25, of Orangevale, who authorities called the “ringleader,” and his brother Oleg, 27, of Citrus Heights. A third man, Kaofey Saechao, 26, was arrested at his home on 47th Street in Sacramento.
All three have links to prior Sacramento-area sturgeon poaching busts.
Lt. Kathy Ponting of the California Department of Fish and Game said the group arrested Thursday was sophisticated.
"I think it’s a really developed core group," she said. "We’re starting to see a dramatic increase in the poaching of our white sturgeon. The demand is high."
California white sturgeon caviar can fetch up to $165 per pound on the black market, and Ponting estimated the poaching ring may have taken 100 fish illegally. At an average of eight pounds of eggs per fish, that amounts to a harvest of caviar worth at least $132,000.
Central Valley sturgeon, which can reach more than 500 pounds and 10 feet long, have declined sharply in recent years. As a result, the state Fish and Game Commission this year imposed tighter size limits on the recreational sturgeon season to preserve spawning fish.
The abalone arrests are unrelated and involve 10 additional suspects in Ft. Bragg, San Francisco, Hayward, Alameda, and one in Beaver Marsh, Ore.
There are more than 500,000 local law enforcement officers in the United State, and 72,000 cops in New York alone.
Nationwide, there are around 7,000 game wardens, or about as many cops as the New York Police force assigned to cover its New Year's Eve celebration.
In other words, that's not a lot of game wardens. The situation is especially bad in California, and man and nature are paying a price.
With 159,000 square miles of land, California has 36 million people, 1,100 miles of coastline, about 222,000 square miles of ocean waters, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, 4,800 lakes and reservoirs and 80 major rivers, in addition to deserts, mountains and, of course, urban areas, all of which game wardens cover.
Game wardens are responsible for protecting more than 1,000 native fish and wildlife species, more than 6,000 native plant specie, and approximately 360 endangered species; yet, at any given time, there are about 200 wardens on patrol in California.
In 1950, there was one game warden for every 54,845 people in the state. Today, there is one warden for every 180,288 persons.
For California to be comparable to Florida or Texas in its fish- and game-policing force, it would need to have 750 wardens. That ain't gonna happen anytime soon … unless a lot of things change.
For perspective, let's compare two law enforcement officers, both 26 years old and employed for four years by their respective California state agency. One is a game warden; the other is a highway patrolman.
Both are sworn peace officers. The game warden's beat is the highways and all the physical landscape and the ocean waters of the state. The highway patrolman's beat is the highways, state buildings and state property.
The game warden must have completed at least two years of college. The highway patrolman needs either a high school diploma or a GED (general equivalency diploma).
Game wardens usually work alone, in remote locations, without backup. They do not get extra pay for holidays, night shift or overtime. Highway patrolmen get increased pay for night work, time-and-a-half pay for holidays, and overtime, and they have 7,000 fellow California Highway Patrol members for backup.
Game wardens usually work out of a home office with a dispatcher hundreds of miles away and are on call 24/7. The California Highway Patrol has regional offices throughout the state.
The game warden is issued four firearms: a .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol; a .40 caliber semi-auto undercover pistol; a 12-gauge riot shotgun; and a .308 semi-auto military rifle. The California Highway Patrol officer is issued a .40 caliber semi-auto pistol; a 12-gauge riot shotgun; and a .223 semi-auto rifle.
Both drive marked vehicles, but game wardens must maintain their own patrol car, many of which have more than 100,000 miles on the odometer. The California Highway Patrol officer's car is maintained by CHP mechanics on a regular basis and has low mileage.
Since 9/11, homeland security has become part of the job of every law enforcement officer. The CHP officer's responsibility covers highways, state buildings and state property. The game warden monitors all wildlands of the state, as well as highways, plus incoming shipping, chemical plants, refineries, dams, bridges, power plants and transmission lines, as well as ocean patrols out to 200 miles offshore.
