Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Trump Administration Ends Wildlife Refuge Law Enforcement

After I read it again, that is my take as well.

Sounds like some ominus dominus/cross designation bullschit was decided on once upon a time and somebody finally brought an end to it.

Still leaves the dedicated enforcement folks in place. Locally we have one officer to handle 4 widely separated properties. Takes all day just to touch the 4. Good fellow though that will follow up on information.

Who’da thunk Trump would concern himself with our happy hunting ground? Remember when the Oreo tried to shut it all down?

Had my Broke open Citori checked onetime by a newbie refuge officer. Pulled out HER litle plug checker and wanted to know where the magazine was on my rifle.

The Look on the old wardens reddening face as my buddies started busted out laugh while he was checking their stamps. He let her twsit in the wind for about two minutes while she kept looking for the magazine on my Citori "rifle".

When he was done check licenses he grabbed it away from her and handed it back to me. Could hear the ass chewing as we walked away laughing our asses off.

That's important work, almost as important as patrolling the Canadian border. Be thankful nobody was hurt and everyone went home safely at the end of the day.

Ex-Canadian border patrol agent?

There are several small Refuges that I know of that basically have a staff of one, and this was probably the reason for deputizing some of the managers to start with. The problem is that some of these guys had no business being turned loose with a badge and a gun.

Yes, yes, that is exactly what I said at the time. Glad the officer made it home safe.

Crazy part is, you couldn't even challenge the ticket. I live in Utah and the violation came in the mail from some federal district in Louisiana. If I wanted to challenge it, I had to show up in Louisiana.

It's not their fault you're too cheap to drive to Louisiana. Sheesh.

Had the very same thing happen to me at my local refuge, only I was using a Parker side by side and there was only one fish cop. I let her look at the gun for about five minutes before explaining how it worked.

They can stay at home and 'choke their chicken' which will be more than they did on the Refuge!!

Isn't there a law against that? Don't let the game cop catch ya.

This doesn't amount to crap. It just takes badges and guns away from some ill trained "officers". I was a state game warden for 30 years and carried a USFWS commission also. Any time the real USFWS agents brought any of these part timers or some timers along they were kept on a pretty short leash for fear of what they might mess up. They and their parking tickets won't be missed.

I agree.

Sounds like a bunch of ass holes that get to keep their job but not be armed at work.

AA at is finest. I have a novel full of stories concerning such activity from employees which have absolutely no qualifications. Going to take a long while to dig out the snakes in the swamp. Deep state has trickled all the way down.

It means you can sneak a few more bullets into your blind bag next time you duck hunt a refuge.

"Give me your bullet Barney!"

Somebody please correct me if I am mistaken, because I am taking a guess here.

Remember when WJ Clinton was running for his second term. He made a campaign promise of adding X number of thousands of police across the nation. All the big cities went absolutely nuts thinking they were going to get butt loads of federal funding to hire additional police.

Instead, the feds strapped guns and badges onto a bunch of USFS rangers and BLM Rangers, and strapped blue lights onto their pickups. (guess part here) I wonder if these game reserve cops got their guns at the same time with the same pen stroke.

It seems we got along just fine before Rangers officers carried guns and badges. I, for one, would be perfectly happy to see law enforcement done by properly trained LEOs, and forest or grassland conservation work done by those properly trained to do that job.

To All,

SORRY guys but UNLESS we start allowing ALL federal refuges & USFS areas to be under the enforcement authority of the STATE Game Wardens, we are going to be SOON in "a real mess", imo.

I was once the Provost Marshal of a very large in area Army post & we finally gave up & hired GS-grade Post Game Wardens to police the post areas.
(We had only a "skeleton" MP force & a handful of DoD Police.)

UNLESS everyone was willing to let civilians come on the post & slaughter our deer on a wholesale basis at night & out of season, there was nothing else that we could do.
(My driver & I caught two YAHOOS on Summer night about 2100 with EIGHTEEN WT that had been killed with a suppressed .22LR rifle, equipped with a Starlight scope, over bait. = Had the rifle NOT been unlicensed, I could have done little but charge them with Criminal Trespassing & escort them off post.)
Note: The 2 jack-lighters were tried/convicted in federal district court for Possession of a Prohibited Weapon, under the NFA. = They both got substantial "federal time".

ADDENDA: About 3 weeks after we hired the Game Wardens, one of the guys caught a fellow with 4 deer in the bed of his PU. = When apprehended by the GW he reportedly said, "This ain't fair. I've been able to kill all the deer that I liked & anytime I wanted to. Now, I'm being arrested for killing just 4.."
(He was tried in District Court, served a year in confinement, lost his truck/rifle & was also fined 2,000.oo.)


I fear that on the refuges & NFS properties, which do NOT have assigned LE personnel, the SAME thing will happen in those places, whenever the "part-time LE officers" cease to be able to protect our wildlife.

ImVho, the thing to do is allow the State Game Wardens to enforce federal game laws.
(All that it would take is to "dual-swear" the State officers.)

yours, tex

Good!

I bet half of them quit when stripped of their gun. 😉 It’ll be like Hightower from “Police Academy” disarming, AR-15 gone, sidearm gone, backup gone, backup to the back up gone, short barreled shot from the trunk gone. Now when they approach citizens on THEIR land following the laws they’ll have to approach them a lot less puffed up and empowered. Every god damned federal agency and many state agencies has some element that absolutely needs a law enforcement wing along with the firearms and the major increase in budget money that requires.