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Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production of

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Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render where

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Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes

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Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f HF Gear,

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Speaker 1: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed

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Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the places we explore. So

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Speaker 1: I have a I have a philosophy, have a theory. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So I'm still not convinced that Brent Reeves isn't working

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Speaker 1: double undercover. What's that name for that where you're to

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Speaker 1: be triple under cover if you lied to him about it.

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Speaker 1: So Brent used to do undercover work for the for

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Speaker 1: multiple long a couple long well State Police. What was it?

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Speaker 1: I liber to discuss that with you, sir. Okay, So

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Speaker 1: Brent used to We'll talk later. So Brent used to

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Speaker 1: do undercover work. When Brent met me years and years ago,

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Speaker 1: he called me and it was kind of suspicious, and

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Speaker 1: he was like, hey, I really like what you're doing.

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Speaker 1: He did what Russ Arthur did too, you know, the

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Speaker 1: guy he was after played to his ego. It was like,

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Speaker 1: say that that was suspicious or maybe he has a

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Speaker 1: guilty conscience. Well, I think everything Brent does, stay with me,

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Speaker 1: Stay with me, stay with me. So he calls me

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, who is this guy? YadA ya, and

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Speaker 1: finally I'm meet up with him. We become friends. To

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Speaker 1: this day, I still think he's probably a double undercover agent,

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Speaker 1: but his plan is finally coming to real fruition because

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Speaker 1: he finally helped me gain you know, a position in

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Speaker 1: the outdoor space where I have a podcast, and then

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Speaker 1: he helped me become comfortable enough that on a podcast

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Speaker 1: I told every illegal thing I've ever done. He orchestrates.

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Speaker 1: He's like, hey, Claire, you ought to you want to

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Speaker 1: buy a game now? And then here we have the

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Speaker 1: game and fish. So I'm waiting for a raid at

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Speaker 1: any moment. And this thing, it would be cool that'll

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Speaker 1: be on live podcast. Also, what you're gonna do? Tim

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Speaker 1: has been working for us as well. Okay, we do

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Speaker 1: have a special guest guest with US, Lieutenant FP Fletcher

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Speaker 1: from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Welcome man. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Super stoked to be here today.

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Speaker 1: That you're gonna sing a special his face, So yeah,

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Speaker 1: I said they needed to sing a game ward and

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Speaker 1: that could uh sing and play music. They didn't tell

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Speaker 1: you that can you clog dance too? Because we're looking

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Speaker 1: for some We brought you here to entertain, right to

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Speaker 1: have you. So we're gonna we're gonna talk with Lieutenant

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Speaker 1: Fletcher about some game warden stuff, which is gonna be

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Speaker 1: really cool. Introductions. Brent Reeves, he is right, good, good

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Speaker 1: to see Brent beards looking good summertime beard. Absolutely, But

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Speaker 1: these overalls looked like they washed about four or five times.

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Speaker 1: Pretty good for you, which is direct correlation how many

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Speaker 1: times I've worn them? Anybody keeping up or keeping score?

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Speaker 1: How many pairs are you up to now? Actually about man,

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Speaker 1: we had a store opened up just down the street

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Speaker 1: yesterday and at Woods like unmoss y'all got them everywhere,

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Speaker 1: but like a farm store like a tractor's supply, and

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Speaker 1: they had overalls and they had overalls on sale in there.

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Speaker 1: Are you a red house overall? Guy, brown house, roundhouse?

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Speaker 1: That Woods? Yeah, that's what they sail there. And they're

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Speaker 1: made in America. And you had liberties on last weekend.

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Speaker 1: We all have to we all have to, Okay, we

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Speaker 1: work our way up to the top. Remember key, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: some of those I got me a pair and my

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Speaker 1: grandson a pair. Looking good. And you're wearing real shoes today. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: do your left. Josh Spilmmaker fresh off the boat, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fresh off the boat. Josh has been in Hawaii. Did

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Speaker 1: some fly fishing in Hawaii. Smallmouth smallmouth bas like we

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Speaker 1: have here. They were released back in the twenties. I

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Speaker 1: tell you what. It was crazy. Surprised they let them

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Speaker 1: carry that on a plane, having a little ziplock and

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Speaker 1: it's illegal, and Lieutenant Fletcher could be something there. It's

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Speaker 1: wild walking through Hawaii in waste deep water where there's

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Speaker 1: no predators and nothing dangerous. You don't have to worry

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Speaker 1: about snakes and ticks. It was. It was a weird thing.

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Speaker 1: Ticks and tigers over there. I don't know there are

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Speaker 1: places in this world that don't have ticks and jiggers.

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Speaker 1: I mean because I've always seen movies where they're like

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Speaker 1: having having picnics in the grass, and I'm always like, oh, gosh, Hollywood.

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Speaker 1: And I said that one time and someone's like, no,

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Speaker 1: we don't have ticks up north. The worst hunt I've

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Speaker 1: been on in terms of ticks was in Montana, and

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Speaker 1: it was with you and it was the worst. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've never seen something ticks, but they don't have jiggers there,

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Speaker 1: So I like what you're saying though, So just you

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Speaker 1: just go walking through the jungle and lots of chickens.

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Speaker 1: There's there's feral chickens everywhere because there's no predators and hogs.

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Speaker 1: There's no no, no predators. There's feral chickens in the

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Speaker 1: Walmart parking lot. They're everywhere. It's a wild thing. It

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Speaker 1: was a wild place to go to. They probably would

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Speaker 1: And I kept asking people, I said, now do people

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Speaker 1: just snatch these chickens up and eat them like they're chickens? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that chicken's probably been eating cigarette butts like okay.

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Speaker 1: But there's just wild chickens everywhere in hog sign all

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Speaker 1: over the jungles. You didn't see any how, didn't hunting

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Speaker 1: that goes on? And while you know, Runella did a

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Speaker 1: episode of Meat Eater and I saw it was really good.

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Speaker 1: They have they have blacktail and access to the or

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Speaker 1: there too. They got turkeys and they didn't. I think

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Speaker 1: uh Rio's really I think so or Miriam's. That's one

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Speaker 1: of the one of the two transplanted. That's pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: You can hunt the fly fishing under a hundred foot waterfalls.

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Speaker 1: Pretty cool, that's pretty cool. The pictures are cool. Do

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Speaker 1: you left Gary newcom Good to be here and then

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Speaker 1: to my dad's left, Misty, Hey, my wife, Y're good

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Speaker 1: to have you to see good to be here. Hey,

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Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta tell you. I actually when I

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Speaker 1: didn't tell Dad what I was gonna do on this podcast,

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Speaker 1: and uh, and I called him after I thought maybe

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Speaker 1: he'd listen to it, and I said, you probably didn't

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Speaker 1: like that one very much, did you? I thought I

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Speaker 1: thought he might be like, uh, why did you go

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Speaker 1: tell all this stuff? But what do you say, Dad?

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Speaker 1: I said, I loved it. I mean I do the

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Speaker 1: same thing. But when I do something really stupid, which

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Speaker 1: I have a propensity to do that, it's game laws No,

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Speaker 1: but anything. I mean, I just don't go to all

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Speaker 1: my buddies and go something really low. I Q I did.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's between me and me. Some things you

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Speaker 1: just don't. Yeah. Yeah, And I've heard you tell stories

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Speaker 1: like looking down the barrel of that what kind of

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Speaker 1: talking about two different things? Dad thinks I overdisclose about

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Speaker 1: stuff that makes me look stupid, not like the other

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Speaker 1: makes you look honest. It's so when I came out

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Speaker 1: about you know, two or three things that happened, so

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Speaker 1: I was I was actually kind of surprised about that.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Dad, it's your mother coming out. Yeah. We may

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Speaker 1: we may bring Juju in here later and I may

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Speaker 1: do a formal apology to Juju. Bad things I've done. Um, okay,

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Speaker 1: move and right along. I kind of regretted all of

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Speaker 1: the you know, the end of the last very surrender,

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Speaker 1: I said a lot of real nice things about you

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Speaker 1: being up right good. Honestly, when when you listen to

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Speaker 1: this podcast where you're like, I don't know who you

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Speaker 1: exactly into our front drive, I was like, well do

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Speaker 1: you so, Lieutenant Letcher, do you when you pull up

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Speaker 1: in your truck, do you do you sense people's nervousness

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Speaker 1: around you? I mean, like, what's it like being a

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Speaker 1: game warden? Yeah, I mean I think anytime that you, uh,

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Speaker 1: you come in contact with people, you know, you either

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Speaker 1: get one of just a handful of responses would be

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Speaker 1: you know, I've been doing this for twenty years and

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Speaker 1: this is the first time I've ever been checked by

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Speaker 1: game warden, right, and I think you you pick up

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Speaker 1: on some honesty and people when they make those type

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Speaker 1: of comments. You also think you do get the surprises like, hey, man,

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Speaker 1: where'd you come from? You know, they're like, this guy's

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Speaker 1: a ghost? How did he show up in my domain?

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Speaker 1: You know, are this this officer is a ghost? And uh?

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Speaker 1: I think those are probably the two more popular responses

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Speaker 1: um a lot of times just by rolling up in

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Speaker 1: that game and fish truck, that law enforcement conservation law

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Speaker 1: enforcement truck, people sit there and they're like, man, is

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Speaker 1: this officer ever gonna get out of that truck? Their

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Speaker 1: windows are tended, I don't know what's going on in there.

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Speaker 1: What are they working on? You know that that usually

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Speaker 1: you get you encounter You encounter that type of contact

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Speaker 1: in the field when you're responding to a call to

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Speaker 1: service from an adjacent landowner or someone that witness something

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Speaker 1: off the side of the road and you're sitting there

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Speaker 1: in the truck and you're doing the business of the day,

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Speaker 1: which is trying to find as much information and start

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Speaker 1: an investigation on a case or whatever. And sometimes you

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Speaker 1: know people, you know, they're just like, man, when why

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Speaker 1: didnt take you so long ago? That truck? You know,

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Speaker 1: there their nerves are killing them. They can't. What do

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Speaker 1: you do? Uck, Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's what you're doing,

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Speaker 1: is you're sitting there on your radio and you're you know,

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Speaker 1: running your cell phone and and you're trying to gather

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Speaker 1: all the information that you've got so far on something

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Speaker 1: just as simple as you know, a neighbor shot a

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Speaker 1: deer on the other side of the fence and they

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Speaker 1: forgot to call their buddy who's the landowner, And all

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Speaker 1: of a sudden, the landowners driving by their property and

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Speaker 1: they see somebody out there and a piece of hunter

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Speaker 1: orange on their property, and they're like, I've got somebody

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Speaker 1: out here hunting on my land. And you know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of those things you're you're putting those those pieces

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Speaker 1: limited pieces of information together. Um, it's funny. Just that

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Speaker 1: type of instance alone, you'll see, uh, you'll see a

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Speaker 1: lot of those situations resolve themselves by the time you

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Speaker 1: actually show up. Usually they realize, hey, I do know

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Speaker 1: so and so you know, they're two houses over and

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Speaker 1: you know, they just forgot to make the call. That's

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Speaker 1: just you want to several type of things, but those

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Speaker 1: are probably some of the more common you know, first

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Speaker 1: encounters with the public is that's kind of what you see.

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Speaker 1: So are you in the field, like, is that is

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Speaker 1: that your primary? Yes? So, so I have as a lieutenant,

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Speaker 1: I have field responsibilities, you know. I have enforcement duties

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Speaker 1: assigned to me in a county that I'm assigned to

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Speaker 1: and the further part furthest part of northwest Arkansas and um.

