Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production of
Speaker 1: the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render where
Speaker 1: we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes
Speaker 1: of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f HF Gear,
Speaker 1: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed
Speaker 1: to be as rugged as the places we explore. So
Speaker 1: I have a I have a philosophy, have a theory. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm still not convinced that Brent Reeves isn't working
Speaker 1: double undercover. What's that name for that where you're to
Speaker 1: be triple under cover if you lied to him about it.
Speaker 1: So Brent used to do undercover work for the for
Speaker 1: multiple long a couple long well State Police. What was it?
Speaker 1: I liber to discuss that with you, sir. Okay, So
Speaker 1: Brent used to We'll talk later. So Brent used to
Speaker 1: do undercover work. When Brent met me years and years ago,
Speaker 1: he called me and it was kind of suspicious, and
Speaker 1: he was like, hey, I really like what you're doing.
Speaker 1: He did what Russ Arthur did too, you know, the
Speaker 1: guy he was after played to his ego. It was like,
Speaker 1: say that that was suspicious or maybe he has a
Speaker 1: guilty conscience. Well, I think everything Brent does, stay with me,
Speaker 1: Stay with me, stay with me. So he calls me
Speaker 1: and I'm like, who is this guy? YadA ya, and
Speaker 1: finally I'm meet up with him. We become friends. To
Speaker 1: this day, I still think he's probably a double undercover agent,
Speaker 1: but his plan is finally coming to real fruition because
Speaker 1: he finally helped me gain you know, a position in
Speaker 1: the outdoor space where I have a podcast, and then
Speaker 1: he helped me become comfortable enough that on a podcast
Speaker 1: I told every illegal thing I've ever done. He orchestrates.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, Claire, you ought to you want to
Speaker 1: buy a game now? And then here we have the
Speaker 1: game and fish. So I'm waiting for a raid at
Speaker 1: any moment. And this thing, it would be cool that'll
Speaker 1: be on live podcast. Also, what you're gonna do? Tim
Speaker 1: has been working for us as well. Okay, we do
Speaker 1: have a special guest guest with US, Lieutenant FP Fletcher
Speaker 1: from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. Welcome man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Super stoked to be here today.
Speaker 1: That you're gonna sing a special his face, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I said they needed to sing a game ward and
Speaker 1: that could uh sing and play music. They didn't tell
Speaker 1: you that can you clog dance too? Because we're looking
Speaker 1: for some We brought you here to entertain, right to
Speaker 1: have you. So we're gonna we're gonna talk with Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Fletcher about some game warden stuff, which is gonna be
Speaker 1: really cool. Introductions. Brent Reeves, he is right, good, good
Speaker 1: to see Brent beards looking good summertime beard. Absolutely, But
Speaker 1: these overalls looked like they washed about four or five times.
Speaker 1: Pretty good for you, which is direct correlation how many
Speaker 1: times I've worn them? Anybody keeping up or keeping score?
Speaker 1: How many pairs are you up to now? Actually about man,
Speaker 1: we had a store opened up just down the street
Speaker 1: yesterday and at Woods like unmoss y'all got them everywhere,
Speaker 1: but like a farm store like a tractor's supply, and
Speaker 1: they had overalls and they had overalls on sale in there.
Speaker 1: Are you a red house overall? Guy, brown house, roundhouse?
Speaker 1: That Woods? Yeah, that's what they sail there. And they're
Speaker 1: made in America. And you had liberties on last weekend.
Speaker 1: We all have to we all have to, Okay, we
Speaker 1: work our way up to the top. Remember key, Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of those I got me a pair and my
Speaker 1: grandson a pair. Looking good. And you're wearing real shoes today. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: do your left. Josh Spilmmaker fresh off the boat, Yeah,
Speaker 1: fresh off the boat. Josh has been in Hawaii. Did
Speaker 1: some fly fishing in Hawaii. Smallmouth smallmouth bas like we
Speaker 1: have here. They were released back in the twenties. I
Speaker 1: tell you what. It was crazy. Surprised they let them
Speaker 1: carry that on a plane, having a little ziplock and
Speaker 1: it's illegal, and Lieutenant Fletcher could be something there. It's
Speaker 1: wild walking through Hawaii in waste deep water where there's
Speaker 1: no predators and nothing dangerous. You don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about snakes and ticks. It was. It was a weird thing.
Speaker 1: Ticks and tigers over there. I don't know there are
Speaker 1: places in this world that don't have ticks and jiggers.
Speaker 1: I mean because I've always seen movies where they're like
Speaker 1: having having picnics in the grass, and I'm always like, oh, gosh, Hollywood.
Speaker 1: And I said that one time and someone's like, no,
Speaker 1: we don't have ticks up north. The worst hunt I've
Speaker 1: been on in terms of ticks was in Montana, and
Speaker 1: it was with you and it was the worst. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've never seen something ticks, but they don't have jiggers there,
Speaker 1: So I like what you're saying though, So just you
Speaker 1: just go walking through the jungle and lots of chickens.
Speaker 1: There's there's feral chickens everywhere because there's no predators and hogs.
Speaker 1: There's no no, no predators. There's feral chickens in the
Speaker 1: Walmart parking lot. They're everywhere. It's a wild thing. It
Speaker 1: was a wild place to go to. They probably would
Speaker 1: And I kept asking people, I said, now do people
Speaker 1: just snatch these chickens up and eat them like they're chickens? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that chicken's probably been eating cigarette butts like okay.
Speaker 1: But there's just wild chickens everywhere in hog sign all
Speaker 1: over the jungles. You didn't see any how, didn't hunting
Speaker 1: that goes on? And while you know, Runella did a
Speaker 1: episode of Meat Eater and I saw it was really good.
Speaker 1: They have they have blacktail and access to the or
Speaker 1: there too. They got turkeys and they didn't. I think
Speaker 1: uh Rio's really I think so or Miriam's. That's one
Speaker 1: of the one of the two transplanted. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: You can hunt the fly fishing under a hundred foot waterfalls.
Speaker 1: Pretty cool, that's pretty cool. The pictures are cool. Do
Speaker 1: you left Gary newcom Good to be here and then
Speaker 1: to my dad's left, Misty, Hey, my wife, Y're good
Speaker 1: to have you to see good to be here. Hey,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta tell you. I actually when I
Speaker 1: didn't tell Dad what I was gonna do on this podcast,
Speaker 1: and uh, and I called him after I thought maybe
Speaker 1: he'd listen to it, and I said, you probably didn't
Speaker 1: like that one very much, did you? I thought I
Speaker 1: thought he might be like, uh, why did you go
Speaker 1: tell all this stuff? But what do you say, Dad?
Speaker 1: I said, I loved it. I mean I do the
Speaker 1: same thing. But when I do something really stupid, which
Speaker 1: I have a propensity to do that, it's game laws No,
Speaker 1: but anything. I mean, I just don't go to all
Speaker 1: my buddies and go something really low. I Q I did.
Speaker 1: I mean that's between me and me. Some things you
Speaker 1: just don't. Yeah. Yeah, And I've heard you tell stories
Speaker 1: like looking down the barrel of that what kind of
Speaker 1: talking about two different things? Dad thinks I overdisclose about
Speaker 1: stuff that makes me look stupid, not like the other
Speaker 1: makes you look honest. It's so when I came out
Speaker 1: about you know, two or three things that happened, so
Speaker 1: I was I was actually kind of surprised about that.