Game wardens also operate their own crime-scene investigations.
California game wardens are federally deputized. They are authorized to enforce federal fish and wildlife laws in California and participate in actions in 20 other states.
And did I mentioned that game wardens regularly work with the U.S. Coast Guard on search and rescue missions.
Wardens routinely become involved with shutting down marijuana plantations and meth labs. Organized crime is often involved in poaching and the international black market trade in wildlife and plants.
And it goes almost without stating that every hunter is armed and most fisherman have at least a knife.
Federal statistics show that game wardens and Drug Enforcement Administration agents have the highest risk of death on the job. The game warden is three times more likely to be killed by gunfire in the line of duty than the California Highway Patrol officer.
In addition, "Statistically, since 1979, 1.8 wardens have been killed on the job vs. every CHP officer," said Bob Orange, vice president of the California Game Wardens Association.
So what do the two law enforcement officers - the game warden and the highway patrolman - get paid?
The California game warden's expected annual gross pay is $48,000, with no raises promised. The CHP officer can expect $92,000 and has a 7.5 percent pay raise promised.
A game warden pilot can expect about $60,000 a year, while the CHP counterpart makes about $90,000.
A state prison guard with the same number of years of experience makes upwards of $60,000.
And vacation-time accrual? For the same two officers, the game warden gets eight hours a month, while the CHP officer gets 15 hours per month.
Game Wardens are almost always the lowest paid law-enforcement officers. Nationwide, warden salaries range from the upper $20,000s to the low $60,000s. California is not the worst in game-warden salaries, but the cost of living in the Golden State is especially high.
More than 2.4 million Californians purchase fishing licenses of some kind, and about 275,000 hunting licenses are sold every year. In 2004-2005, hunting and fishing licenses revenues brought in $56.1 million.
Hunters and anglers spent more than $3.1 billion a year in the California, or more than the cash receipts from the state's grape crop.
Game wardens perform an important function of protecting
the state's natural resources. If the natural resources are exploited, state revenues go down; and California definitely has problems with declining revenues.
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took over the helm of the state, he inherited a huge, $21 billion budget deficit that has impacted all government agencies.
Yet, as we look toward 2007, the Schwarzenegger is asking for 278 additional California Highway Patrol officers and no increase in game warden funding. The total yearly budget for California game wardens is $47 million, which, check this out, is less than a third of the proposed increase in the CHP budget for 2007.
The facts for this article come from CAUSE - The Statewide Law Enforcement Association, in a report compiled by the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, which can be studied online
Before leaving the subject of game wardens, I want to add one item to the list of sad things that have happened to California game wardens as a result of budget cuts.
Law enforcement is not just about catching and punishing people for committing crimes. The best law enforcement seeks to prevent crime by setting community standards of behavior that do not tolerate criminal activity.
Several years ago, California Fish and Game wardens issued citations for doing good things, in addition to distributing violations.
If a warden gave a "Caught Doing Good" citation to sportsmen for special acts of outstanding ethics, the recipient became eligible for a special season-end drawing and valuable prizes. This program has gone by the wayside due to lack of funding.
The removal of positive reinforcements, coupled with fewer wardens in the field, means that the game warden is as endangered a species as some of the critters they protect; man and nature are both hurting as a result.
James Swan - who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" - is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
I recently wrote a column about the plight of California game wardens underfunded, undersupported and underappreciated.
My article was prompted by a report suggesting the 200 California game wardens are paid about half of what their California Highway Patrol counterparts are paid, despite having a much larger jurisdiction to police and little or no backup.
After the article came out, I was invited to Sacramento to meet with some of the so-called Thin Green Line.
While we were sipping coffee, their lobbyist came in to report there were proposals in both the Assembly and the Senate to raise funding for game wardens. Cross your fingers.
After a celebration, I was invited to spend the afternoon riding along on patrol with warden Lt. John Laughlin.