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Speaker 1: But I also have administrative roles, which is more of

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Speaker 1: my day to day stuff where I'm an assistant supervisor

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Speaker 1: of a district of fifteen officers and six counties in

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Speaker 1: the northern part of Arkansas. You know. So, so it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a balance for sure, you know. I would

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Speaker 1: say probably about sixty forty administrative and I get out

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Speaker 1: in the field and be with our folks and be

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Speaker 1: with the public. That's a that's a huge part of

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Speaker 1: our success for our enforcement division. The game fisher in

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Speaker 1: Arkansas is a contact that the wildlife officers make out

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Speaker 1: in the field with the public. There's no debat. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what would you say, I asked this to Austin, What

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Speaker 1: would you say is the philosophy of law enforcement? It

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Speaker 1: just in general terms, I get, you know, because I

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Speaker 1: don't I don't really even know what question I'm asking

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Speaker 1: but I know that you guys have a mission. You

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Speaker 1: guys have a philosophy for how you enforce the law

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Speaker 1: and how you interact with people. I don't just talk

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Speaker 1: to me about that, So, you know, I think I

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Speaker 1: think in the podcast, you know, the director was spot

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Speaker 1: on when he said, you know, we really focus on

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Speaker 1: and drilled down on those major violations. And and that's

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Speaker 1: true to who we are as an agency and as

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Speaker 1: a division when I came to work twelve years ago,

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Speaker 1: just like it is today, and it will be the

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Speaker 1: same twenty years after I've retired. You know, the compliance stuff,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think that gives us as a group

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Speaker 1: of officers, conservation law enforcement officers, wildlife officers, game wardens,

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Speaker 1: whatever affiliation you're you fall under, in what state you

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Speaker 1: fall under, you know that we are regulatory agencies, right

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Speaker 1: and so our our primary job is to go out

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Speaker 1: there and ensure that general public, the hunting and fishing public,

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Speaker 1: are complying with what those regulations are. And so, you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know that the philosophy is as fluid as

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Speaker 1: some of the strategies that we might have as an

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Speaker 1: enforcement division or as an agency in response to progress

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Speaker 1: with technology are population growth, or as you like to

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Speaker 1: call it, maybe this crossover in these urban to rural

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Speaker 1: areas where you've got a lot of the traditional rural

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Speaker 1: type approaches to hunting and sportsman type outdoors activities are

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Speaker 1: now getting squeezed out a little bit with more urban

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Speaker 1: urban settings, and so we had we adapt and we

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Speaker 1: adjust with the times, just like everybody does in any

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Speaker 1: kind of segment of law enforcement or or any industry

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Speaker 1: that you're affiliated with. Conservation law enforcements, no different. What's

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Speaker 1: a what's a big violation? Like serious viola? Give us

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Speaker 1: an example. So, uh, you know, I look at it.

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Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a community driven guy, and so you know,

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Speaker 1: I take ownership of what happens in my community. I

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Speaker 1: want to be present in my community. And so I

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Speaker 1: think if you look at it through my lens, what

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Speaker 1: I consider to be a big violation or a major

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Speaker 1: violation would be something that draws in towards public safety,

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Speaker 1: a threat to public safety, and that gives you the

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Speaker 1: road hunting situations, the night hunting situations, what Rinella called it,

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Speaker 1: what jack lighting, which is which I mean, I'm an

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Speaker 1: Arkansas guy. That's a term that's new to me. But spots.

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Speaker 1: So you know, anything that as a guy or a

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Speaker 1: gal that's a whilife officer in their county or in

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Speaker 1: their community that is a genuine threat to the safety

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Speaker 1: of the people that they share the space with, those

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Speaker 1: things take priority. The over harvesting wildlife, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: those those kind of things with intent on the violator.

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Speaker 1: You know, those things are egregious and there's no place

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Speaker 1: for that, and so we try to establish major investigations,

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Speaker 1: undercover operations, special offers still going on right now. I mean,

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Speaker 1: like so the individuals and that we talked about in

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Speaker 1: this past podcast. I mean, we're people that were killing

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Speaker 1: you know, twenty let's just say, twenty plus turkeys a year.

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Speaker 1: You know, back we had a lot of turkeys. Like,

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Speaker 1: are people still doing that? So I'm gonna answer that, yes,

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Speaker 1: they are still doing that. I've had some conversations with

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Speaker 1: some other supervisors across the state this last week and

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Speaker 1: a different setting, and and we've all kind of come

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Speaker 1: to the consensus. And I'm not speaking for everyone, but

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Speaker 1: just some of the conversations I've had is we've all

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Speaker 1: kind of come to this this consensus of you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe there is a little bit of a decline in that,

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Speaker 1: you know, just super egregious type of negligence in over

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Speaker 1: harvesting a game within ten of like hunting out a

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Speaker 1: season or just doing it because you want to cut

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Speaker 1: the horns off of a deer and leave the meat,

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Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing. It still is occurring,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know the prevalency rate is as high

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Speaker 1: as what it once was with the exception one thing

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Speaker 1: that I have seen over the last ten years, and

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Speaker 1: and I think a lot of it has to do

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Speaker 1: with probably location, because throughout my career I've been based

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Speaker 1: along this western northwestern border of Arkansas, so we share

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Speaker 1: territory with other states, Missouri and Oklahoma, and we do

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Speaker 1: a lot of work with other state conservation agencies where

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Speaker 1: these more major, more serious violations have occurred across state lines.

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Speaker 1: But it's our Kansans that are doing them, yes, and

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Speaker 1: so they'll ask us to assist with investigations. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: getting a getting a deer tag in Kansas is a

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Speaker 1: big deal. It's a very big deal. It's a very

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Speaker 1: calculated system, and it's a fair system. But just to

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Speaker 1: investigate some of my own countrymen and women, if you will,

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Speaker 1: here in Arkansas, on violations for nothing more than what

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Speaker 1: extent they would go to to try to manipulate a

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Speaker 1: system in Kansas so they can kill a Kansas buck

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Speaker 1: deer legally, which is not legal. You know, those are

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Speaker 1: the kind of things that we're kind of seeing. Show

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Speaker 1: it's head Um and I and I can tell you

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Speaker 1: it would be how would they do that? Sure? And

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Speaker 1: and I'll explain, you know, with leaving names and faces something.

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Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, give me just a simple example

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Speaker 1: of so, UM had an investigation, uh with a subject

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Speaker 1: that lived in a small rural town in central Arkansas.

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Speaker 1: I get contacted by Kansas Parks and Waldlife about an

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Speaker 1: individual that they had been investigating for the better part

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Speaker 1: of a year and a half almost two full dear

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Speaker 1: seasons now. And what started out as something of a

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Speaker 1: simple check of their current licensed status, meaning are they

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Speaker 1: a resident in Arkansas and they have licensed privileges as

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Speaker 1: a resident of Arkansas or are they a resident of

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Speaker 1: Kansas therefore they're entitled to correct resident license and the

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Speaker 1: privileges that thereof in the state of Kansas. Well, what

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Speaker 1: started out is just that simple check to see and

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Speaker 1: we do that with other states. They'll they'll call us

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Speaker 1: in Oklahoma or Missouri and and try to check and say, well, hey,

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Speaker 1: we don't recognize dual citizenship. To my knowledge, nobody does,

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Speaker 1: no state does. But for us, it's the same thing.

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Speaker 1: We just want to make sure that your primary residence

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Speaker 1: in Arkansas arts in Kansas in this case. So what

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Speaker 1: started out is that evolved into this timeline and building

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Speaker 1: this investigation against an individual that had for almost greater

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Speaker 1: than a decade cheated the State of Kansas out of

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Speaker 1: licenses of landowners that had turned their tags, their landowner

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Speaker 1: tags privilege given to them as a citizen of the

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Speaker 1: State of Kansas back into a regional office or licensing

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Speaker 1: center or check station. And this individual from no name

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Speaker 1: Arkansas was paying under the table too, a certified agent

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Speaker 1: of the State of Kansas, not a law enforcement agent,

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Speaker 1: but someone who was a an employee of the State

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Speaker 1: of Kansas under the table to take those tags that

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Speaker 1: are issued in someone else that turned him in and

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Speaker 1: use him in his own name. And to make it

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Speaker 1: even furthermore, he was passing him out to his buddies.

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Speaker 1: And so this these are the kind of yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: that's pretty that's pretty wild of conservation crimes that that

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Speaker 1: I'm seeing that we're seeing across the state Arkansas and

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Speaker 1: throughout the southern United States because it's I would imagine

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Speaker 1: the state of Kansas and state of Colorado and Missouri

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Speaker 1: and New Mexico. They're seeing there citizens, the people from

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Speaker 1: their states violate things in Arkansas. And we've got a

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Speaker 1: special investigatives unit of our Enforcement Division that does the

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Speaker 1: exact same thing when these things happen out of state. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: do you haven't do you have another example of an

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Speaker 1: egregious wildlife violation? Man egregious? The one Austin talked about

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Speaker 1: was someone just shot well, yeah, that was yeah. I

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Speaker 1: just I don't know people still do that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what where he shot the shot? It's deer from the

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Speaker 1: highway left. So you know, I'll share with you one

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Speaker 1: that's uh kind of still hot off the press, if

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Speaker 1: you will. But it's all been adjudicated, gone through courts,

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Speaker 1: so I feel comfortable sharing it with you. But we

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Speaker 1: had we had a recent investigation that was held by

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Speaker 1: some of our officers here locally here in um in

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Speaker 1: the northern part of state, and they started investigating this

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Speaker 1: gentleman greater than three years ago. Now for what started

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Speaker 1: out was just what I would call just a simple

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Speaker 1: call to service where a complainant calls in and says, hey,

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Speaker 1: shots were fired after dark. I got a vehicle description,

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Speaker 1: they didn't get a license plate, but they got us

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Speaker 1: enough information to where the officers could document on paper,

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Speaker 1: do a good incident report and say, Okay, we've got

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Speaker 1: something here and we'll keep an eye out on it.

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Speaker 1: You know, that's always key for our officers to let

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Speaker 1: those those people know, the individuals know that call in

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Speaker 1: from their communities, Hey, we're we're gonna start working this

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Speaker 1: and if you see or hear anything that suspicious, give

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Speaker 1: us a call back. This was no different. Well, within

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Speaker 1: a matter of weeks to a month, you know, another

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Speaker 1: call in that same general facility by another private landowner

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Speaker 1: saw this same type of activity almost with the same

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Speaker 1: time of day, same location, same vehicle description, And so

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Speaker 1: that was really enough for officers to start working in

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Speaker 1: a full investigation. And we really had to drill down

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Speaker 1: on this and start giving us some attention through the

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Speaker 1: use of a decoy set or working non traditional hours

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Speaker 1: and you know, in an area that we would have

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Speaker 1: to conceal vehicles and try to see if there's anything

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Speaker 1: that we could physically see. Nothing materialized that year. Well,

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Speaker 1: the next year, as soon as the phone started ringing,

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Speaker 1: if you will, for those officers in this same location,

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Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, we're gonna get out in front of this.

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Speaker 1: And so about that same time that this all started

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Speaker 1: to occur, an officer in northwest Arkansas gets another call

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Speaker 1: from someone who wants to be an anonymous on this

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Speaker 1: particular activity, which correlates with the same chain of events

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Speaker 1: that it happened to year prior and everything. Does that

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Speaker 1: tip you off to anything that somebody wants to be anonymous?

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's somebody that maybe has a personal relationship

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Speaker 1: with this person, or yeah, I'll say, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: no secret. You know, a lot of times it's it's friends,

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Speaker 1: it's it's Monday morning quarterback talk. It's around the water

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Speaker 1: cooler showing a picture of a big deer or a

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Speaker 1: turkey that was harvested a couple of days before season.

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Speaker 1: You know, sometimes your closest friends and family members, you know,

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Speaker 1: whether it's an ethical standard or it's just something that

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Speaker 1: they feel like is is just wrong, or they're sick

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Speaker 1: of you showing them those pictures are describing that event.