Speaker 1: Thanks Dad, it's your mother coming out. Yeah. We may
Speaker 1: we may bring Juju in here later and I may
Speaker 1: do a formal apology to Juju. Bad things I've done. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: move and right along. I kind of regretted all of
Speaker 1: the you know, the end of the last very surrender,
Speaker 1: I said a lot of real nice things about you
Speaker 1: being up right good. Honestly, when when you listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast where you're like, I don't know who you
Speaker 1: exactly into our front drive, I was like, well do
Speaker 1: you so, Lieutenant Letcher, do you when you pull up
Speaker 1: in your truck, do you do you sense people's nervousness
Speaker 1: around you? I mean, like, what's it like being a
Speaker 1: game warden? Yeah, I mean I think anytime that you, uh,
Speaker 1: you come in contact with people, you know, you either
Speaker 1: get one of just a handful of responses would be
Speaker 1: you know, I've been doing this for twenty years and
Speaker 1: this is the first time I've ever been checked by
Speaker 1: game warden, right, and I think you you pick up
Speaker 1: on some honesty and people when they make those type
Speaker 1: of comments. You also think you do get the surprises like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: where'd you come from? You know, they're like, this guy's
Speaker 1: a ghost? How did he show up in my domain?
Speaker 1: You know, are this this officer is a ghost? And uh?
Speaker 1: I think those are probably the two more popular responses
Speaker 1: um a lot of times just by rolling up in
Speaker 1: that game and fish truck, that law enforcement conservation law
Speaker 1: enforcement truck, people sit there and they're like, man, is
Speaker 1: this officer ever gonna get out of that truck? Their
Speaker 1: windows are tended, I don't know what's going on in there.
Speaker 1: What are they working on? You know that that usually
Speaker 1: you get you encounter You encounter that type of contact
Speaker 1: in the field when you're responding to a call to
Speaker 1: service from an adjacent landowner or someone that witness something
Speaker 1: off the side of the road and you're sitting there
Speaker 1: in the truck and you're doing the business of the day,
Speaker 1: which is trying to find as much information and start
Speaker 1: an investigation on a case or whatever. And sometimes you
Speaker 1: know people, you know, they're just like, man, when why
Speaker 1: didnt take you so long ago? That truck? You know,
Speaker 1: there their nerves are killing them. They can't. What do
Speaker 1: you do? Uck, Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's what you're doing,
Speaker 1: is you're sitting there on your radio and you're you know,
Speaker 1: running your cell phone and and you're trying to gather
Speaker 1: all the information that you've got so far on something
Speaker 1: just as simple as you know, a neighbor shot a
Speaker 1: deer on the other side of the fence and they
Speaker 1: forgot to call their buddy who's the landowner, And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the landowners driving by their property and
Speaker 1: they see somebody out there and a piece of hunter
Speaker 1: orange on their property, and they're like, I've got somebody
Speaker 1: out here hunting on my land. And you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of those things you're you're putting those those pieces
Speaker 1: limited pieces of information together. Um, it's funny. Just that
Speaker 1: type of instance alone, you'll see, uh, you'll see a
Speaker 1: lot of those situations resolve themselves by the time you
Speaker 1: actually show up. Usually they realize, hey, I do know
Speaker 1: so and so you know, they're two houses over and
Speaker 1: you know, they just forgot to make the call. That's
Speaker 1: just you want to several type of things, but those
Speaker 1: are probably some of the more common you know, first
Speaker 1: encounters with the public is that's kind of what you see.
Speaker 1: So are you in the field, like, is that is
Speaker 1: that your primary? Yes? So, so I have as a lieutenant,
Speaker 1: I have field responsibilities, you know. I have enforcement duties
Speaker 1: assigned to me in a county that I'm assigned to
Speaker 1: and the further part furthest part of northwest Arkansas and um.
Speaker 1: But I also have administrative roles, which is more of
Speaker 1: my day to day stuff where I'm an assistant supervisor
Speaker 1: of a district of fifteen officers and six counties in
Speaker 1: the northern part of Arkansas. You know. So, so it's
Speaker 1: a it's a balance for sure, you know. I would
Speaker 1: say probably about sixty forty administrative and I get out
Speaker 1: in the field and be with our folks and be
Speaker 1: with the public. That's a that's a huge part of
Speaker 1: our success for our enforcement division. The game fisher in
Speaker 1: Arkansas is a contact that the wildlife officers make out
Speaker 1: in the field with the public. There's no debat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what would you say, I asked this to Austin, What
Speaker 1: would you say is the philosophy of law enforcement? It
Speaker 1: just in general terms, I get, you know, because I
Speaker 1: don't I don't really even know what question I'm asking
Speaker 1: but I know that you guys have a mission. You
Speaker 1: guys have a philosophy for how you enforce the law
Speaker 1: and how you interact with people. I don't just talk
Speaker 1: to me about that, So, you know, I think I
Speaker 1: think in the podcast, you know, the director was spot
Speaker 1: on when he said, you know, we really focus on
Speaker 1: and drilled down on those major violations. And and that's
Speaker 1: true to who we are as an agency and as
Speaker 1: a division when I came to work twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: just like it is today, and it will be the
Speaker 1: same twenty years after I've retired. You know, the compliance stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that gives us as a group
Speaker 1: of officers, conservation law enforcement officers, wildlife officers, game wardens,
Speaker 1: whatever affiliation you're you fall under, in what state you
Speaker 1: fall under, you know that we are regulatory agencies, right
Speaker 1: and so our our primary job is to go out
Speaker 1: there and ensure that general public, the hunting and fishing public,
Speaker 1: are complying with what those regulations are. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know that the philosophy is as fluid as
Speaker 1: some of the strategies that we might have as an
Speaker 1: enforcement division or as an agency in response to progress
Speaker 1: with technology are population growth, or as you like to
Speaker 1: call it, maybe this crossover in these urban to rural
Speaker 1: areas where you've got a lot of the traditional rural
Speaker 1: type approaches to hunting and sportsman type outdoors activities are
Speaker 1: now getting squeezed out a little bit with more urban
Speaker 1: urban settings, and so we had we adapt and we
Speaker 1: adjust with the times, just like everybody does in any
Speaker 1: kind of segment of law enforcement or or any industry
Speaker 1: that you're affiliated with. Conservation law enforcements, no different. What's
Speaker 1: a what's a big violation? Like serious viola? Give us
Speaker 1: an example. So, uh, you know, I look at it.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a community driven guy, and so you know,
Speaker 1: I take ownership of what happens in my community. I
Speaker 1: want to be present in my community. And so I
Speaker 1: think if you look at it through my lens, what
Speaker 1: I consider to be a big violation or a major
Speaker 1: violation would be something that draws in towards public safety,
Speaker 1: a threat to public safety, and that gives you the
Speaker 1: road hunting situations, the night hunting situations, what Rinella called it,
Speaker 1: what jack lighting, which is which I mean, I'm an
Speaker 1: Arkansas guy. That's a term that's new to me. But spots.
Speaker 1: So you know, anything that as a guy or a
Speaker 1: gal that's a whilife officer in their county or in
Speaker 1: their community that is a genuine threat to the safety
Speaker 1: of the people that they share the space with, those
Speaker 1: things take priority. The over harvesting wildlife, um, you know,
Speaker 1: those those kind of things with intent on the violator.
Speaker 1: You know, those things are egregious and there's no place
Speaker 1: for that, and so we try to establish major investigations,
Speaker 1: undercover operations, special offers still going on right now. I mean,
Speaker 1: like so the individuals and that we talked about in
Speaker 1: this past podcast. I mean, we're people that were killing
Speaker 1: you know, twenty let's just say, twenty plus turkeys a year.