After filling out the paperwork, I hopped in the cruiser with Laughlin, who was working a patrol along the Sacramento River in and near the state capitol, where, incidentally, the shad are running like gang-busters, stripers are passing through in waves, sturgeon are always possible and the first chinook salmon of the season are beginning to appear — all within view of the business district.
We began the patrol in Miller Park, on the west side of town. Sitting in the patrol car, we marked people fishing along the bank. Then Laughlin set off on foot to check licenses and catches.
The river level was down some, so when we walked up to the first fisherman what we initially had thought was one man turned out to be seven Hmong men fishing for shad.
I hung back a little as Laughlin walked up the first man, who I noted had a fillet knife laying on top of his tackle box. No doubt they all were carrying knives and we were outnumbered seven to two.
This situation is par for the course with game wardens. Everyone is presumably armed.
As Laughlin began to check licenses, one of the men quickly reeled in and set off for his car at a brisk pace. Suspecting the man had something to hide, Laughlin followed and caught up with him before he could drive away.
The man had a fishing license hanging on a string around his neck, which is the law in California, but it was for 2005. He insisted that his 2006 license was at home.
Laughlin listened patiently and said that the law said he was supposed to have a current license with him.
I got my first taste of police paperwork, as I assisted Laughlin in writing up the ticket and calling in the man's name and driver's license to see if he had any outstanding warrants.
The guy had a clean record. Laughlin told him how to respond to the ticket, and we returned to checking fish and licenses.
Remember, if a warden does stop you, he does not need probable cause or a search warrant to conduct a search of your property — unlike other police.
Also, if you are carrying a gun when the warden approaches you, don't start unloading it. Ask him what he would like you to do with the gun.
Next we checked four Russians fishing for stripers. Lt. Laughlin is 6-foot-2, plays football in a police league and is a weight lifter. Three of these guys were bigger than him and, again, all were carrying knives.
You try hard not to stereotype people, but when we met the Hmong, I admit that the memory of the Hmong man in Wisconsin who was convicted of killing six people in a deer hunting dispute came to mind. And with the Russians, it's common knowledge the Russian mafia is very involved in poaching sturgeon for caviar.
Indeed, for your own safety, you must be on the defensive when you think like a game warden.
But all these guys were very nice. Laughlin gave a young boy with the group a Deputy Game Warden sticker to wear.
We continued along the bank in the park, checking licenses, catch numbers and lengths of fish. People were friendly. No other tickets were issued.
We could see people fishing and hanging out along the bank on the opposite side of the river. One group appeared to be littering beer cans and cardboard cases. We headed for a bridge to cross over.
The litterbugs must have seen us coming. They were gone by the time we got in position.
We did engage a couple that were taking some R&R and fishing for stripers. The woman had picked up a big bag of trash. We thanked her profusely for doing this.
Unfortunately the Caught Doing Good program, which was aimed at issuing positive citations and a chance at valuable prizes to people found performing exemplary conservation work, has been scrapped in budget cuts. Surely this woman would have received such an award.
The riverbank along the west side of the Sacramento River near Raley Field is a disgusting mess. Laughlin checked a couple of more fishermen, then we came upon a car with expired plates in a brushy area. He called in the car's plates. It was stolen. We picked up on footprints that led to a cane thicket where drug dealers are known to frequent.
Laughlin told me that if I wanted to follow him, I should stay back a few paces; if anything dangerous was to transpire, I should run to the car to radio for backup.
With gun drawn, he approached an obvious squatter camp, complete with fire pit and a tarp shelter. No one was there. There was evidence of a lot of nasty stuff going on, however, and the warden radioed in his findings to the sheriff.
As I told Laughlin afterward, I've worked with other law enforcement officers who would have waited for backup before making a move on a place like that. His response was that the closest warden for backup was at least 30 minutes from responding. It's what he experiences daily, he explained.