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Speaker 1: And they just had enough. So that's the legal right

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Speaker 1: that is afforded by the game and Fish that you

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Speaker 1: can call anonymously and no questions will be asked. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we we've got to We've got a database and it's

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Speaker 1: a couple of times on Brent say maybe Josh and

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Speaker 1: I will do that every Monday morning. I've told you,

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Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't have to be factual. You know,

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Speaker 1: we cant that was one brim basket and that was okay,

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Speaker 1: so anonymous. Yeah, so the anonymous complainant just just a

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Speaker 1: kind of something real quick on that. So if an

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Speaker 1: individual calls in and an officer ends up doing a report,

405
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Speaker 1: runs an investigation, it's their information is kept is kept

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Speaker 1: in a database and there issued like a series of

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Speaker 1: a of a letter and a number, and that's how

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Speaker 1: it's recorded and documented and the report and that's how

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Speaker 1: important touch with the person. Absolutely, but it completely stays

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Speaker 1: and honestly and so we protect their their rights to

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Speaker 1: the autonomy. So so anyway, so in this instance, uh,

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Speaker 1: subject calls in and says, hey, I know this stuff

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Speaker 1: is going on, and what you need to know is

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Speaker 1: this is who's doing it, and this is what they're

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Speaker 1: trying to accomplish. And when I first got the information

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Speaker 1: from one of our officers, it really took me back.

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Speaker 1: You know, my dad, he's he's seventy nine years old

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Speaker 1: and and we share these stories about my career in

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Speaker 1: law enforcement. My career is a conservational LA enforcement officer,

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Speaker 1: and he's always says, hey, nothing surprises me with your job.

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Speaker 1: You know. This is coming from a guy who was

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Speaker 1: an Arkansas State trooper for greater and thirty years in

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Speaker 1: state Arkansas. And I'm like, you know, you look up

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Speaker 1: to your dad's right and so for him to say

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Speaker 1: that and for me to get caught off guard at times, man,

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Speaker 1: I'm just like, wow, this is new territory, you know.

427
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: So this was no different. We walked into this situation

428
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: and the officers reported it says, hey, this this individual

429
00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: owns a small business, has vehicles as a part of

430
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: their small business. They have employees, they've got a shop,

431
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:03,400
Speaker 1: they do construction like work or work around in that industry,

432
00:26:03,720 --> 00:26:06,240
Speaker 1: and so therefore they have access. And to make a

433
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 1: long story short, what this individual had done is over

434
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 1: the course of years, he had gone out in the

435
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:19,320
Speaker 1: mornings during deer season, legal season, which I find kind

436
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 1: of ironic because what he was doing was far from legal,

437
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: and he would harvest deer, shooting him from the road,

438
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: and sometimes he'd have somebody in the truck with him

439
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 1: when he did it, and sometimes he wouldn't. But where

440
00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: it got so interesting was is he went out and

441
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: bought license for his employees and brought them in to

442
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: this type of activity and they would go out behind

443
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 1: him and pick up his deer for him and tag

444
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,959
Speaker 1: it and they would take it back to his facility

445
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:56,760
Speaker 1: and they would process it there. And so once we

446
00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: had this chain of events and we started putting together

447
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: this investigation and now you've got this this gold brick

448
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:09,199
Speaker 1: that somebody just gave us in this information through this

449
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 1: confidential informat. We had something to work off of, and

450
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 1: so we reached back out to the confidential format, got

451
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: the information on when this type of activity was prevalent,

452
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: when it was more predictable to to run into it.

453
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: We set up a little sting operation with our officers

454
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: and a dear, dear decoy, and within a matter of

455
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 1: forty eight hours of that activity, we caught this guy

456
00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 1: red handed shooting our dear decoy and uh, yeah, it's

457
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 1: it's real interesting. What was the estimate how many? So

458
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 1: I believe he was issued citations for seven dear that

459
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: he failed to check our tag in his own name

460
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 1: in addition to what we had evidence of physical evidence.

461
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: So was an additional nine dear. I believe for those

462
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,000
Speaker 1: other individuals that check dear in their names, even though

463
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: they weren't after Horns was the big buck hunter, you know,

464
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:15,199
Speaker 1: I think that's probably how it started. But you know,

465
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:20,919
Speaker 1: when we went in to his shop and started looking

466
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: at all the meat and stuff, you know, it was

467
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: packaged as if it was for consumption. You know, there

468
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:30,679
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of terrible waste, you know, So I

469
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: think it probably just turned into you know, this is

470
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,439
Speaker 1: something that I just do. I don't know if it

471
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 1: was some kind of release he had to have or whatever.

472
00:28:39,040 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 1: This this fix was kind junior high girls with shoplifting. Yeah, yeah,

473
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a thing. They just a bunch

474
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: of them just like to do it. And I'll and

475
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: I'll speak, I'll speak to this and I don't I

476
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: don't mean to kind of control this conversation because that's

477
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: not what I'm gonna try to do. But it brings

478
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: me to another point about the end of the podcast,

479
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,479
Speaker 1: and you showed in your moment of vulnerability about shooting

480
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,719
Speaker 1: a squirrel and you get checked by the wildlife officer

481
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: and he and he keys or he or she keys

482
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: on a speck of blood. Right, any what do he

483
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: tells you to do? He said, Clay, you need to

484
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: write about it. Yeah, when it's all and and I'm

485
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you. And I've only been doing

486
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:23,720
Speaker 1: this for a little over a decade, but I bet

487
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: in that moment Clay felt better because what he thought

488
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: he had done wrong, and then he got that approval

489
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: from the wildlife officer to go out and write about

490
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: it and speak openly about it. When we run into

491
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: these serious violators, the ones that aren't even on that

492
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: same level your your violation is way down here on

493
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,600
Speaker 1: the floor, and the stuff that we're talking about today

494
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: is the top of this ceiling. When we run into

495
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: that type of encounter and there's closure there, you get

496
00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: this sense from these individuals that they're almost very thankful

497
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: and appreciative of you catching them. Interesting because they've done

498
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 1: it for so long, they're tied up in it in

499
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: so many ways that they're just almost beside them themselves

500
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: thankful that they had this encounter. Interesting. Yeah, I can

501
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 1: say that that correlates a lot with the undercover work

502
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: I was doing. I've seen folks we try to catch

503
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:28,680
Speaker 1: him for years, sell them dope, and we finally do

504
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: and they it's like, hey, you know, that was my

505
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: job to catch him, that was his job to sell it.

506
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: I won that day, and they and now they say

507
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: they don't have to worry about the next knock on

508
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: the door. I get what you're saying there, because all

509
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: the time that guys out they're doing that, he's got

510
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: to look for you and make sure that you ain't

511
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: coming around the corner or something. So it's probably a

512
00:30:50,880 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: burden lifted off. The truth just set you free, dad,

513
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: What what questions do you have? Well? Have you ever

514
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: written a citation to Gary Nucom? I do not believe

515
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 1: you know he's talking. He's talking all that trash and

516
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,719
Speaker 1: keeps bringing my name up. I never got a ticket.

517
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: I've never I've never seen this guy break the law.

518
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: You got a ticket though, I never got I know.

519
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: That's why. That's what I told everybody, shut your pie hole.

520
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: You just never got caught. That is not what we're

521
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking about who got a ticket and

522
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: who didn't. Uh. All that's very very interesting. I love

523
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 1: to hear that stuff. Uh it takes me back to

524
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: my childhood. Uh, A little bitty guy and you we're

525
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: all kind of innately evil, you know, we're taught that.

526
00:31:54,960 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: You know, decision, A little bit kid is gonna still toy.

527
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: I mean, they don't go up and hand you your

528
00:32:03,680 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 1: his toy. I mean they're gonna take your toy. I

529
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 1: mean that's the way, that's our nature. So as a

530
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: little bitty guy raised up in a very sterile, honest home,

531
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: my big sister got me stealing stuff out of a

532
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: little store that was the neighborhood Beverly of all people.

533
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: And so he's a moment I got something really cool.

534
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: He's little teeth, you know, full of kool aid. And

535
00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:37,719
Speaker 1: I mean I was smart enough to know, don't go

536
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: in the house with this. So I crawled under a trailer,

537
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: a little little trailer, and I'm better chewing on this thing, thinking, man,

538
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: this ain't worth it. You know, it's a whole lot

539
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:51,600
Speaker 1: easier just to play by the rules and not have

540
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: to have all this worry. And I find that so

541
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: true in life. And you just described it better than

542
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: I've ever heard it. But hey, the simplest way to

543
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: lead this life is to pretty much played by the rules.

544
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: You know. I mean there's rules that that society allows

545
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: us to break that the penalty is not too great.

546
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 1: Like driving up here today, I mean speeding, speeding. You know,

547
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: when I run a stop sign, I go, hey, man,

548
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: I just say my breaks. I say, fuel kill a

549
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 1: big deer. And I go, well, you know, I'm feeding

550
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: the family. And you know, so we all living our

551
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: own little bubble and it's all okay because I'm doing it.

552
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: I don't understand. What do you mean two stories together?

553
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 1: As a little kid, I say, follow the rules. But

554
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:54,840
Speaker 1: still even in that environment, we all break rules. But

555
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: there are rules that we have made the decision on.

556
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:03,160
Speaker 1: Not a law enforcement officer. I've own, okay, stop sign suggestion,

557
00:34:04,280 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: you know, killing people, that's a law. And you're saying

558
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,359
Speaker 1: what what Steve Ronnella was saying is that he now

559
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:18,839
Speaker 1: looking back in his childhood, realized that his dad had

560
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:22,640
Speaker 1: a very strict code that they lived by. And and

561
00:34:22,680 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: now he looks back at it and it's like where

562
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: did this come from? Like we could do this, but

563
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:28,279
Speaker 1: we couldn't do this. We could do that, but we

564
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,279
Speaker 1: couldn't do this. But he would have been real mad

565
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:32,200
Speaker 1: if we had done this. And yeah, it's kind of

566
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,239
Speaker 1: interesting because you'd be surprised how many people have brought

567
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: up to me speeding. Inside of all these conversations about

568
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: about outlaws and breaking laws, everybody goes back to speeding.

569
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: When we said something too that I didn't agree with you.

570
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: You said yourself was a poacher because you dropped your orange.

571
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask him about that. That don't make

572
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 1: you a poacher, that makes you a violator. That was

573
00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: such a wild deal. Like I never in my life

574
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: have not wore orange. I know so many people that

575
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: intentionally don't wear orange or take it off when they're

576
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,319
Speaker 1: in the tree which here in Arkansas that's illegal. Other

577
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: states you can, I think in Mississippi once you're in

578
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: the tree standing. Don't quote me on that, look that up.

579
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: But there's places where, um, yeah, what what would have

580
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,840
Speaker 1: been a situation like that, like walking to the tree stand.

581
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 1: And I didn't say it on the podcast. I was

582
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:30,280
Speaker 1: on my land. I know it doesn't matter. Bow hunting

583
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: dur and Muslo, you dropped the orange bast had the

584
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: orange hat, just keep hunting, just like, Wow, you was

585
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: already in violation but not wearing it out there in

586
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:45,000
Speaker 1: the dark. You're do you have a weapon? Are you

587
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: in game cover? Am I right? Lieutenant? That the letter

588
00:35:48,719 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: of the law. Yeah, you know your intent was to

589
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: go hunting that day, well under under periods of darkness

590
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,479
Speaker 1: or not the letter, the letter of the law would

591
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 1: say that you need to do that. Now, did did

592
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:06,280
Speaker 1: Clay violate a law by the letter when he shot

593
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: this world class buck? That's how I envisited in this

594
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna it was, but you know I see

595
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 1: that as you know, your intent right was to wear

596
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: your Hunter orange that day or otherwise you wouldn't have

597
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: had it with you, right, But had a wildlife officer

598
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: made contact with you out in the field after you

599
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 1: had taken that deer and you had not had your

600
00:36:35,120 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 1: Hunter orange one, how would you have talked yourself through

601
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 1: that situation? With that encounter? And I think that's a

602
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,720
Speaker 1: lot of times when you know, the director mentioned last week,

603
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 1: and not to get us too far off into the

604
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: weeds here, but he mentioned last week about you know

605
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: a lot of people just think, hey, our officers are

606
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: out there to do nothing more than just write tickets, right.