Speaker 1: You know, back we had a lot of turkeys. Like,
Speaker 1: are people still doing that? So I'm gonna answer that, yes,
Speaker 1: they are still doing that. I've had some conversations with
Speaker 1: some other supervisors across the state this last week and
Speaker 1: a different setting, and and we've all kind of come
Speaker 1: to the consensus. And I'm not speaking for everyone, but
Speaker 1: just some of the conversations I've had is we've all
Speaker 1: kind of come to this this consensus of you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there is a little bit of a decline in that,
Speaker 1: you know, just super egregious type of negligence in over
Speaker 1: harvesting a game within ten of like hunting out a
Speaker 1: season or just doing it because you want to cut
Speaker 1: the horns off of a deer and leave the meat,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of thing. It still is occurring,
Speaker 1: but I don't know the prevalency rate is as high
Speaker 1: as what it once was with the exception one thing
Speaker 1: that I have seen over the last ten years, and
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of it has to do
Speaker 1: with probably location, because throughout my career I've been based
Speaker 1: along this western northwestern border of Arkansas, so we share
Speaker 1: territory with other states, Missouri and Oklahoma, and we do
Speaker 1: a lot of work with other state conservation agencies where
Speaker 1: these more major, more serious violations have occurred across state lines.
Speaker 1: But it's our Kansans that are doing them, yes, and
Speaker 1: so they'll ask us to assist with investigations. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: getting a getting a deer tag in Kansas is a
Speaker 1: big deal. It's a very big deal. It's a very
Speaker 1: calculated system, and it's a fair system. But just to
Speaker 1: investigate some of my own countrymen and women, if you will,
Speaker 1: here in Arkansas, on violations for nothing more than what
Speaker 1: extent they would go to to try to manipulate a
Speaker 1: system in Kansas so they can kill a Kansas buck
Speaker 1: deer legally, which is not legal. You know, those are
Speaker 1: the kind of things that we're kind of seeing. Show
Speaker 1: it's head Um and I and I can tell you
Speaker 1: it would be how would they do that? Sure? And
Speaker 1: and I'll explain, you know, with leaving names and faces something.
Speaker 1: I mean like, yeah, give me just a simple example
Speaker 1: of so, UM had an investigation, uh with a subject
Speaker 1: that lived in a small rural town in central Arkansas.
Speaker 1: I get contacted by Kansas Parks and Waldlife about an
Speaker 1: individual that they had been investigating for the better part
Speaker 1: of a year and a half almost two full dear
Speaker 1: seasons now. And what started out as something of a
Speaker 1: simple check of their current licensed status, meaning are they
Speaker 1: a resident in Arkansas and they have licensed privileges as
Speaker 1: a resident of Arkansas or are they a resident of
Speaker 1: Kansas therefore they're entitled to correct resident license and the
Speaker 1: privileges that thereof in the state of Kansas. Well, what
Speaker 1: started out is just that simple check to see and
Speaker 1: we do that with other states. They'll they'll call us
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma or Missouri and and try to check and say, well, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't recognize dual citizenship. To my knowledge, nobody does,
Speaker 1: no state does. But for us, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: We just want to make sure that your primary residence
Speaker 1: in Arkansas arts in Kansas in this case. So what
Speaker 1: started out is that evolved into this timeline and building
Speaker 1: this investigation against an individual that had for almost greater
Speaker 1: than a decade cheated the State of Kansas out of
Speaker 1: licenses of landowners that had turned their tags, their landowner
Speaker 1: tags privilege given to them as a citizen of the
Speaker 1: State of Kansas back into a regional office or licensing
Speaker 1: center or check station. And this individual from no name
Speaker 1: Arkansas was paying under the table too, a certified agent
Speaker 1: of the State of Kansas, not a law enforcement agent,
Speaker 1: but someone who was a an employee of the State
Speaker 1: of Kansas under the table to take those tags that
Speaker 1: are issued in someone else that turned him in and
Speaker 1: use him in his own name. And to make it
Speaker 1: even furthermore, he was passing him out to his buddies.
Speaker 1: And so this these are the kind of yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's pretty that's pretty wild of conservation crimes that that
Speaker 1: I'm seeing that we're seeing across the state Arkansas and
Speaker 1: throughout the southern United States because it's I would imagine
Speaker 1: the state of Kansas and state of Colorado and Missouri
Speaker 1: and New Mexico. They're seeing there citizens, the people from
Speaker 1: their states violate things in Arkansas. And we've got a
Speaker 1: special investigatives unit of our Enforcement Division that does the
Speaker 1: exact same thing when these things happen out of state. Interesting,
Speaker 1: do you haven't do you have another example of an
Speaker 1: egregious wildlife violation? Man egregious? The one Austin talked about
Speaker 1: was someone just shot well, yeah, that was yeah. I
Speaker 1: just I don't know people still do that. I mean,
Speaker 1: what where he shot the shot? It's deer from the
Speaker 1: highway left. So you know, I'll share with you one
Speaker 1: that's uh kind of still hot off the press, if
Speaker 1: you will. But it's all been adjudicated, gone through courts,
Speaker 1: so I feel comfortable sharing it with you. But we
Speaker 1: had we had a recent investigation that was held by
Speaker 1: some of our officers here locally here in um in
Speaker 1: the northern part of state, and they started investigating this
Speaker 1: gentleman greater than three years ago. Now for what started
Speaker 1: out was just what I would call just a simple
Speaker 1: call to service where a complainant calls in and says, hey,
Speaker 1: shots were fired after dark. I got a vehicle description,
Speaker 1: they didn't get a license plate, but they got us
Speaker 1: enough information to where the officers could document on paper,
Speaker 1: do a good incident report and say, Okay, we've got
Speaker 1: something here and we'll keep an eye out on it.
Speaker 1: You know, that's always key for our officers to let
Speaker 1: those those people know, the individuals know that call in
Speaker 1: from their communities, Hey, we're we're gonna start working this
Speaker 1: and if you see or hear anything that suspicious, give
Speaker 1: us a call back. This was no different. Well, within
Speaker 1: a matter of weeks to a month, you know, another
Speaker 1: call in that same general facility by another private landowner
Speaker 1: saw this same type of activity almost with the same
Speaker 1: time of day, same location, same vehicle description, And so
Speaker 1: that was really enough for officers to start working in
Speaker 1: a full investigation. And we really had to drill down
Speaker 1: on this and start giving us some attention through the
Speaker 1: use of a decoy set or working non traditional hours
Speaker 1: and you know, in an area that we would have
Speaker 1: to conceal vehicles and try to see if there's anything
Speaker 1: that we could physically see. Nothing materialized that year. Well,
Speaker 1: the next year, as soon as the phone started ringing,
Speaker 1: if you will, for those officers in this same location,
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, we're gonna get out in front of this.
Speaker 1: And so about that same time that this all started
Speaker 1: to occur, an officer in northwest Arkansas gets another call
Speaker 1: from someone who wants to be an anonymous on this
Speaker 1: particular activity, which correlates with the same chain of events
Speaker 1: that it happened to year prior and everything. Does that
Speaker 1: tip you off to anything that somebody wants to be anonymous?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's somebody that maybe has a personal relationship
Speaker 1: with this person, or yeah, I'll say, I mean it's
Speaker 1: no secret. You know, a lot of times it's it's friends,
Speaker 1: it's it's Monday morning quarterback talk. It's around the water
Speaker 1: cooler showing a picture of a big deer or a
Speaker 1: turkey that was harvested a couple of days before season.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes your closest friends and family members, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's an ethical standard or it's just something that
Speaker 1: they feel like is is just wrong, or they're sick
Speaker 1: of you showing them those pictures are describing that event.