We stopped at a convenience store to pick up some bottled water. Without any prompting, the clerk asked Laughlin how much game wardens make. "About $2,700 a month," Laughlin replied. The clerk broke out laughing and said that his brother, who was a prison guard, earned more — which happens to be true.
After a few more fishing licenses were checked, we stumbled on to a seemingly depressed homeless man who was living out of his car along the river. Laughlin talked with him for some time to see if the guy was suicidal.
The transient was down to his last few bucks, but coping. Laughlin reported him to the local dispatcher to check him out later, and we drove off.
This was a fairly quiet day.
But Laughlin showed me a place along a deserted stretch of river where many people gather at night to fish, drink and sell drugs. He said that almost every time he checked that area at night he made at least one arrest.
Realize here, folks, that a game warden covers wildlife law, plus regular criminal issues. Their beat takes them to out-of-the-way places, which is where criminals often hide to do business. This is a tough, risky job.
On the way back to the office, Laughlin told me about some of his recent more exciting days: Russian caviar poachers snagging sturgeon; a group smuggling abalones out of California to sell to the Mexican mafia; some guys using ATVs to chase down sturgeon stranded in shallow water after a flood and shooting them with shotguns; a meth-lab bust in a wildlife area; and some very suspicious guys in camouflage training with military weapons in a remote area.
You've got to respect the Thin Green Line for putting their necks on the line. Game wardens deserve a lot more support in the form of personnel, resources and funding.
I'd encourage you to get to know your local game warden. Better still, do a ride along with them, if possible. You will never forget it.
Forever after, when you're out hunting or fishing and someone says, "Here comes the warden," you'll understand what kind of difficult job these guys and gals do to protect our wildlife resources, as well as keep the peace.
They need all the help they can get.
James Swan - who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" - is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
Market hunting is long gone, thanks to Teddy Roosevelt, right?
Wrong.
That was the old market hunting, in which people openly shot wild game for food, hides, horns, feathers and, in the case of buffalo, maybe just tongues.
The original Lacey Act of 1900, subsequent amendments and the establishment of state wildlife agencies stopped open market hunting more than a century ago.
The new market hunting — illegal black-market trading in fish, wildlife and plants — is all too alive, especially in California, where the state's beleaguered game wardens recently took bold steps to.
On June 28, a swarm of green trucks descended on the fire station in Cordelia, Calif., as 85 sworn law enforcement officers — state game wardens, prosecuting attorneys from four counties and federal special agents — and 12 support staff, came together for a briefing on three cases involving illegal take, possession, distribution and sales of sturgeon and abalone.
Nancy Foley, the Department of Fish and Game Chief of Enforcement, greeted the group, which included some media, yours truly among the reporters.
She reminded us that 10 years ago it was estimated illegal wildlife trafficking in California was worth $100 million a year. She sighed, then said, "And it's getting worse, exponentially," in large part because the state Department of Fish and Game is hit hard by budget cuts.
Species like sturgeon and abalone are especially vulnerable; they are slow to reproduce, which results in their numbers being decimated more easily. And they are both worth a lot of money.
For example, earlier this year the DFG recommended that the state enact emergency regulations after a survey last fall showed legal-size sturgeon were at a 50-year low of about 10,000 in the Sacramento River and those numbers might not increase for the next 10 years.
The regulations, approved by the state Fish and Game Commission last March, retained a one-fish daily bag and possession limit but reduced the maximum size limit that may be taken or possessed from 72 inches total length to 56 inches.
It is illegal in California to sell sturgeon or sturgeon parts. Sturgeon often is poached for the eggs, or roe, and processed into caviar.
"Caviar can fetch up to $165 per pound on the black market," Foley said.
In high-end restaurants, this same sturgeon caviar can retail for more than $100 an ounce, she added. Add in the value of the meat, and a poacher can get $2,000 for a big female with roe.
The Sonoma-Mendocino coast has one of the last viable populations of red abalone in the world, but continued poaching has put great pressure on these dinner-plate-size mollusks.