607
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 1: I think that our officers are out there to have

608
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 1: a duty to our communities, but to also educate the

609
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 1: public on things that they probably should know, but they

610
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 1: haven't taken the time to truly understand. You take the

611
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: totality of the circumstances. You know, for me, when I'm

612
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: out in the field and I come across a compliance violation,

613
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,319
Speaker 1: like someone not wearing Hunter Orange when I check them

614
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: in a tree stand or walking out from a field,

615
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:24,799
Speaker 1: for me, it's a three pronged litmus test. You know,

616
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:28,279
Speaker 1: what's their age, what was their intent when they left

617
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:33,359
Speaker 1: the house that day? And by by their violation, how

618
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: have they impact the resource? Right? So, by Clay leaving

619
00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 1: his vest or it inadvertently falling down on the ground,

620
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:49,360
Speaker 1: how are you impacting the resource that day? What was

621
00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: your intent? Did you mean for it to be left

622
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: on the ground? Right? And so as a wilife officer,

623
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: that's our officer discretion is probably the biggest duty that

624
00:37:57,800 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 1: we have out in the field on a day to

625
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,399
Speaker 1: day basis. So just something following you like me not

626
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: having Hunter's Orange didn't give me an advantage that day?

627
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:12,319
Speaker 1: Like is that what you're saying, how it affects? And yeah,

628
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: so it's it, that's what you would have said, Like

629
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: it wasn't like I accidentally spilled a pilot corn on

630
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:28,279
Speaker 1: the ground on public lands again, because I mean, yeah,

631
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: my intent entirely was to wear orange that day. I

632
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 1: do it every time I hunt. Uh, so that would

633
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: have factored in. Uh. You you take in the totality

634
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: of all of it, and then the officer has that

635
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 1: discretion of like, hey man, you know, you know the

636
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: code book says you gotta have your orange on, but

637
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:49,280
Speaker 1: you're telling me that you dropped it on the ground.

638
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: And I can visibly see that it's a hundred yards

639
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: or a hundred steps from your stand, and this deer's

640
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. So it was probably during the

641
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: period of darkness, you climbed the stand, you got up

642
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 1: there in the heat of the moment the sun was rising.

643
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 1: Sure the right thing might have been for you to

644
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: come back out of your stand during that peak activity

645
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 1: time and put the orange on, but you you made

646
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 1: that decision right, and so our officers, I think any

647
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,759
Speaker 1: wildlife officer, any conservation officer, any game warden across the

648
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 1: United States. I think that's how they operate on a

649
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 1: daily basis, as they say, hey guy, guy made a mistake,

650
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:28,399
Speaker 1: but but it wasn't intentional. Yeah, and he didn't really

651
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 1: have a direct impact on the resource that day by

652
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 1: not wearing his Hunter Orange. Yeah. Yeah, no, that that

653
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: makes sense. I say, you do the crime, you pay

654
00:39:37,120 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: the time. Do you remember that, Dad? Yeah, yeah, I

655
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:48,839
Speaker 1: told you, But you were mad at me. Yea. Let's

656
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: let's have this out. Let's let's have your comment about

657
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 1: you say the right thing to do would would have

658
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 1: been to get come down, go back. I understand that

659
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: that's your job. That's your job, but our job is

660
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: to kill deer. But the point I'm making it would

661
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 1: have been a lot more dangerous to come down that

662
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: tree again walk back where you could be shot at

663
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:21,360
Speaker 1: peak time. You know that you made that point. I

664
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: mean that and and and I didn't think that. I mean,

665
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: that wasn't the thought process of my mind. But like

666
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: if you were, if you were standing in a if

667
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: you're yeah, I mean I was just trying to say,

668
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: the laws designed to protect us, using Hunter's Orange to

669
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: protect us, you know, I was kind of what I

670
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,479
Speaker 1: like to do in those scenarios. Is just paint all

671
00:40:39,520 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: the different scenarios that make something a little more nuanced

672
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 1: maybe than it than it was, or you know, maybe

673
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: then then you might think of it um. But yeah, Hey,

674
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: I've got a question, and I know intuitively that it's wrong,

675
00:40:55,120 --> 00:40:57,239
Speaker 1: but I want to go back. I mean, not for

676
00:40:57,320 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 1: the question, but this story you told about the guy

677
00:41:00,120 --> 00:41:03,439
Speaker 1: who is using as workers and getting licenses in their name.

678
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 1: He's paying four hunting licenses, and I think there's probably

679
00:41:07,120 --> 00:41:10,759
Speaker 1: just from a legal labor perspective, you know, there's some

680
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 1: major issues as a boss and we should fire them

681
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: just for that, but but from as a non hunter

682
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: like someone who I'm I don't hunt a lot and

683
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in a hunting family. Explained to me,

684
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 1: I know it is wrong, but explain to me why

685
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: it's wrong. If you buy the licenses and so there's

686
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: enough licenses and you can skip this in my embarrassing

687
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: you because she didn't know how to plug a turkey,

688
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:44,320
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking it question. I mean, I'm really thinking

689
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: that any of us could answer, but I'm just thinking

690
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: that it might be a question that people have why,

691
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: And you're welcome to skip the question and you and

692
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: I will be conversing later. But that com some people

693
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: might have question, like he's buying the licenses the game

694
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: and fish perspective, Why is this bad? Because clearly we

695
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:10,879
Speaker 1: have the licenses to hand out, and if you're if

696
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 1: you're distributing licenses on there saying the goal, or if

697
00:42:14,480 --> 00:42:17,360
Speaker 1: you're distributing animals, you know, if you're if you're making

698
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: camplemens and things like that, on the basis of how

699
00:42:20,280 --> 00:42:22,279
Speaker 1: many licenses are bought in this guy legally buys the

700
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:27,480
Speaker 1: license the other obviously it's not good. I'm gonna say,

701
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of moving parts there, you know,

702
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: when you when you look at regulation, regulation says that

703
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:40,359
Speaker 1: that's being considered lending license by definition. Okay, so what

704
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: his intent was was to purchase license from his own money,

705
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:50,240
Speaker 1: his own funds, in the name of his employees. Those

706
00:42:50,440 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: individuals were not active hunters, and so basically, in theory,

707
00:42:55,920 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 1: they were lending license their tagging privileges because he was

708
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: the one retaining the harvest. I think that from the

709
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: regulation standpoint, it's a it's very serious because the law

710
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: clearly states how in so many ways that was wrong.

711
00:43:15,560 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 1: But I also think it's a it's a it's a

712
00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: very strong ethical dilemma on his part. And so I

713
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:27,320
Speaker 1: always look at it from my belief system is where

714
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: your ethics and regulations intersect, you have an experience. And

715
00:43:34,160 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 1: so for each of us, we have that on our

716
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 1: own experience out in the field, you know, when we're

717
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: hunting or fishing, or you know, doing our recreational voting activities,

718
00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: whatever that is. But but what were his what were

719
00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: his ethics in that moment by doing that knowing that

720
00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 1: his co workers, the people that he had paid as employees,

721
00:43:55,400 --> 00:44:02,359
Speaker 1: didn't hunt, they weren't conservationists to knowledge, and so that's

722
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: where his ethics and the regulations came together. And I

723
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:07,880
Speaker 1: look at it as like, you know, what kind of

724
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: experience is that for people when they do that with intent?

725
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: And so I think all of us are in some

726
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:22,280
Speaker 1: ways responsible and accountable as being conservationists and sportsmen and

727
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: and hunters to that particular type of situation. And so

728
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 1: when the agency says, hey, every person is allowed five

729
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 1: or six tags now right, no more than two bucks

730
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 1: per year, and you know four Antler's deer and you

731
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: can take two in one zone and three and another

732
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: or whatever, that looks like you know, those are based

733
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 1: calculated off of science, right, And so if you've got

734
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 1: someone with intent that comes in and says, I've got

735
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: ten family members, none of them hunt, and I'm going

736
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: to over harvest on their calculated in exactly exactly on

737
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: their behalf. I'm gonna do a favor to whatever it is.

738
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: You know. Um, I think that probably kind of gets

739
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: at the root of of what we would see as

740
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: you know why it's not okay because they're really not

741
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: when they set the limits. And I'm just thinking calculating

742
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: how many hunters we have in the state, and calculate

743
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: those family members, those ten employees, they're not calculating them,

744
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: and so they he is going over everybody could do that,

745
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:36,680
Speaker 1: then essentially there would be no bag limits because I

746
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: could I would just go find some guy down the

747
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: street though I could buy a tag for and he's

748
00:45:41,239 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 1: his tags, so I and obviously he's lying, he's abusing

749
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 1: his authority. He's doing just hearing us talk about hunter

750
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 1: recruitment and buying tags that funds. So You're like, and

751
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking if all the people there's a lot

752
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: of people who listen to your podcast who are not

753
00:45:56,520 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 1: hunters specifically, and might not like I understand. I like,

754
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: this is what this guy's doing is lying, and that's bad.

755
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 1: Like on that level, it's wrong, no matter why. Maybe

756
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: I'm not the outlaw in this family. You know. I

757
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 1: was also thinking, it's it's counterproductive to the what's what's

758
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,760
Speaker 1: the term that you use when when the game belongs

759
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:22,399
Speaker 1: to the people that trust it really trusts doctrine. Yeah,

760
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: it's it breaks that ethic because then someone just has

761
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,240
Speaker 1: the ability to go by by dear. I'm just gonna

762
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 1: go buy the ability to hunt, and I'll kill as

763
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:34,879
Speaker 1: many DearS as I want. It's a it's a it's

764
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: really an unethical and uh it's a partial way to

765
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:44,879
Speaker 1: to do that, and I think that's that's a completely Yeah,

766
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 1: just what would you? So I keep going back to

767
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:50,960
Speaker 1: this this I'm kind of asking the same question, maybe

768
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: over and over, but like, what what who are the

769
00:46:56,920 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: most people doing damage to the resource in terms of poachers?

770
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,839
Speaker 1: Like what what's the kind of person? Because it's clear

771
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:08,799
Speaker 1: to me that probably most a lot of your officer's

772
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: time is spent with compliance. So you're at the boat

773
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: dock checking people's license, make sure they're wearing life jackets,

774
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 1: public safety stuff during the deer season, you're cruising, public land,

775
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:21,839
Speaker 1: checking license, you know, that kind of stuff in in

776
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:24,759
Speaker 1: you know, most of the violations inside of that are

777
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,360
Speaker 1: going to be compliance stuff like do you have the

778
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 1: right license? Do you you know, are you wearing your

779
00:47:29,080 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: Hunter's orange? Stuff like this, which is all important stuff.

780
00:47:33,280 --> 00:47:35,719
Speaker 1: But then there's this other category of people like we

781
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: talked about, that leave the house with the intent to

782
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 1: be serial law breakers, that are just wearing out game populations. Um,

783
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I just answer my own question, but

784
00:47:49,640 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 1: like who are those people? And do we well, I

785
00:47:52,400 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: did ask you that question, who who are Who are

786
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,600
Speaker 1: the people that are the biggest the biggest threat to wildlife.