Speaker 1: And they just had enough. So that's the legal right
Speaker 1: that is afforded by the game and Fish that you
Speaker 1: can call anonymously and no questions will be asked. Absolutely, absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: we we've got to We've got a database and it's
Speaker 1: a couple of times on Brent say maybe Josh and
Speaker 1: I will do that every Monday morning. I've told you,
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't have to be factual. You know,
Speaker 1: we cant that was one brim basket and that was okay,
Speaker 1: so anonymous. Yeah, so the anonymous complainant just just a
Speaker 1: kind of something real quick on that. So if an
Speaker 1: individual calls in and an officer ends up doing a report,
Speaker 1: runs an investigation, it's their information is kept is kept
Speaker 1: in a database and there issued like a series of
Speaker 1: a of a letter and a number, and that's how
Speaker 1: it's recorded and documented and the report and that's how
Speaker 1: important touch with the person. Absolutely, but it completely stays
Speaker 1: and honestly and so we protect their their rights to
Speaker 1: the autonomy. So so anyway, so in this instance, uh,
Speaker 1: subject calls in and says, hey, I know this stuff
Speaker 1: is going on, and what you need to know is
Speaker 1: this is who's doing it, and this is what they're
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish. And when I first got the information
Speaker 1: from one of our officers, it really took me back.
Speaker 1: You know, my dad, he's he's seventy nine years old
Speaker 1: and and we share these stories about my career in
Speaker 1: law enforcement. My career is a conservational LA enforcement officer,
Speaker 1: and he's always says, hey, nothing surprises me with your job.
Speaker 1: You know. This is coming from a guy who was
Speaker 1: an Arkansas State trooper for greater and thirty years in
Speaker 1: state Arkansas. And I'm like, you know, you look up
Speaker 1: to your dad's right and so for him to say
Speaker 1: that and for me to get caught off guard at times, man,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, wow, this is new territory, you know.
Speaker 1: So this was no different. We walked into this situation
Speaker 1: and the officers reported it says, hey, this this individual
Speaker 1: owns a small business, has vehicles as a part of
Speaker 1: their small business. They have employees, they've got a shop,
Speaker 1: they do construction like work or work around in that industry,
Speaker 1: and so therefore they have access. And to make a
Speaker 1: long story short, what this individual had done is over
Speaker 1: the course of years, he had gone out in the
Speaker 1: mornings during deer season, legal season, which I find kind
Speaker 1: of ironic because what he was doing was far from legal,
Speaker 1: and he would harvest deer, shooting him from the road,
Speaker 1: and sometimes he'd have somebody in the truck with him
Speaker 1: when he did it, and sometimes he wouldn't. But where
Speaker 1: it got so interesting was is he went out and
Speaker 1: bought license for his employees and brought them in to
Speaker 1: this type of activity and they would go out behind
Speaker 1: him and pick up his deer for him and tag
Speaker 1: it and they would take it back to his facility
Speaker 1: and they would process it there. And so once we
Speaker 1: had this chain of events and we started putting together
Speaker 1: this investigation and now you've got this this gold brick
Speaker 1: that somebody just gave us in this information through this
Speaker 1: confidential informat. We had something to work off of, and
Speaker 1: so we reached back out to the confidential format, got
Speaker 1: the information on when this type of activity was prevalent,
Speaker 1: when it was more predictable to to run into it.
Speaker 1: We set up a little sting operation with our officers
Speaker 1: and a dear, dear decoy, and within a matter of
Speaker 1: forty eight hours of that activity, we caught this guy
Speaker 1: red handed shooting our dear decoy and uh, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's real interesting. What was the estimate how many? So
Speaker 1: I believe he was issued citations for seven dear that
Speaker 1: he failed to check our tag in his own name
Speaker 1: in addition to what we had evidence of physical evidence.
Speaker 1: So was an additional nine dear. I believe for those
Speaker 1: other individuals that check dear in their names, even though
Speaker 1: they weren't after Horns was the big buck hunter, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's probably how it started. But you know,
Speaker 1: when we went in to his shop and started looking
Speaker 1: at all the meat and stuff, you know, it was
Speaker 1: packaged as if it was for consumption. You know, there
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of terrible waste, you know, So I
Speaker 1: think it probably just turned into you know, this is
Speaker 1: something that I just do. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was some kind of release he had to have or whatever.
Speaker 1: This this fix was kind junior high girls with shoplifting. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a thing. They just a bunch
Speaker 1: of them just like to do it. And I'll and
Speaker 1: I'll speak, I'll speak to this and I don't I
Speaker 1: don't mean to kind of control this conversation because that's
Speaker 1: not what I'm gonna try to do. But it brings
Speaker 1: me to another point about the end of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and you showed in your moment of vulnerability about shooting
Speaker 1: a squirrel and you get checked by the wildlife officer
Speaker 1: and he and he keys or he or she keys
Speaker 1: on a speck of blood. Right, any what do he
Speaker 1: tells you to do? He said, Clay, you need to
Speaker 1: write about it. Yeah, when it's all and and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you. And I've only been doing
Speaker 1: this for a little over a decade, but I bet
Speaker 1: in that moment Clay felt better because what he thought
Speaker 1: he had done wrong, and then he got that approval
Speaker 1: from the wildlife officer to go out and write about
Speaker 1: it and speak openly about it. When we run into
Speaker 1: these serious violators, the ones that aren't even on that
Speaker 1: same level your your violation is way down here on
Speaker 1: the floor, and the stuff that we're talking about today
Speaker 1: is the top of this ceiling. When we run into
Speaker 1: that type of encounter and there's closure there, you get
Speaker 1: this sense from these individuals that they're almost very thankful
Speaker 1: and appreciative of you catching them. Interesting because they've done
Speaker 1: it for so long, they're tied up in it in
Speaker 1: so many ways that they're just almost beside them themselves
Speaker 1: thankful that they had this encounter. Interesting. Yeah, I can
Speaker 1: say that that correlates a lot with the undercover work
Speaker 1: I was doing. I've seen folks we try to catch
Speaker 1: him for years, sell them dope, and we finally do
Speaker 1: and they it's like, hey, you know, that was my
Speaker 1: job to catch him, that was his job to sell it.
Speaker 1: I won that day, and they and now they say
Speaker 1: they don't have to worry about the next knock on
Speaker 1: the door. I get what you're saying there, because all
Speaker 1: the time that guys out they're doing that, he's got
Speaker 1: to look for you and make sure that you ain't
Speaker 1: coming around the corner or something. So it's probably a
Speaker 1: burden lifted off. The truth just set you free, dad,
Speaker 1: What what questions do you have? Well? Have you ever
Speaker 1: written a citation to Gary Nucom? I do not believe
Speaker 1: you know he's talking. He's talking all that trash and
Speaker 1: keeps bringing my name up. I never got a ticket.
Speaker 1: I've never I've never seen this guy break the law.
Speaker 1: You got a ticket though, I never got I know.
Speaker 1: That's why. That's what I told everybody, shut your pie hole.
Speaker 1: You just never got caught. That is not what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking about who got a ticket and
Speaker 1: who didn't. Uh. All that's very very interesting. I love
Speaker 1: to hear that stuff. Uh it takes me back to
Speaker 1: my childhood. Uh, A little bitty guy and you we're
Speaker 1: all kind of innately evil, you know, we're taught that.