The abalone sport season is open only north of San Francisco Bay, from April 1 through June 30 and Aug. 1 to Nov. 30. The legal bag limit has been reduced to three per day and 24 per season for abalone 7 inches and longer.
Wild abalone cannot be sold commercially in California, yet they can fetch between $60 and $100 each on the black market, depending on the size.
As an illustration of what happens when wardens are scarce, DFG operated two vehicle checkpoints on Highway 128 in Mendocino County and Highway 1 in Sonoma County earlier this summer, inspecting a total of 552 vehicles. Wardens issued a total of 107 citations, and confiscated 144 illegal abalone.
Chief Foley then introduced members of the undercover S.O.U. (Special Operations Unit) task force who briefed us on the three cases — Operations Dos Robles, Mahalo, and Delta Beluga III — and showed surveillance video and still shots of the 20 people with arrest warrants, seven places targeted for search warrants and another dozen "people of interest" to be interviewed.
It was noted that since these cases involved groups of people interacting to commit a crime, these were conspiracy felonies, which could count toward California's "three strikes" program. This meant harsher penalties for offenders, but also raised the stakes of people resisting and eluding arrest.
After the briefing, the group broke into 29 teams of wardens that would be deployed to Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, Hayward, Fort Bragg and Mission Viejo. We also were told about another suspect who would be arrested in Oregon.
It's important to note here that because wardens are spread so thin — 200 in the field for the state — coordinated efforts like this take time, planning and a lot of cooperation, as wardens normally work alone.
And the operations have to be done in secrecy both to catch the criminals and to not alert people in the wardens' regular districts that no one will be around on such and such a day.
For each targeted suspect, the team received a lengthy folder that contained photos, videotape, floppy discs, maps, warrants and staging instructions. Four hours later, the teams headed out to do surveillance of the locations they would target the next morning.
After a very short night at a motel in Oakland, the team I was assigned to met at its staging area — a reservoir for the Oakland Municipal Water District — which just happened to be about six blocks from the homes of two suspects for which we had warrants.
The reservoir provided a convenient cover. Several early-morning dog walkers passed by and asked why game wardens were here. Lt. Jerry Karnow, my ride-along warden, replied that we were here to check on fish in the reservoir. Great ruse. Karnow could be a good actor.
At precisely 7, the "time of action" call came over the radio from the central command post and our three green pick-ups sped off.
All 29 teams began action simultaneously to prevent people making calls to warn others of the takedown, as most of these scofflaws knew each other and one has to assume most everyone has a cell phone.
Our two suspects lived right next door to each other in south Oakland, which was convenient, as well as risky. As two wardens began knocking of the door of each house, I could see shades going up in the houses upstairs, as well as in surrounding neighborhood homes. You hope for the best and keep alert for anything else at times like this.
The two suspects surrendered quietly. One of them had a prior felony conviction for assault with a deadly weapon and making terrorist threats, so all of us breathed a sigh of relief as they stood quietly to be searched and handcuffed. But then people started pouring out of the houses. The daughter of one of the men started yelling and swearing.
Three Oakland Police cruisers arrived for backup. The officers told us that just a few blocks away an Oakland police officer had recently shot and killed someone in an arrest, so tensions were already high in the neighborhood.
After the two men were on their way to the jail, we went after the third person on the list, a person-of-interest, to be interviewed. He lived only about a block away. Unfortunately, he had "just left to play tennis" his sister told the wardens. I noticed a large landing net tucked in a corner beside the house. This guy was later implicated by one of the arrestees as a supplier.
En route to the jail, the results came in from the Incident Command Center. Teams had bagged 17 of the 20 with arrest warrants, and several more offenders were implicated in interviews with those arrested. No one was hurt.
Two restaurants in San Francisco — Bob's Sushi House and the China House — were searched with TV news cameras watching. The effect this will have on their business may be far greater than the penalties they may receive for illegal purchase of abalone.