787
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at it from an experience that I

788
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 1: shared with my supervisor, our district captain in northwest Arkansas

789
00:48:07,760 --> 00:48:10,479
Speaker 1: when I first had the opportunity to move back home

790
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 1: from the Arkansas River Valley to northwest Arkansas. And one

791
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: of the first things that he said to me in

792
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 1: this open meeting with other officers, and I was a

793
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: young sergeant at the time, and uh, he said, you know,

794
00:48:23,480 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 1: fish our finite resource for the state of Arkansas. And

795
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand what he meant by the term

796
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: finite resource, and he said it in a very common

797
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: sense approach, which is how we operate as game wardens

798
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:41,320
Speaker 1: and wildlife officers as we apply a lot of common

799
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 1: sense to tactics and techniques and training and things. And

800
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 1: he said, the fish are depleted at a much greater

801
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 1: rate than what we can replace them at as an agency.

802
00:48:54,800 --> 00:49:00,200
Speaker 1: And so I think our biggest challenge with Poe Shing

803
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:04,839
Speaker 1: is if you take that same type of segment with

804
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 1: fishing and you apply it out in the field with

805
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:12,880
Speaker 1: hunters in general, that over harvest to the point where

806
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: it carrying capacity gets depleted and harvest numbers significantly drop.

807
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:23,240
Speaker 1: You know, those are our a segment of poaching that

808
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: we really have to be sensitive to and we have

809
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:29,080
Speaker 1: to pay attention to as wildlife officers, as conservation law

810
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:31,919
Speaker 1: enforcement officers, you know. I think I think the other

811
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:36,760
Speaker 1: thing too to consider is most of the Southern United

812
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:40,439
Speaker 1: States now uh south central United States is in this

813
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 1: period of kind of the unknown when it comes to

814
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 1: disease in servants. With the introduction to c w D

815
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: and the prevalency that we have throughout the northern part

816
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:56,440
Speaker 1: of Arkansas and the now all the way over to

817
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:59,760
Speaker 1: the Boothill of Missouri and into Oklahoma, and you're starting

818
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 1: to research and studies being done in surrounding states. And

819
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: and so when you have individuals that are uneducated, are

820
00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: refused to pay attention to the strategies and the science

821
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:19,839
Speaker 1: and the techniques that we're trying to do to manage

822
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:24,400
Speaker 1: a disease like chronic wasting disease and these type of

823
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 1: things that are are prevalent through this northern band of

824
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: those arcs and starting to spread their way south. Is that,

825
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: by definition, a new demographic of poaching, the individuals that

826
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 1: when you have spread crew stuff that's might spread c

827
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 1: w correct in the sense of we have c WS

828
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: c w D zone baiting laws in this part of

829
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 1: Arkansas now, and the regulation says, you know, after the

830
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: thirty one December until the first day of September, you

831
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,320
Speaker 1: can't spread any bait on the ground with the intent

832
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: to harvest wildlife or harbor wildlife. Right. And the strategy

833
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:06,919
Speaker 1: is real simple because when you bring in a group

834
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,360
Speaker 1: of deer, right and I'm no scientists by by trade,

835
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: but I've I've been around to see it long enough.

836
00:51:13,160 --> 00:51:15,319
Speaker 1: Is and haven't explained to me, is when you bring

837
00:51:15,320 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: around these deer and they have this communal type of gathering, right, yeah,

838
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:24,919
Speaker 1: well then there's probability. And so I think I think

839
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:28,959
Speaker 1: we're in a new territory here. I really like that.

840
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:31,279
Speaker 1: That's that's the kind of I didn't know what I

841
00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:34,799
Speaker 1: was fishing for. But that's a great point, is that

842
00:51:35,280 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 1: you know, with the with the threats c w D,

843
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:40,360
Speaker 1: that that, yeah, maybe the guy that breaks the c

844
00:51:40,600 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: w D laws is now the one that is really

845
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:44,960
Speaker 1: threatening the resource the most. And I know there's a

846
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:48,440
Speaker 1: lot of controversy on how CWD spreads and that's a

847
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 1: whole other conversation, but but yeah, that's that's important because yeah,

848
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:55,080
Speaker 1: you kind of think of it like, uh, well, and

849
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: I mentioned it to you on the phone the other day,

850
00:51:57,120 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: but this terminology that I heard a lot of these

851
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 1: now retired law enforcement game boarding guys used. Jimmy Martin

852
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: used the term, Russ Arthur used the term but old

853
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 1: time poachers, which are just guys that are recreationally going

854
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 1: out and killing more than their limit, maybe even during

855
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: seasons using traditional methods. Um. Yeah, and now it's it's

856
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: interesting to think that now the guy that's you know,

857
00:52:28,760 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 1: baiting deer longer putting out mineral licks. I mean, we

858
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: can't put mineral licks out here anymore, which, you know,

859
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to see how compliant people really

860
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: are to that, because I don't know that they are.

861
00:52:39,080 --> 00:52:41,600
Speaker 1: And you know, along those same lines, and we talk

862
00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:45,319
Speaker 1: about the strategies that our agency is implementing, we've got

863
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 1: a phenomenal group of men and women in our Wildlife

864
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:53,320
Speaker 1: Management Division that have spent almost a career's worth of

865
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:57,960
Speaker 1: their work in dedicated towards c w D and spread

866
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: of infectious disease and things like that. In servants alone,

867
00:53:02,960 --> 00:53:05,840
Speaker 1: we started seeing seven or eight years ago, about the

868
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 1: time that I was transitioning out of the River Valley

869
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:15,200
Speaker 1: into northwest Arkansas, this intent on behalf of these hunters

870
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:20,840
Speaker 1: that were harvesting servants from out of state bringing there

871
00:53:21,640 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 1: unprocessed whole bodied servants deer, elk, et cetera, across state

872
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:31,840
Speaker 1: lines into Arkansas. And so you know, that opened up

873
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: a whole another avenue of regulation that we were prepared

874
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: for as an agency. We knew it was coming, but

875
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:42,399
Speaker 1: we just didn't expect it to happen at the rate

876
00:53:42,440 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 1: that it probably did. You know, I'll never forget. UH.

877
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 1: Seven or eight years ago, I was working in Fort Smith, Arkansas,

878
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: and it was my one of my days. I was

879
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: working UH in Crawford County, which is just north of there,

880
00:53:56,239 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: and I get a call from our radio room dispatch,

881
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,320
Speaker 1: which is based in Central Arkansas, and they say, Uh,

882
00:54:04,440 --> 00:54:07,720
Speaker 1: Officer Fletcher, we've got an individual there on I forty

883
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 1: eastbound in Oklahoma. Is there any way we can patch

884
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:14,160
Speaker 1: them through to you? And I said, sure, not a problem.

885
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:16,360
Speaker 1: And so through a series of things, they forwarded the

886
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:18,560
Speaker 1: call to me, and I'm talking to a subject and

887
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:21,239
Speaker 1: he tells me lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he'd

888
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:24,520
Speaker 1: been out in Oklahoma City working all week. And he says,

889
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:29,279
Speaker 1: I'm behind a truck bed of deer horns and they're

890
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,560
Speaker 1: headed towards the state line. And I knew in that

891
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:36,840
Speaker 1: moment that things were about to get real interesting for

892
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 1: the wildlife officer in Arkansas when we start dealing with

893
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 1: this type of activity. And so you ask yourself, is

894
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:48,200
Speaker 1: that a new era of poaching as well? I mean,

895
00:54:48,360 --> 00:54:50,839
Speaker 1: is it or is it not? You know, we deal

896
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 1: with that, you know, those are that's our reality that

897
00:54:53,560 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 1: our officers are now challenged with, well, I mean c

898
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:00,799
Speaker 1: w D they can take more deer out the I

899
00:55:00,840 --> 00:55:05,759
Speaker 1: could with a spotlight. Sure, So is that a confession?

900
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:07,279
Speaker 1: That's what I was curious about. How many do you

901
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 1: have you taken out with the spotlight? Why it's always

902
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 1: back to that when you're gonsing that around. Yeah, trying

903
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,000
Speaker 1: to get the focus off of him on someone else.

904
00:55:20,400 --> 00:55:26,600
Speaker 1: It's got to take it. Good point, great point. Bent continue, Well,

905
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:33,399
Speaker 1: I was born in Okay, Okay, Yeah, no, and that's

906
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:36,319
Speaker 1: that's just it that. Yeah, that kind of stuff is

907
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:40,799
Speaker 1: instremental to the resource. Could be whether those deer were

908
00:55:40,840 --> 00:55:43,880
Speaker 1: legally taken or not. If if they're coming across and

909
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 1: they're not packaged the way the regulation states to keep

910
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,359
Speaker 1: c CWD out of Arkansas. I mean, that's man, that's

911
00:55:52,400 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: the one the monkey box out there. So who knows?

912
00:55:56,120 --> 00:56:00,160
Speaker 1: Who knows how bad it could be? Yeah? Do you

913
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: think that someone could do what did? Did you? You

914
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: may not have heard the podcast about Louis Delle and

915
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 1: Charlie Edwards and they killed like how many turkey every year?

916
00:56:09,360 --> 00:56:15,479
Speaker 1: Seven eight million? I mean, but this was like years ago.

917
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 1: Do you think someone could do that? Today? They were

918
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 1: very vocal about it. Yeah, yeah, there, Yeah, you know,

919
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:27,319
Speaker 1: I think probably with the advancements in technology and the

920
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 1: way that our s i U teams work, the wildlife

921
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:33,719
Speaker 1: officers that are that are trained to work either in

922
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 1: an undercover capacity or work exclusively with social media presence,

923
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:41,879
Speaker 1: you know, because we we do have to operate that way. Really,

924
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 1: you've got people that have monitor in social media. Absolutely,

925
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:48,480
Speaker 1: I would I would say probably, you know a majority

926
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 1: of the conservation law enforcement agencies across the United States

927
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:54,360
Speaker 1: probably operate in some capacity that way. But you know,

928
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 1: I would I would say that it would probably be

929
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 1: real difficult to expose that type of activity if those

930
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:07,400
Speaker 1: individuals had a small network of friends that weren't tied

931
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: into some kind of social media presence. Absolutely, they wouldn't

932
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:15,719
Speaker 1: need to be glorified by what they had done, you know.