Speaker 1: You know, decision, A little bit kid is gonna still toy.
Speaker 1: I mean, they don't go up and hand you your
Speaker 1: his toy. I mean they're gonna take your toy. I
Speaker 1: mean that's the way, that's our nature. So as a
Speaker 1: little bitty guy raised up in a very sterile, honest home,
Speaker 1: my big sister got me stealing stuff out of a
Speaker 1: little store that was the neighborhood Beverly of all people.
Speaker 1: And so he's a moment I got something really cool.
Speaker 1: He's little teeth, you know, full of kool aid. And
Speaker 1: I mean I was smart enough to know, don't go
Speaker 1: in the house with this. So I crawled under a trailer,
Speaker 1: a little little trailer, and I'm better chewing on this thing, thinking, man,
Speaker 1: this ain't worth it. You know, it's a whole lot
Speaker 1: easier just to play by the rules and not have
Speaker 1: to have all this worry. And I find that so
Speaker 1: true in life. And you just described it better than
Speaker 1: I've ever heard it. But hey, the simplest way to
Speaker 1: lead this life is to pretty much played by the rules.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean there's rules that that society allows
Speaker 1: us to break that the penalty is not too great.
Speaker 1: Like driving up here today, I mean speeding, speeding. You know,
Speaker 1: when I run a stop sign, I go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I just say my breaks. I say, fuel kill a
Speaker 1: big deer. And I go, well, you know, I'm feeding
Speaker 1: the family. And you know, so we all living our
Speaker 1: own little bubble and it's all okay because I'm doing it.
Speaker 1: I don't understand. What do you mean two stories together?
Speaker 1: As a little kid, I say, follow the rules. But
Speaker 1: still even in that environment, we all break rules. But
Speaker 1: there are rules that we have made the decision on.
Speaker 1: Not a law enforcement officer. I've own, okay, stop sign suggestion,
Speaker 1: you know, killing people, that's a law. And you're saying
Speaker 1: what what Steve Ronnella was saying is that he now
Speaker 1: looking back in his childhood, realized that his dad had
Speaker 1: a very strict code that they lived by. And and
Speaker 1: now he looks back at it and it's like where
Speaker 1: did this come from? Like we could do this, but
Speaker 1: we couldn't do this. We could do that, but we
Speaker 1: couldn't do this. But he would have been real mad
Speaker 1: if we had done this. And yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting because you'd be surprised how many people have brought
Speaker 1: up to me speeding. Inside of all these conversations about
Speaker 1: about outlaws and breaking laws, everybody goes back to speeding.
Speaker 1: When we said something too that I didn't agree with you.
Speaker 1: You said yourself was a poacher because you dropped your orange.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask him about that. That don't make
Speaker 1: you a poacher, that makes you a violator. That was
Speaker 1: such a wild deal. Like I never in my life
Speaker 1: have not wore orange. I know so many people that
Speaker 1: intentionally don't wear orange or take it off when they're
Speaker 1: in the tree which here in Arkansas that's illegal. Other
Speaker 1: states you can, I think in Mississippi once you're in
Speaker 1: the tree standing. Don't quote me on that, look that up.
Speaker 1: But there's places where, um, yeah, what what would have
Speaker 1: been a situation like that, like walking to the tree stand.
Speaker 1: And I didn't say it on the podcast. I was
Speaker 1: on my land. I know it doesn't matter. Bow hunting
Speaker 1: dur and Muslo, you dropped the orange bast had the
Speaker 1: orange hat, just keep hunting, just like, Wow, you was
Speaker 1: already in violation but not wearing it out there in
Speaker 1: the dark. You're do you have a weapon? Are you
Speaker 1: in game cover? Am I right? Lieutenant? That the letter
Speaker 1: of the law. Yeah, you know your intent was to
Speaker 1: go hunting that day, well under under periods of darkness
Speaker 1: or not the letter, the letter of the law would
Speaker 1: say that you need to do that. Now, did did
Speaker 1: Clay violate a law by the letter when he shot
Speaker 1: this world class buck? That's how I envisited in this
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna it was, but you know I see
Speaker 1: that as you know, your intent right was to wear
Speaker 1: your Hunter orange that day or otherwise you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: had it with you, right, But had a wildlife officer
Speaker 1: made contact with you out in the field after you
Speaker 1: had taken that deer and you had not had your
Speaker 1: Hunter orange one, how would you have talked yourself through
Speaker 1: that situation? With that encounter? And I think that's a
Speaker 1: lot of times when you know, the director mentioned last week,
Speaker 1: and not to get us too far off into the
Speaker 1: weeds here, but he mentioned last week about you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people just think, hey, our officers are
Speaker 1: out there to do nothing more than just write tickets, right.
Speaker 1: I think that our officers are out there to have
Speaker 1: a duty to our communities, but to also educate the
Speaker 1: public on things that they probably should know, but they
Speaker 1: haven't taken the time to truly understand. You take the
Speaker 1: totality of the circumstances. You know, for me, when I'm
Speaker 1: out in the field and I come across a compliance violation,
Speaker 1: like someone not wearing Hunter Orange when I check them
Speaker 1: in a tree stand or walking out from a field,
Speaker 1: for me, it's a three pronged litmus test. You know,
Speaker 1: what's their age, what was their intent when they left
Speaker 1: the house that day? And by by their violation, how
Speaker 1: have they impact the resource? Right? So, by Clay leaving
Speaker 1: his vest or it inadvertently falling down on the ground,
Speaker 1: how are you impacting the resource that day? What was
Speaker 1: your intent? Did you mean for it to be left
Speaker 1: on the ground? Right? And so as a wilife officer,
Speaker 1: that's our officer discretion is probably the biggest duty that
Speaker 1: we have out in the field on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis. So just something following you like me not
Speaker 1: having Hunter's Orange didn't give me an advantage that day?
Speaker 1: Like is that what you're saying, how it affects? And yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's it, that's what you would have said, Like
Speaker 1: it wasn't like I accidentally spilled a pilot corn on
Speaker 1: the ground on public lands again, because I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: my intent entirely was to wear orange that day. I
Speaker 1: do it every time I hunt. Uh, so that would
Speaker 1: have factored in. Uh. You you take in the totality
Speaker 1: of all of it, and then the officer has that
Speaker 1: discretion of like, hey man, you know, you know the
Speaker 1: code book says you gotta have your orange on, but
Speaker 1: you're telling me that you dropped it on the ground.
Speaker 1: And I can visibly see that it's a hundred yards
Speaker 1: or a hundred steps from your stand, and this deer's
Speaker 1: in the opposite direction. So it was probably during the
Speaker 1: period of darkness, you climbed the stand, you got up
Speaker 1: there in the heat of the moment the sun was rising.