At a press conference that afternoon Foley said, "Today, we took a step toward knocking down the significant amount of poaching that continues to imperil sturgeon and abalone in California. We will continue to send the message that DFG has zero tolerance when it comes to the illegal commercialization of fish and wildlife resources."
Since conspiracy is involved in these three cases, some of those arrested can expect fines upward of $40,000, jail time, forfeiture of vehicles and equipment and loss of their sport licenses.
While executing the arrest and search warrants, the DFG seized a variety of evidence, including salmon and sturgeon roe, sturgeon meat, abalone, shark fins, sea cucumbers and caviar processing materials.
As the operation wound down, I asked Foley about her feelings. She was very happy the operation had gone so smoothly and no one had been hurt. The sad thing, she said, was that this was really just the tip of the iceberg.
Not only does Foley have only 200 wardens for the entire state, but because of budget limitations there is only one Special Operations Unit for the entire state. She said she could easily use a half-dozen such units, as well as many more wardens to protect the state's natural resources.
The next time you go out fishing for abalone or sturgeon and you get skunked, don't blame the weather or the phase of the moon. Know that the chances are that you did not catch anything because the poachers got there first.
The Thin Green Line of California game wardens needs more people and better pay. No wardens, no wildlife; it's that simple.
One final observation is that the state's secret-witness program, Cal-Tip, was invaluable in the success of this operation.
James Swan - who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films, including "Murder in the First" and "Star Trek: First Contact," as well as the television series "Nash Bridges," "Midnight Caller" and "Modern Marvels" - is the author of the book "In Defense of Hunting." To learn more about Swan, visit his Web site.
Donate to the California Fish and Game Wardens Association
The California Fish & Game Wardens Association (CFGWA) was founded almost 70 years ago by Department Game Wardens who saw the need for an employees' association. Still going strong with over 200 members.
Please help us to protect and preserve California's fisheries and wildlife.
With less than 200 Game Wardens in our state, California has the lowest ratio of wardens per capita of all 50 states and provinces of Canada.
The CFGWA is struggling to turn this around, but we desperately need your help. Please make a donation to our cause through Pay Pal on this site. The CFGWA is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization.
Help Us Stop Polluters and Poachers.
Please give wildlife a voice by donating today to the only organization that works 24/7 to protect the natural resources of the State of California.
We do make a difference, and with your help, we can make more and more of an impact each day.
The California Fish and Game Wardens Association EXPOSE UPDATE is now available February 2007. A riveting detail of the inequalities, danger and continued discrimination of California Fish and Game Wardens. Contact us for your copy, or bookmark this site and download the PDF version using the picture link above.
The California Fish and Game Wardens original EXPOSE, published March of 2006. Copies are still available, contact us for your copy.
Abalone Poaching Case from January 2007
DFG Wardens intercept an illegal load of abalone. Warden Gary Combes at upper right.
More photos of Game Wardens at Work - Photo Gallery opens in a new window
From a DFG Game Warden working with other agencies in the area of Homeland Security and Immigration:
I assisted Shasta Co. Task Force and USFS with taking illegals into
custody. We had flushed the illegqls out of the grow the day prior and
caught them walking out on the Pit 3 road north west of Burney. Photo
shows my patrol unit in the background and illegals cuffed up waiting
for transport.
Kokanee Salmon Poaching. This spawning Kokanee Salmon were poached in Bucks Creek at Bucks Lake, Plumas County.
Interesting Facts about California Game Wardens:
• Cover 159,000 square miles of land
• 1 million acres of Fish and Game properties
• Cover 1100 miles of coastline/ 7 major ports
• Responsibilities to 200 miles at sea
• Over 300 million pounds of commercial fish landings
• Cover 30,000 miles of rivers
• Cover 66,000 fish businesses
• Cover 900,000 vessels registered
• 37 million Californians