933
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: I mean, hearsay used to be the way that we

934
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:25,160
Speaker 1: started investigations and we built these phenomenal cases. But today

935
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: it's almost like the burden of proof or whatever probable cause,

936
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: it's kind of been elevated to the point of we

937
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 1: need some kind of physical evidence or something that puts

938
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 1: someone in a certain capacity. Tip would have been like,

939
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 1: hey man, let's hit the ground and run with it

940
00:57:44,200 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 1: absolutely more than just here today. Yeah, it's and we

941
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 1: make a lot of great cases, don't get me wrong,

942
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: as a as an agency and as a division, just

943
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:55,600
Speaker 1: based off of word of mouth and and our our

944
00:57:56,200 --> 00:57:59,680
Speaker 1: um our what's hotline. We have a hotline here in

945
00:57:59,680 --> 00:58:02,440
Speaker 1: the State Arkansas that people can call in and if

946
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:07,040
Speaker 1: they give us information that turns into a successful prosecution. Uh,

947
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:10,000
Speaker 1: we split the fine money with them, just like Director yes, sir,

948
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 1: just like Director Booth uh mentioned last week. You know,

949
00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:16,560
Speaker 1: none of our fine money stays within our agency. Thanks

950
00:58:16,560 --> 00:58:19,600
Speaker 1: thanks to Amendments seventy five and n seven when it

951
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 1: was passed in this one eighth of one percent of

952
00:58:22,080 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: the general sales tax use and the State Arkansas goes

953
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: to conservation of that number goes to the Arkansas Game

954
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,200
Speaker 1: Fish Commission. And so we have these type of programs

955
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:34,640
Speaker 1: in place to where we can allocate some of those

956
00:58:34,640 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 1: fine moneys to keep that word of mouth, to keep

957
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:41,080
Speaker 1: that here say live and how we do our business

958
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 1: absolutely and at least to some phenomenal cases and work

959
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 1: done environment and women every day. Um. This is kind

960
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:53,240
Speaker 1: of off topic, but just being in law enforcement like

961
00:58:53,360 --> 00:58:55,920
Speaker 1: you have for as long as you have, what's the

962
00:58:56,480 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: what's the wildest situation you've ever found yourself in? Like

963
00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 1: just uh like dangerous? Uh? If you if you that

964
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: you could share with us. So I'll just tell you

965
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 1: by by by affiliation. The first six or seven years

966
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 1: of my career, I was stationed at UM. Fort Chaffee

967
00:59:19,920 --> 00:59:22,280
Speaker 1: was a big part. I consider myself being stationed there

968
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:24,439
Speaker 1: because four and a half days of my work week

969
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 1: I could spend out there and do the work of

970
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:31,000
Speaker 1: the game and fish and have a lot of opportunities

971
00:59:31,040 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 1: for contacts with individuals. Big part of that area is

972
00:59:34,080 --> 00:59:38,000
Speaker 1: uh of the forty thousand plus surface kit cleared area

973
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 1: acres of Fort Chaffee is an area known as the

974
00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:45,000
Speaker 1: impact area and it, and I can tell you it

975
00:59:45,040 --> 00:59:49,000
Speaker 1: in itself is extremely dangerous because you have it's not

976
00:59:49,120 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 1: surface cleared, meaning meaning when Fort Chaffee was a very

977
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:57,240
Speaker 1: active military installation and still it is described because we're

978
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 1: talking to people outside of Arkansas Testure Jeffia is a

979
01:00:00,600 --> 01:00:06,080
Speaker 1: military base. Forty thousand surface cleared acres is what is

980
01:00:06,080 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 1: how I describe it. And then you've got an additional gosh,

981
01:00:09,840 --> 01:00:12,320
Speaker 1: I don't know, five seven eight thousand acres of this

982
01:00:12,520 --> 01:00:16,840
Speaker 1: uncleared ground, meaning meaning when the military is in there

983
01:00:16,840 --> 01:00:21,640
Speaker 1: doing their training, you have crews that go behind those

984
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:26,280
Speaker 1: groups and troops and platoons and they clear those ranges.

985
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:31,000
Speaker 1: It's active ranges like live shooting at big targets and munitions.

986
01:00:31,040 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 1: And you know the the A ten tank killers is

987
01:00:34,640 --> 01:00:36,920
Speaker 1: I've got gotten to know them over the years. They

988
01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 1: had a range out there called the Razorback Range and

989
01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 1: they would do all their drops in this impact area

990
01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:45,960
Speaker 1: to simulate their trainings that they were doing in Afghanistan

991
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 1: live uh, military and wartime stuff. So this this place

992
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 1: is a is a public hunting areas. Absolutely can't just

993
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:55,360
Speaker 1: walk in there. You've got to take a class and

994
01:00:55,440 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 1: the absolute ways you got hunt. But it's it's well

995
01:00:58,160 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 1: known around here, so tell So I'll just tell you

996
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 1: that in itself, anytime I had to go into the

997
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 1: impact area loone, you know, you were kind of playing

998
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,000
Speaker 1: with fire because you didn't know what to expect and

999
01:01:11,080 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 1: step on a live shell the ordinance, that's correct. Some

1000
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: of them have not exploded, and sometimes they were randomly

1001
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:21,280
Speaker 1: explode after being in the ground for ten years. So

1002
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:26,640
Speaker 1: the thing about it is is the impact area of

1003
01:01:26,760 --> 01:01:32,600
Speaker 1: Fort Chaffee garnered attention starting about twenty five thirty years

1004
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:37,960
Speaker 1: ago from a certain segment of the outlaw poacher, and

1005
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:44,240
Speaker 1: these individuals would jeopardize their own lives, whether they knew

1006
01:01:44,960 --> 01:01:47,480
Speaker 1: or did not know that there was a live fire

1007
01:01:47,520 --> 01:01:50,640
Speaker 1: in progress or a training in progress, all in the

1008
01:01:50,760 --> 01:01:55,120
Speaker 1: name of harvesting a world class Boon and Crockett type

1009
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:59,439
Speaker 1: deer that the impact area has so been glorified known

1010
01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 1: to have. And in my career there I saw kind

1011
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 1: of the last remaining, you know, world class Boone and

1012
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 1: Crockett type deer of Chaffee, because I saw it kind

1013
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:16,920
Speaker 1: of decline over the six or seven years that I

1014
01:02:16,960 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 1: was there. But but one situation in particular, we get

1015
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 1: a tip of an individual that had crossed over a road,

1016
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 1: a county road on the Sebastian County line in the

1017
01:02:29,520 --> 01:02:32,920
Speaker 1: Franklin County line um on it that borders the far

1018
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:38,640
Speaker 1: eastern side of Fort Chaffee and they had jumped the

1019
01:02:38,680 --> 01:02:41,440
Speaker 1: fence and camo and a rifle and that's all we

1020
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 1: had to work on. And so I had a partner

1021
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:45,600
Speaker 1: at the time, and we've got a K nine team

1022
01:02:45,640 --> 01:02:48,680
Speaker 1: that gosh, we're super proud of these these men and

1023
01:02:48,680 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: women from all over the state. They dedicate a large

1024
01:02:51,560 --> 01:02:54,520
Speaker 1: part of their career to these service dogs and what

1025
01:02:54,560 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 1: they're trained to do. And so I got the call

1026
01:02:57,840 --> 01:03:00,240
Speaker 1: from our radio room because it came in anonymous lee

1027
01:03:00,760 --> 01:03:03,760
Speaker 1: and this individual was seen crossing this fence. So we

1028
01:03:03,800 --> 01:03:06,400
Speaker 1: had a last known location, but we knew they were

1029
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:09,120
Speaker 1: going in the impact area. Well you know, what does

1030
01:03:09,160 --> 01:03:13,200
Speaker 1: ten thousand plus acres look like in this impact area?

1031
01:03:13,200 --> 01:03:15,840
Speaker 1: I mean, it is, it is forever, it's you know.

1032
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:18,840
Speaker 1: And so I pick up the phone and I called

1033
01:03:18,840 --> 01:03:21,440
Speaker 1: my partner at the time, and I say, hey, can

1034
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 1: you bring the dog. Here's what I got and it

1035
01:03:23,840 --> 01:03:26,480
Speaker 1: might lead to something, because man, I'm telling you as

1036
01:03:26,520 --> 01:03:32,040
Speaker 1: a wildlife officer in Sebastian County, Arkansas, and my primary

1037
01:03:32,160 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 1: job description is to catch poachers and outlaws crossing into

1038
01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:40,479
Speaker 1: the impact area. If I didn't catch this guy, I

1039
01:03:40,520 --> 01:03:46,600
Speaker 1: was going to, you know, deface the name of Turning

1040
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:50,880
Speaker 1: that had come before me. And so, I mean we

1041
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:54,440
Speaker 1: took it to heart, and we sacrificed a lot to

1042
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:57,320
Speaker 1: catch these guys. A lot of them we never caught.

1043
01:03:57,440 --> 01:04:01,680
Speaker 1: But this night was different. So my partner arrives there

1044
01:04:01,920 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 1: and I meet him at the place where this individual,

1045
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:07,520
Speaker 1: who was on their way home from work, had reported

1046
01:04:07,880 --> 01:04:12,680
Speaker 1: this guy and Kimo across the fence. And and I

1047
01:04:12,760 --> 01:04:15,800
Speaker 1: knew through my limited training of working with canine handler

1048
01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: that you know, I didn't need to contaminate this scene. Okay,

1049
01:04:19,880 --> 01:04:23,600
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do what I for. I'm an old coon hunter,

1050
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:27,640
Speaker 1: was Brent. There is a law that is unbreakable in

1051
01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:30,200
Speaker 1: coon hunting, and that is, when you see a coon

1052
01:04:30,360 --> 01:04:33,240
Speaker 1: cross the road in front of your truck, if you

1053
01:04:33,360 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 1: just stop and turn your dogs out, you almost never

1054
01:04:37,920 --> 01:04:40,920
Speaker 1: treat that coon. And so what you do, and I

1055
01:04:40,920 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: want to see if this is what y'all did? You

1056
01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 1: wait minutes less than that, because no coon hunter has

1057
01:04:48,720 --> 01:04:51,200
Speaker 1: the patience to wait that long. But then you go,

1058
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:54,760
Speaker 1: but you let the track, something happens in the scent settles,

1059
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:56,800
Speaker 1: and you go anyway. I just thought of that when

1060
01:04:56,800 --> 01:04:58,280
Speaker 1: they said they saw a guy across the road. They're

1061
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:00,000
Speaker 1: bringing a dog. I'm thinking, if you turn it out quick,

1062
01:05:00,120 --> 01:05:02,480
Speaker 1: you're not gonna catch it. So he also didn't want

1063
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:06,040
Speaker 1: to contaminate it with humans, and go ahead, go ahead,

1064
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:13,160
Speaker 1: So it thirty minutes had passed. Let's so you're right.

1065
01:05:13,800 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 1: So partner gets there at the time and uh, he

1066
01:05:17,880 --> 01:05:20,520
Speaker 1: dumps the dog out, and the dog, you know, starts

1067
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:23,080
Speaker 1: doing their crazy back and forth back and forth, kind

1068
01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:25,920
Speaker 1: of raining in that scent. And then all of a sudden, man,

1069
01:05:25,960 --> 01:05:27,880
Speaker 1: there the two of them go, and they're over this

1070
01:05:27,960 --> 01:05:30,919
Speaker 1: fence and they're tracking this guy. Y'all worried about being

1071
01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:37,120
Speaker 1: in the impact zone. I'm always worried, tell the chaffe folks. Yeah,

1072
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:40,120
Speaker 1: So so we would call, don't shooting tanks in there.

1073
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:43,240
Speaker 1: We would always even in areas that were closed to

1074
01:05:43,440 --> 01:05:47,000
Speaker 1: general public that may not be live fire or active

1075
01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:49,240
Speaker 1: or anything like that, we would we had protocol. We

1076
01:05:49,280 --> 01:05:53,440
Speaker 1: would call range control and they always had that facility staffed,

1077
01:05:53,480 --> 01:05:55,520
Speaker 1: and we would let them know, Hey, we're we're down

1078
01:05:55,600 --> 01:05:58,560
Speaker 1: range of range eight eight or whatever the range number was.

1079
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:01,600
Speaker 1: Are we good to work through this area? Give them

1080
01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:04,600
Speaker 1: the heads up, But but you gotta remember this is

1081
01:06:04,640 --> 01:06:07,320
Speaker 1: the impact area, and we got to catch these guys.

1082
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:11,560
Speaker 1: And so you know, we're going, as they say, our

1083
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:14,600
Speaker 1: high water right, And so we're going and so I

1084
01:06:14,600 --> 01:06:16,920
Speaker 1: I look up and and my partner and this dog,

1085
01:06:17,160 --> 01:06:21,840
Speaker 1: they're they're fading in the distance fast, and so I'm like, man,

1086
01:06:21,840 --> 01:06:23,840
Speaker 1: what I do? And there's not much I can do

1087
01:06:23,920 --> 01:06:27,320
Speaker 1: at this point, because I didn't want to go circle

1088
01:06:27,360 --> 01:06:30,680
Speaker 1: around this guy or or spooking or you know whatever.