Speaker 1: Sure the right thing might have been for you to
Speaker 1: come back out of your stand during that peak activity
Speaker 1: time and put the orange on, but you you made
Speaker 1: that decision right, and so our officers, I think any
Speaker 1: wildlife officer, any conservation officer, any game warden across the
Speaker 1: United States. I think that's how they operate on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, as they say, hey guy, guy made a mistake,
Speaker 1: but but it wasn't intentional. Yeah, and he didn't really
Speaker 1: have a direct impact on the resource that day by
Speaker 1: not wearing his Hunter Orange. Yeah. Yeah, no, that that
Speaker 1: makes sense. I say, you do the crime, you pay
Speaker 1: the time. Do you remember that, Dad? Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: told you, But you were mad at me. Yea. Let's
Speaker 1: let's have this out. Let's let's have your comment about
Speaker 1: you say the right thing to do would would have
Speaker 1: been to get come down, go back. I understand that
Speaker 1: that's your job. That's your job, but our job is
Speaker 1: to kill deer. But the point I'm making it would
Speaker 1: have been a lot more dangerous to come down that
Speaker 1: tree again walk back where you could be shot at
Speaker 1: peak time. You know that you made that point. I
Speaker 1: mean that and and and I didn't think that. I mean,
Speaker 1: that wasn't the thought process of my mind. But like
Speaker 1: if you were, if you were standing in a if
Speaker 1: you're yeah, I mean I was just trying to say,
Speaker 1: the laws designed to protect us, using Hunter's Orange to
Speaker 1: protect us, you know, I was kind of what I
Speaker 1: like to do in those scenarios. Is just paint all
Speaker 1: the different scenarios that make something a little more nuanced
Speaker 1: maybe than it than it was, or you know, maybe
Speaker 1: then then you might think of it um. But yeah, Hey,
Speaker 1: I've got a question, and I know intuitively that it's wrong,
Speaker 1: but I want to go back. I mean, not for
Speaker 1: the question, but this story you told about the guy
Speaker 1: who is using as workers and getting licenses in their name.
Speaker 1: He's paying four hunting licenses, and I think there's probably
Speaker 1: just from a legal labor perspective, you know, there's some
Speaker 1: major issues as a boss and we should fire them
Speaker 1: just for that, but but from as a non hunter
Speaker 1: like someone who I'm I don't hunt a lot and
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in a hunting family. Explained to me,
Speaker 1: I know it is wrong, but explain to me why
Speaker 1: it's wrong. If you buy the licenses and so there's
Speaker 1: enough licenses and you can skip this in my embarrassing
Speaker 1: you because she didn't know how to plug a turkey,
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking it question. I mean, I'm really thinking
Speaker 1: that any of us could answer, but I'm just thinking
Speaker 1: that it might be a question that people have why,
Speaker 1: And you're welcome to skip the question and you and
Speaker 1: I will be conversing later. But that com some people
Speaker 1: might have question, like he's buying the licenses the game
Speaker 1: and fish perspective, Why is this bad? Because clearly we
Speaker 1: have the licenses to hand out, and if you're if
Speaker 1: you're distributing licenses on there saying the goal, or if
Speaker 1: you're distributing animals, you know, if you're if you're making
Speaker 1: camplemens and things like that, on the basis of how
Speaker 1: many licenses are bought in this guy legally buys the
Speaker 1: license the other obviously it's not good. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of moving parts there, you know,
Speaker 1: when you when you look at regulation, regulation says that
Speaker 1: that's being considered lending license by definition. Okay, so what
Speaker 1: his intent was was to purchase license from his own money,
Speaker 1: his own funds, in the name of his employees. Those
Speaker 1: individuals were not active hunters, and so basically, in theory,
Speaker 1: they were lending license their tagging privileges because he was
Speaker 1: the one retaining the harvest. I think that from the
Speaker 1: regulation standpoint, it's a it's very serious because the law
Speaker 1: clearly states how in so many ways that was wrong.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: very strong ethical dilemma on his part. And so I
Speaker 1: always look at it from my belief system is where
Speaker 1: your ethics and regulations intersect, you have an experience. And
Speaker 1: so for each of us, we have that on our
Speaker 1: own experience out in the field, you know, when we're
Speaker 1: hunting or fishing, or you know, doing our recreational voting activities,
Speaker 1: whatever that is. But but what were his what were
Speaker 1: his ethics in that moment by doing that knowing that
Speaker 1: his co workers, the people that he had paid as employees,
Speaker 1: didn't hunt, they weren't conservationists to knowledge, and so that's
Speaker 1: where his ethics and the regulations came together. And I
Speaker 1: look at it as like, you know, what kind of
Speaker 1: experience is that for people when they do that with intent?
Speaker 1: And so I think all of us are in some
Speaker 1: ways responsible and accountable as being conservationists and sportsmen and
Speaker 1: and hunters to that particular type of situation. And so
Speaker 1: when the agency says, hey, every person is allowed five
Speaker 1: or six tags now right, no more than two bucks
Speaker 1: per year, and you know four Antler's deer and you
Speaker 1: can take two in one zone and three and another
Speaker 1: or whatever, that looks like you know, those are based
Speaker 1: calculated off of science, right, And so if you've got
Speaker 1: someone with intent that comes in and says, I've got
Speaker 1: ten family members, none of them hunt, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to over harvest on their calculated in exactly exactly on
Speaker 1: their behalf. I'm gonna do a favor to whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, I think that probably kind of gets
Speaker 1: at the root of of what we would see as
Speaker 1: you know why it's not okay because they're really not
Speaker 1: when they set the limits. And I'm just thinking calculating
Speaker 1: how many hunters we have in the state, and calculate
Speaker 1: those family members, those ten employees, they're not calculating them,
Speaker 1: and so they he is going over everybody could do that,
Speaker 1: then essentially there would be no bag limits because I
Speaker 1: could I would just go find some guy down the
Speaker 1: street though I could buy a tag for and he's
Speaker 1: his tags, so I and obviously he's lying, he's abusing
Speaker 1: his authority. He's doing just hearing us talk about hunter
Speaker 1: recruitment and buying tags that funds. So You're like, and
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking if all the people there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who listen to your podcast who are not
Speaker 1: hunters specifically, and might not like I understand. I like,
Speaker 1: this is what this guy's doing is lying, and that's bad.
Speaker 1: Like on that level, it's wrong, no matter why. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not the outlaw in this family. You know. I
Speaker 1: was also thinking, it's it's counterproductive to the what's what's
Speaker 1: the term that you use when when the game belongs
Speaker 1: to the people that trust it really trusts doctrine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it breaks that ethic because then someone just has
Speaker 1: the ability to go by by dear. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go buy the ability to hunt, and I'll kill as
Speaker 1: many DearS as I want. It's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: really an unethical and uh it's a partial way to
Speaker 1: to do that, and I think that's that's a completely Yeah,
Speaker 1: just what would you? So I keep going back to
Speaker 1: this this I'm kind of asking the same question, maybe
Speaker 1: over and over, but like, what what who are the
Speaker 1: most people doing damage to the resource in terms of poachers?
Speaker 1: Like what what's the kind of person? Because it's clear
Speaker 1: to me that probably most a lot of your officer's
Speaker 1: time is spent with compliance. So you're at the boat
Speaker 1: dock checking people's license, make sure they're wearing life jackets,
Speaker 1: public safety stuff during the deer season, you're cruising, public land,
Speaker 1: checking license, you know, that kind of stuff in in
Speaker 1: you know, most of the violations inside of that are
Speaker 1: going to be compliance stuff like do you have the
Speaker 1: right license? Do you you know, are you wearing your
Speaker 1: Hunter's orange? Stuff like this, which is all important stuff.