1089
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:35,439
Speaker 1: And so I go to this city down the road

1090
01:06:35,480 --> 01:06:38,720
Speaker 1: called Charleston, and it's probably three or four or five

1091
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:40,880
Speaker 1: miles and I just wait because my partner and I

1092
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:42,880
Speaker 1: had worked together for so long and it was not

1093
01:06:43,000 --> 01:06:45,960
Speaker 1: uncommon for me to dump him out of the truck

1094
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:48,560
Speaker 1: and him just start walking and him to call me

1095
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:51,680
Speaker 1: an hour later or seven hours later and say, hey, man,

1096
01:06:51,720 --> 01:06:54,240
Speaker 1: I'm on the other side of this range or I'm

1097
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:56,120
Speaker 1: on the other side of this ridge. Can you come

1098
01:06:56,120 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 1: pick me up. That's not uncommon. So I knew what

1099
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:00,840
Speaker 1: I how how comfortable was with it. So I went

1100
01:07:01,440 --> 01:07:03,439
Speaker 1: to this little area in Charleston and I sat there

1101
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:08,000
Speaker 1: outside this convenience store and my phone rings about two

1102
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:11,480
Speaker 1: hours after dark, and he says, man, I found this

1103
01:07:12,040 --> 01:07:14,920
Speaker 1: gilly suit and I found this rifle and it's at

1104
01:07:14,920 --> 01:07:17,320
Speaker 1: the base of this tree. And I'm four miles inside

1105
01:07:17,320 --> 01:07:20,320
Speaker 1: the impact area or some crazy number, right, So the

1106
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:24,960
Speaker 1: dog did their job and so but no man, no man.

1107
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:31,760
Speaker 1: So they stopped there. He photographs evidence or whatever he

1108
01:07:31,800 --> 01:07:34,919
Speaker 1: needed to do, and the dog takes off and they

1109
01:07:34,960 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: track this guy all the way out the other end

1110
01:07:40,320 --> 01:07:43,320
Speaker 1: of the impact area, which is on the far eastern

1111
01:07:43,560 --> 01:07:47,280
Speaker 1: boundary of Fort Chaffee, which is probably another three miles

1112
01:07:47,880 --> 01:07:53,720
Speaker 1: to the highway. And then they get to a car

1113
01:07:53,840 --> 01:07:57,320
Speaker 1: wash which is about another mile up a paved road,

1114
01:07:58,280 --> 01:08:00,520
Speaker 1: and there this guy set and he had arked his

1115
01:08:00,720 --> 01:08:06,480
Speaker 1: car under this car wash, which is five or six

1116
01:08:06,560 --> 01:08:12,080
Speaker 1: miles from even touching Fort Chaffee at this point. That

1117
01:08:12,160 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: was his intense commitment. Absolutely, So he was walking on

1118
01:08:16,600 --> 01:08:21,040
Speaker 1: blacktop roads. Yes, wow. So he popped out of Chaffie

1119
01:08:21,080 --> 01:08:25,880
Speaker 1: and then walked on and to trail him that far

1120
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:29,479
Speaker 1: and and the car wash. What I didn't tell you

1121
01:08:29,880 --> 01:08:32,400
Speaker 1: is the car wash that he was sitting in that

1122
01:08:32,479 --> 01:08:37,120
Speaker 1: car was about a hundred and fifty yards from where

1123
01:08:37,160 --> 01:08:42,960
Speaker 1: I was sitting, right under my nose. It was a

1124
01:08:42,960 --> 01:08:47,080
Speaker 1: car he had changed his clothes, stuffed him in a backpack.

1125
01:08:48,040 --> 01:08:49,880
Speaker 1: And when we and when we caught up with the guy,

1126
01:08:49,920 --> 01:08:51,880
Speaker 1: which my partner, did you know, I was sitting there,

1127
01:08:51,880 --> 01:08:54,320
Speaker 1: almost about to eat dinner at this point, and he's like,

1128
01:08:54,360 --> 01:08:56,439
Speaker 1: I got this guy. He's he's scared to death. He's

1129
01:08:56,439 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 1: sitting here and he said, you know, when we got

1130
01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:00,840
Speaker 1: him to talk It's one of those situations where he

1131
01:09:00,880 --> 01:09:02,880
Speaker 1: was just like, man, I didn't know if you'll ever

1132
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:04,559
Speaker 1: gonna catch me because I've been doing this for about

1133
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:07,880
Speaker 1: seven or eight years. Gosh, you hadn't surrounded that night

1134
01:09:09,240 --> 01:09:12,880
Speaker 1: time was on our side. That's incredible. Yeah, So that's

1135
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:17,960
Speaker 1: that's the dogs the day, those those kind of that's

1136
01:09:18,760 --> 01:09:21,920
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, those kind of situations can be

1137
01:09:22,000 --> 01:09:27,080
Speaker 1: a little dangerous, intimidating at times, even for a skilled

1138
01:09:27,200 --> 01:09:31,120
Speaker 1: canine handler. And you know, because it's that unknown. That's

1139
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:34,160
Speaker 1: the our guys and gals that that do this every day.

1140
01:09:34,240 --> 01:09:36,839
Speaker 1: That's the world that they walk into with that dog.

1141
01:09:37,600 --> 01:09:41,559
Speaker 1: Would he is he trained to apprehend someone? No, no bite,

1142
01:09:42,080 --> 01:09:44,320
Speaker 1: that's just a trailer? Correct? What kind of dog? Was

1143
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:50,320
Speaker 1: it a labrador? All of our Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah. Are

1144
01:09:50,360 --> 01:09:53,280
Speaker 1: one of the tennis ball waiting for him to throw

1145
01:09:53,280 --> 01:10:00,400
Speaker 1: a tennis? Are all the dogs trained to to no bite? Are? Yeah? Interesting?

1146
01:10:01,560 --> 01:10:04,960
Speaker 1: It is? That is wild, that's wild. That's the officer's

1147
01:10:05,000 --> 01:10:10,320
Speaker 1: job to bite. Is it the same for canines in

1148
01:10:10,400 --> 01:10:13,120
Speaker 1: like a you know the ones they have up here

1149
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:18,839
Speaker 1: at the police stage. Some of them dogs are definitely

1150
01:10:18,840 --> 01:10:23,479
Speaker 1: trained to apprehend people, you know, I mean attack them.

1151
01:10:23,640 --> 01:10:26,320
Speaker 1: Basically hold restrain them. They would never need to do

1152
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:32,719
Speaker 1: that with me. Sold, you got me. My grand Danes

1153
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:36,719
Speaker 1: are trained to knock down and lick. Yeah, yeah, okay,

1154
01:10:36,800 --> 01:10:39,360
Speaker 1: So do you guys have anything that you would like

1155
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:42,720
Speaker 1: to confess to Lieutenant? Before we closed? There was a

1156
01:10:42,800 --> 01:10:45,439
Speaker 1: time I did not get a ticket for it. I

1157
01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:49,599
Speaker 1: was just kidding, Josh. I did go fishing and at

1158
01:10:49,600 --> 01:10:51,160
Speaker 1: the end of the day looked at my license and

1159
01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:55,720
Speaker 1: it was three days. So I just confess that I

1160
01:10:55,840 --> 01:10:58,000
Speaker 1: just wanted to get on board with you too, Clay.

1161
01:10:58,080 --> 01:11:00,840
Speaker 1: We'll pray, we'll pray for you later. So in that

1162
01:11:01,000 --> 01:11:02,760
Speaker 1: in light of that, not in light of that, but

1163
01:11:03,240 --> 01:11:06,600
Speaker 1: how much how much time would you guys spend on

1164
01:11:06,760 --> 01:11:10,320
Speaker 1: game versus fish? Do you have officers that are specifically

1165
01:11:11,360 --> 01:11:14,360
Speaker 1: assigned to game and some to fish. No. In the

1166
01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:18,920
Speaker 1: State Arkansas, it's it's based on season. A lot of

1167
01:11:18,920 --> 01:11:22,160
Speaker 1: times our seasons will overlap, uh, like in the heat

1168
01:11:22,160 --> 01:11:25,400
Speaker 1: of the summer, for example. Our primary responsibility right now

1169
01:11:25,560 --> 01:11:29,440
Speaker 1: is water safety and water patrol and compliance on our waterways,

1170
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:32,000
Speaker 1: trying to keep people from running to each other, having

1171
01:11:32,240 --> 01:11:35,960
Speaker 1: serious accidents on the waterway transition into the fall, it's

1172
01:11:36,040 --> 01:11:40,240
Speaker 1: dove season. Both season opens up and then we roll

1173
01:11:40,360 --> 01:11:43,640
Speaker 1: right into it seems like every single weekend through the

1174
01:11:43,680 --> 01:11:46,599
Speaker 1: first of December, there's something else coming at US duck season,

1175
01:11:46,640 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 1: deer or whatever, And so we vary our workload based

1176
01:11:52,400 --> 01:11:56,200
Speaker 1: on the seasonal stuff. When you talk specifically about fishing,

1177
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:58,719
Speaker 1: just like I mentioned earlier, you know, fish or finite resource,

1178
01:11:58,800 --> 01:12:01,479
Speaker 1: And so we try to explain that to our officers

1179
01:12:01,520 --> 01:12:03,960
Speaker 1: out in the field. Is we really in the spring

1180
01:12:03,960 --> 01:12:06,800
Speaker 1: when the cropper are spawning and the bass are starting

1181
01:12:06,840 --> 01:12:09,240
Speaker 1: to become active and the walley are running up the rivers?

1182
01:12:09,320 --> 01:12:11,920
Speaker 1: Is is we really have to protect that resource in

1183
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:15,040
Speaker 1: that moment, And sometimes it overlaps into Turkey season, like

1184
01:12:15,040 --> 01:12:17,120
Speaker 1: it does here in the northern band of those arcs

1185
01:12:17,120 --> 01:12:19,519
Speaker 1: and the White River chain of lakes and and those things.

1186
01:12:19,520 --> 01:12:22,520
Speaker 1: So so we just kind of go where the activity

1187
01:12:22,720 --> 01:12:24,519
Speaker 1: is and we know when we need to be out there.

1188
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:30,799
Speaker 1: Hashtag keep Them, keep Them wet um did did uh?

1189
01:12:30,880 --> 01:12:35,679
Speaker 1: Did your time with agency overlap with Joel camporra it did?

1190
01:12:36,200 --> 01:12:38,160
Speaker 1: Did you? Yeah? So I went to high school with

1191
01:12:38,240 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 1: Joe Campora. He was one year younger than me. Just

1192
01:12:42,040 --> 01:12:46,920
Speaker 1: talking about talking about water safety made me think about Joel.

1193
01:12:47,000 --> 01:12:51,160
Speaker 1: I wrote a story about Joel right after that happened.

1194
01:12:51,240 --> 01:12:58,320
Speaker 1: Joe Campora was he was killed and I think June

1195
01:12:58,720 --> 01:13:05,240
Speaker 1: it was in late May. Ye. Uh, just thinking about

1196
01:13:05,240 --> 01:13:09,400
Speaker 1: the responsibilities that these guys have. Um, I'll tell the

1197
01:13:09,439 --> 01:13:13,400
Speaker 1: story as I as I remember it. But there was

1198
01:13:13,439 --> 01:13:18,639
Speaker 1: a flood in um Scott County that was a different

1199
01:13:18,680 --> 01:13:23,240
Speaker 1: one food in Scott County and uh, I guess Joel

1200
01:13:23,320 --> 01:13:25,519
Speaker 1: was where it was based out of Waldron at that time,

1201
01:13:25,920 --> 01:13:29,559
Speaker 1: and uh, big flood and there was a house that

1202
01:13:29,640 --> 01:13:32,120
Speaker 1: was being flooded and there was some as I remember

1203
01:13:32,160 --> 01:13:35,400
Speaker 1: the story being told, there was some elderly ladies that

1204
01:13:35,520 --> 01:13:37,720
Speaker 1: lived in this house and they called and water was

1205
01:13:37,840 --> 01:13:41,280
Speaker 1: coming up in the house and then just talking about

1206
01:13:41,479 --> 01:13:46,960
Speaker 1: chain command and like when you guys might be called. Um. Yeah,

1207
01:13:47,280 --> 01:13:51,439
Speaker 1: Joel was called along with the sheriff Cody Carpenter of

1208
01:13:51,520 --> 01:13:54,479
Speaker 1: Scott County. And so the Arkansas Game and Fish Game

1209
01:13:54,520 --> 01:13:58,679
Speaker 1: Warden and Cody Carpenter went and and using a game

1210
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:03,799
Speaker 1: and fish boat went to make a water rescue with

1211
01:14:03,800 --> 01:14:07,160
Speaker 1: with these was it two ladies and the black It

1212
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:11,719
Speaker 1: was in the black of night too, it was pouring

1213
01:14:11,960 --> 01:14:16,400
Speaker 1: rain and they ride out in the water to this

1214
01:14:16,479 --> 01:14:18,559
Speaker 1: house and I mean, you know, it's fast moving water,

1215
01:14:19,320 --> 01:14:23,360
Speaker 1: and you know, no one knows the details, but they

1216
01:14:23,400 --> 01:14:27,360
Speaker 1: go in the house and the house collapses, and uh

1217
01:14:27,439 --> 01:14:30,360
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's I mean, no telling what kind

1218
01:14:30,360 --> 01:14:33,760
Speaker 1: of calls you guys are gonna get, and and and

1219
01:14:33,800 --> 01:14:36,800
Speaker 1: every they all perished, and it was it was real.

1220
01:14:36,960 --> 01:14:39,919
Speaker 1: It was a real moving deal. There's a there's a

1221
01:14:39,960 --> 01:14:42,479
Speaker 1: part of that highway now and I'd see it every

1222
01:14:42,479 --> 01:14:44,880
Speaker 1: time I drive to Mina, and every single time I

1223
01:14:44,960 --> 01:14:47,080
Speaker 1: drive to me, no matter who's with me, I tell

1224
01:14:47,160 --> 01:14:49,720
Speaker 1: them about Joel Camport and my kids know all about it.

1225
01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:52,080
Speaker 1: But there's a section of the highway that's the Cody

1226
01:14:52,120 --> 01:14:57,760
Speaker 1: Carpenter section and the Joel Campora Memorial section. But both

1227
01:14:57,760 --> 01:15:01,599
Speaker 1: of those guys past the way, and the ladies did too.

1228
01:15:02,360 --> 01:15:05,559
Speaker 1: But two longest days of my life were you were

1229
01:15:06,400 --> 01:15:09,600
Speaker 1: you were there. Still rough to talk about today, but

1230
01:15:10,680 --> 01:15:13,760
Speaker 1: uh yeah, And I tell you, we have got a

1231
01:15:13,760 --> 01:15:18,200
Speaker 1: lot of great men and women that surround us every day,

1232
01:15:18,240 --> 01:15:22,439
Speaker 1: and law enforcement and it's wildlife officers, and you know,

1233
01:15:22,479 --> 01:15:25,360
Speaker 1: we always say when conditions are at their worst, we're

1234
01:15:25,360 --> 01:15:27,639
Speaker 1: at our best. You know, it's one of our mottoes.

1235
01:15:28,720 --> 01:15:31,400
Speaker 1: And they were certainly at that at their worst those

1236
01:15:31,400 --> 01:15:34,840
Speaker 1: two or three days around that, and you definitely saw,

1237
01:15:35,600 --> 01:15:39,280
Speaker 1: definitely saw the best in people through all that they

1238
01:15:39,320 --> 01:15:43,160
Speaker 1: were I mean, like hunt a couple of hundred people

1239
01:15:43,240 --> 01:15:46,800
Speaker 1: there from other law other states because they couldn't they

1240
01:15:46,800 --> 01:15:52,599
Speaker 1: couldn't find they couldn't find them. Yeah, if I remember correctly,

1241
01:15:52,640 --> 01:15:55,040
Speaker 1: and you know, I probably need to pay closer attention

1242
01:15:55,120 --> 01:15:57,519
Speaker 1: to it because I was so involved in it. But

1243
01:15:57,880 --> 01:16:01,960
Speaker 1: almost you almost tenure is removed from it now next year.

1244
01:16:02,960 --> 01:16:05,880
Speaker 1: You know, there were so many moving parts. But that

1245
01:16:06,000 --> 01:16:09,320
Speaker 1: is one thing when we talked about pride in your

1246
01:16:09,360 --> 01:16:11,920
Speaker 1: co workers and what what we know and how we

1247
01:16:11,960 --> 01:16:15,839
Speaker 1: know to operate, is we all as wildlife officers plugged

1248
01:16:15,840 --> 01:16:19,479
Speaker 1: in in that moment because we knew what our capabilities were,

1249
01:16:19,720 --> 01:16:22,679
Speaker 1: and we knew how we assisted agencies when it came

1250
01:16:22,720 --> 01:16:27,839
Speaker 1: to critical incidents and you know, overcoming these dire times

1251
01:16:27,880 --> 01:16:30,840
Speaker 1: and dire periods of adversity. And so we all just

1252
01:16:30,960 --> 01:16:34,479
Speaker 1: jumped in that first day and it was kind of

1253
01:16:34,479 --> 01:16:36,840
Speaker 1: a chicken with your head cut off movement, but we

1254
01:16:36,880 --> 01:16:40,400
Speaker 1: didn't didn't really have a calculated response and and by

1255
01:16:40,400 --> 01:16:43,640
Speaker 1: the time we got our people in there, by the

1256
01:16:43,720 --> 01:16:46,600
Speaker 1: end of that first day, and we had this calculated

1257
01:16:46,600 --> 01:16:48,439
Speaker 1: effort on how we were going to proceed. It was

1258
01:16:49,160 --> 01:16:52,640
Speaker 1: the very next morning we found Cody Carpenter and then

1259
01:16:53,400 --> 01:16:57,639
Speaker 1: the following morning we recovered Joel's body. And uh, man,

1260
01:16:57,680 --> 01:17:00,960
Speaker 1: I tell you, it's almost slight. You know, you look

1261
01:17:01,000 --> 01:17:06,439
Speaker 1: at it for the last ten years of reflection, and

1262
01:17:06,520 --> 01:17:13,040
Speaker 1: you think about all the training and trials and tribulations

1263
01:17:13,080 --> 01:17:16,240
Speaker 1: that we go through, and the commitment and the sacrifices

1264
01:17:16,800 --> 01:17:18,920
Speaker 1: that we make for this career, this line of work.

1265
01:17:20,160 --> 01:17:24,680
Speaker 1: It's almost like we were molded for that particular experience

1266
01:17:25,439 --> 01:17:28,360
Speaker 1: to have occurred. We could endure it and see it

1267
01:17:28,400 --> 01:17:34,400
Speaker 1: through the other side. Mm hm. Extremely sad situation anyway

1268
01:17:34,439 --> 01:17:37,080
Speaker 1: you look at it. People lost their lives, friends lost

1269
01:17:37,120 --> 01:17:41,879
Speaker 1: their lives. But I I do this job today because

1270
01:17:42,520 --> 01:17:45,840
Speaker 1: of those men and women that carried that torch with

1271
01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:49,519
Speaker 1: us through that whole deal. It's a it is at

1272
01:17:49,800 --> 01:17:55,160
Speaker 1: the root of who I am forever basically in your agency,

1273
01:17:55,200 --> 01:18:01,080
Speaker 1: I would think absolutely absolutely, you know, I think I

1274
01:18:01,120 --> 01:18:06,639
Speaker 1: think the what I remember the game and Fish really

1275
01:18:06,680 --> 01:18:13,160
Speaker 1: took great care of Joel's Joel's widow Rebecca, and and

1276
01:18:13,160 --> 01:18:16,240
Speaker 1: and still do. Yeah, absolutely, I mean and that that

1277
01:18:16,320 --> 01:18:20,080
Speaker 1: spoke a lot to me, m and I think you

1278
01:18:20,120 --> 01:18:22,680
Speaker 1: know you see that, and you can speak to this

1279
01:18:22,760 --> 01:18:25,320
Speaker 1: in the in the law enforcement community, regardless of what

1280
01:18:25,439 --> 01:18:28,000
Speaker 1: segment you're in. You know, you you go to work

1281
01:18:28,040 --> 01:18:30,320
Speaker 1: for these agencies, you go to work for these departments,

1282
01:18:30,640 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 1: and they talk about this brotherhood and we're all a family.

1283
01:18:34,800 --> 01:18:38,719
Speaker 1: And I can assure you with certainty that the Arkansas

1284
01:18:38,800 --> 01:18:44,000
Speaker 1: Game Fish Commission wildlife officers and their families are a family.

1285
01:18:44,800 --> 01:18:46,200
Speaker 1: I mean, we couldn't do it without it. You know,

1286
01:18:46,240 --> 01:18:49,960
Speaker 1: we have flexible work schedules, we don't have shifts, and

1287
01:18:50,000 --> 01:18:52,200
Speaker 1: when the phone rings at three thirty in the morning,

1288
01:18:52,240 --> 01:18:54,720
Speaker 1: like it did that morning that Brian Bailey called me

1289
01:18:54,760 --> 01:18:58,120
Speaker 1: on the phone and saying I need help you you

1290
01:18:58,160 --> 01:19:01,200
Speaker 1: answer the call. You don't have back up, and so

1291
01:19:01,280 --> 01:19:04,920
Speaker 1: it takes that person on the other side of the

1292
01:19:04,920 --> 01:19:10,240
Speaker 1: bed of you. You have to have their sport. Yeah, sure, yeah,

1293
01:19:11,840 --> 01:19:16,439
Speaker 1: and our agency recognizes that. There's no doubt. Well we sure,

1294
01:19:16,520 --> 01:19:19,599
Speaker 1: we sure appreciate the work that you guys do. Yeah. Yeah,

1295
01:19:19,840 --> 01:19:21,960
Speaker 1: we are really grateful for it and grateful for your

1296
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:28,880
Speaker 1: service and sacrifice. Mm hmm yep mm hm. Well thanks

1297
01:19:28,880 --> 01:19:33,439
Speaker 1: so much for coming up today. Really has I tell

1298
01:19:33,479 --> 01:19:38,439
Speaker 1: you I've so this this ends in basically an eight

1299
01:19:38,479 --> 01:19:41,240
Speaker 1: week period where we were talking about something to do

1300
01:19:41,439 --> 01:19:46,960
Speaker 1: with the law and we're moving on finally. Uh yeah,

1301
01:19:47,680 --> 01:19:51,720
Speaker 1: French rated talking about squirrels. I'm tired of glory and

1302
01:19:51,760 --> 01:19:57,639
Speaker 1: flying outlaws all the time and I can't even defend

1303
01:19:57,680 --> 01:20:04,640
Speaker 1: them anymore. But uh yeah, So anyway, this is this

1304
01:20:04,680 --> 01:20:06,479
Speaker 1: is a great it's a great way to end it.

1305
01:20:06,640 --> 01:20:08,960
Speaker 1: We appreciate you coming up for sure. Thank you. I'm

1306
01:20:09,080 --> 01:20:12,599
Speaker 1: glad to be here, Yeah, glad to be here. All right,

1307
01:20:12,880 --> 01:20:14,800
Speaker 1: that's a wrap, guys down