Speaker 1: But then there's this other category of people like we
Speaker 1: talked about, that leave the house with the intent to
Speaker 1: be serial law breakers, that are just wearing out game populations. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I just answer my own question, but
Speaker 1: like who are those people? And do we well, I
Speaker 1: did ask you that question, who who are Who are
Speaker 1: the people that are the biggest the biggest threat to wildlife.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at it from an experience that I
Speaker 1: shared with my supervisor, our district captain in northwest Arkansas
Speaker 1: when I first had the opportunity to move back home
Speaker 1: from the Arkansas River Valley to northwest Arkansas. And one
Speaker 1: of the first things that he said to me in
Speaker 1: this open meeting with other officers, and I was a
Speaker 1: young sergeant at the time, and uh, he said, you know,
Speaker 1: fish our finite resource for the state of Arkansas. And
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand what he meant by the term
Speaker 1: finite resource, and he said it in a very common
Speaker 1: sense approach, which is how we operate as game wardens
Speaker 1: and wildlife officers as we apply a lot of common
Speaker 1: sense to tactics and techniques and training and things. And
Speaker 1: he said, the fish are depleted at a much greater
Speaker 1: rate than what we can replace them at as an agency.
Speaker 1: And so I think our biggest challenge with Poe Shing
Speaker 1: is if you take that same type of segment with
Speaker 1: fishing and you apply it out in the field with
Speaker 1: hunters in general, that over harvest to the point where
Speaker 1: it carrying capacity gets depleted and harvest numbers significantly drop.
Speaker 1: You know, those are our a segment of poaching that
Speaker 1: we really have to be sensitive to and we have
Speaker 1: to pay attention to as wildlife officers, as conservation law
Speaker 1: enforcement officers, you know. I think I think the other
Speaker 1: thing too to consider is most of the Southern United
Speaker 1: States now uh south central United States is in this
Speaker 1: period of kind of the unknown when it comes to
Speaker 1: disease in servants. With the introduction to c w D
Speaker 1: and the prevalency that we have throughout the northern part
Speaker 1: of Arkansas and the now all the way over to
Speaker 1: the Boothill of Missouri and into Oklahoma, and you're starting
Speaker 1: to research and studies being done in surrounding states. And
Speaker 1: and so when you have individuals that are uneducated, are
Speaker 1: refused to pay attention to the strategies and the science
Speaker 1: and the techniques that we're trying to do to manage
Speaker 1: a disease like chronic wasting disease and these type of
Speaker 1: things that are are prevalent through this northern band of
Speaker 1: those arcs and starting to spread their way south. Is that,
Speaker 1: by definition, a new demographic of poaching, the individuals that
Speaker 1: when you have spread crew stuff that's might spread c
Speaker 1: w correct in the sense of we have c WS
Speaker 1: c w D zone baiting laws in this part of
Speaker 1: Arkansas now, and the regulation says, you know, after the
Speaker 1: thirty one December until the first day of September, you
Speaker 1: can't spread any bait on the ground with the intent
Speaker 1: to harvest wildlife or harbor wildlife. Right. And the strategy
Speaker 1: is real simple because when you bring in a group
Speaker 1: of deer, right and I'm no scientists by by trade,
Speaker 1: but I've I've been around to see it long enough.
Speaker 1: Is and haven't explained to me, is when you bring
Speaker 1: around these deer and they have this communal type of gathering, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: well then there's probability. And so I think I think
Speaker 1: we're in a new territory here. I really like that.
Speaker 1: That's that's the kind of I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was fishing for. But that's a great point, is that
Speaker 1: you know, with the with the threats c w D,
Speaker 1: that that, yeah, maybe the guy that breaks the c
Speaker 1: w D laws is now the one that is really
Speaker 1: threatening the resource the most. And I know there's a
Speaker 1: lot of controversy on how CWD spreads and that's a
Speaker 1: whole other conversation, but but yeah, that's that's important because yeah,
Speaker 1: you kind of think of it like, uh, well, and
Speaker 1: I mentioned it to you on the phone the other day,
Speaker 1: but this terminology that I heard a lot of these
Speaker 1: now retired law enforcement game boarding guys used. Jimmy Martin
Speaker 1: used the term, Russ Arthur used the term but old
Speaker 1: time poachers, which are just guys that are recreationally going
Speaker 1: out and killing more than their limit, maybe even during
Speaker 1: seasons using traditional methods. Um. Yeah, and now it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think that now the guy that's you know,
Speaker 1: baiting deer longer putting out mineral licks. I mean, we
Speaker 1: can't put mineral licks out here anymore, which, you know,
Speaker 1: it would be interesting to see how compliant people really
Speaker 1: are to that, because I don't know that they are.
Speaker 1: And you know, along those same lines, and we talk
Speaker 1: about the strategies that our agency is implementing, we've got
Speaker 1: a phenomenal group of men and women in our Wildlife
Speaker 1: Management Division that have spent almost a career's worth of
Speaker 1: their work in dedicated towards c w D and spread
Speaker 1: of infectious disease and things like that. In servants alone,
Speaker 1: we started seeing seven or eight years ago, about the
Speaker 1: time that I was transitioning out of the River Valley
Speaker 1: into northwest Arkansas, this intent on behalf of these hunters
Speaker 1: that were harvesting servants from out of state bringing there
Speaker 1: unprocessed whole bodied servants deer, elk, et cetera, across state
Speaker 1: lines into Arkansas. And so you know, that opened up
Speaker 1: a whole another avenue of regulation that we were prepared
Speaker 1: for as an agency. We knew it was coming, but
Speaker 1: we just didn't expect it to happen at the rate
Speaker 1: that it probably did. You know, I'll never forget. UH.
Speaker 1: Seven or eight years ago, I was working in Fort Smith, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and it was my one of my days. I was
Speaker 1: working UH in Crawford County, which is just north of there,
Speaker 1: and I get a call from our radio room dispatch,
Speaker 1: which is based in Central Arkansas, and they say, Uh,
Speaker 1: Officer Fletcher, we've got an individual there on I forty
Speaker 1: eastbound in Oklahoma. Is there any way we can patch
Speaker 1: them through to you? And I said, sure, not a problem.
Speaker 1: And so through a series of things, they forwarded the
Speaker 1: call to me, and I'm talking to a subject and
Speaker 1: he tells me lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, and he'd
Speaker 1: been out in Oklahoma City working all week. And he says,
Speaker 1: I'm behind a truck bed of deer horns and they're
Speaker 1: headed towards the state line. And I knew in that
Speaker 1: moment that things were about to get real interesting for
Speaker 1: the wildlife officer in Arkansas when we start dealing with
Speaker 1: this type of activity. And so you ask yourself, is
Speaker 1: that a new era of poaching as well? I mean,
Speaker 1: is it or is it not? You know, we deal
Speaker 1: with that, you know, those are that's our reality that
Speaker 1: our officers are now challenged with, well, I mean c
Speaker 1: w D they can take more deer out the I
Speaker 1: could with a spotlight. Sure, So is that a confession?
Speaker 1: That's what I was curious about. How many do you
Speaker 1: have you taken out with the spotlight? Why it's always
Speaker 1: back to that when you're gonsing that around. Yeah, trying
Speaker 1: to get the focus off of him on someone else.
Speaker 1: It's got to take it. Good point, great point. Bent continue, Well,
Speaker 1: I was born in Okay, Okay, Yeah, no, and that's
Speaker 1: that's just it that. Yeah, that kind of stuff is
Speaker 1: instremental to the resource. Could be whether those deer were
Speaker 1: legally taken or not. If if they're coming across and
Speaker 1: they're not packaged the way the regulation states to keep
Speaker 1: c CWD out of Arkansas. I mean, that's man, that's
Speaker 1: the one the monkey box out there. So who knows?
Speaker 1: Who knows how bad it could be? Yeah? Do you
Speaker 1: think that someone could do what did? Did you? You
Speaker 1: may not have heard the podcast about Louis Delle and
Speaker 1: Charlie Edwards and they killed like how many turkey every year?
Speaker 1: Seven eight million? I mean, but this was like years ago.
Speaker 1: Do you think someone could do that? Today? They were
Speaker 1: very vocal about it. Yeah, yeah, there, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think probably with the advancements in technology and the
Speaker 1: way that our s i U teams work, the wildlife
Speaker 1: officers that are that are trained to work either in
Speaker 1: an undercover capacity or work exclusively with social media presence,
Speaker 1: you know, because we we do have to operate that way. Really,
Speaker 1: you've got people that have monitor in social media. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I would I would say probably, you know a majority
Speaker 1: of the conservation law enforcement agencies across the United States
Speaker 1: probably operate in some capacity that way. But you know,
Speaker 1: I would I would say that it would probably be
Speaker 1: real difficult to expose that type of activity if those
Speaker 1: individuals had a small network of friends that weren't tied
Speaker 1: into some kind of social media presence. Absolutely, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: need to be glorified by what they had done, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, hearsay used to be the way that we
Speaker 1: started investigations and we built these phenomenal cases. But today
Speaker 1: it's almost like the burden of proof or whatever probable cause,
Speaker 1: it's kind of been elevated to the point of we
Speaker 1: need some kind of physical evidence or something that puts
Speaker 1: someone in a certain capacity. Tip would have been like,
Speaker 1: hey man, let's hit the ground and run with it
Speaker 1: absolutely more than just here today. Yeah, it's and we
Speaker 1: make a lot of great cases, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: as a as an agency and as a division, just
Speaker 1: based off of word of mouth and and our our
Speaker 1: um our what's hotline. We have a hotline here in
Speaker 1: the State Arkansas that people can call in and if
Speaker 1: they give us information that turns into a successful prosecution. Uh,
Speaker 1: we split the fine money with them, just like Director yes, sir,
Speaker 1: just like Director Booth uh mentioned last week. You know,
Speaker 1: none of our fine money stays within our agency. Thanks
Speaker 1: thanks to Amendments seventy five and n seven when it
Speaker 1: was passed in this one eighth of one percent of
Speaker 1: the general sales tax use and the State Arkansas goes
Speaker 1: to conservation of that number goes to the Arkansas Game
Speaker 1: Fish Commission. And so we have these type of programs
Speaker 1: in place to where we can allocate some of those
Speaker 1: fine moneys to keep that word of mouth, to keep
Speaker 1: that here say live and how we do our business
Speaker 1: absolutely and at least to some phenomenal cases and work
Speaker 1: done environment and women every day. Um. This is kind
Speaker 1: of off topic, but just being in law enforcement like
Speaker 1: you have for as long as you have, what's the
Speaker 1: what's the wildest situation you've ever found yourself in? Like
Speaker 1: just uh like dangerous? Uh? If you if you that
Speaker 1: you could share with us. So I'll just tell you
Speaker 1: by by by affiliation. The first six or seven years
Speaker 1: of my career, I was stationed at UM. Fort Chaffee
Speaker 1: was a big part. I consider myself being stationed there
Speaker 1: because four and a half days of my work week
Speaker 1: I could spend out there and do the work of
Speaker 1: the game and fish and have a lot of opportunities
Speaker 1: for contacts with individuals. Big part of that area is
Speaker 1: uh of the forty thousand plus surface kit cleared area
Speaker 1: acres of Fort Chaffee is an area known as the
Speaker 1: impact area and it, and I can tell you it
Speaker 1: in itself is extremely dangerous because you have it's not
Speaker 1: surface cleared, meaning meaning when Fort Chaffee was a very
Speaker 1: active military installation and still it is described because we're
Speaker 1: talking to people outside of Arkansas Testure Jeffia is a
Speaker 1: military base. Forty thousand surface cleared acres is what is
Speaker 1: how I describe it. And then you've got an additional gosh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, five seven eight thousand acres of this
Speaker 1: uncleared ground, meaning meaning when the military is in there
Speaker 1: doing their training, you have crews that go behind those
Speaker 1: groups and troops and platoons and they clear those ranges.
Speaker 1: It's active ranges like live shooting at big targets and munitions.
Speaker 1: And you know the the A ten tank killers is
Speaker 1: I've got gotten to know them over the years. They
Speaker 1: had a range out there called the Razorback Range and
Speaker 1: they would do all their drops in this impact area
Speaker 1: to simulate their trainings that they were doing in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: live uh, military and wartime stuff. So this this place
Speaker 1: is a is a public hunting areas. Absolutely can't just
Speaker 1: walk in there. You've got to take a class and
Speaker 1: the absolute ways you got hunt. But it's it's well
Speaker 1: known around here, so tell So I'll just tell you
Speaker 1: that in itself, anytime I had to go into the
Speaker 1: impact area loone, you know, you were kind of playing
Speaker 1: with fire because you didn't know what to expect and
Speaker 1: step on a live shell the ordinance, that's correct. Some
Speaker 1: of them have not exploded, and sometimes they were randomly
Speaker 1: explode after being in the ground for ten years. So
Speaker 1: the thing about it is is the impact area of
Speaker 1: Fort Chaffee garnered attention starting about twenty five thirty years
Speaker 1: ago from a certain segment of the outlaw poacher, and
Speaker 1: these individuals would jeopardize their own lives, whether they knew
Speaker 1: or did not know that there was a live fire
Speaker 1: in progress or a training in progress, all in the
Speaker 1: name of harvesting a world class Boon and Crockett type
Speaker 1: deer that the impact area has so been glorified known
Speaker 1: to have. And in my career there I saw kind
Speaker 1: of the last remaining, you know, world class Boone and
Speaker 1: Crockett type deer of Chaffee, because I saw it kind
Speaker 1: of decline over the six or seven years that I
Speaker 1: was there. But but one situation in particular, we get
Speaker 1: a tip of an individual that had crossed over a road,
Speaker 1: a county road on the Sebastian County line in the
Speaker 1: Franklin County line um on it that borders the far
Speaker 1: eastern side of Fort Chaffee and they had jumped the
Speaker 1: fence and camo and a rifle and that's all we
Speaker 1: had to work on. And so I had a partner
Speaker 1: at the time, and we've got a K nine team
Speaker 1: that gosh, we're super proud of these these men and
Speaker 1: women from all over the state. They dedicate a large
Speaker 1: part of their career to these service dogs and what
Speaker 1: they're trained to do. And so I got the call
Speaker 1: from our radio room because it came in anonymous lee
Speaker 1: and this individual was seen crossing this fence. So we
Speaker 1: had a last known location, but we knew they were
Speaker 1: going in the impact area. Well you know, what does
Speaker 1: ten thousand plus acres look like in this impact area?
Speaker 1: I mean, it is, it is forever, it's you know.
Speaker 1: And so I pick up the phone and I called
Speaker 1: my partner at the time, and I say, hey, can
Speaker 1: you bring the dog. Here's what I got and it
Speaker 1: might lead to something, because man, I'm telling you as
Speaker 1: a wildlife officer in Sebastian County, Arkansas, and my primary
Speaker 1: job description is to catch poachers and outlaws crossing into
Speaker 1: the impact area. If I didn't catch this guy, I
Speaker 1: was going to, you know, deface the name of Turning
Speaker 1: that had come before me. And so, I mean we
Speaker 1: took it to heart, and we sacrificed a lot to
Speaker 1: catch these guys. A lot of them we never caught.
Speaker 1: But this night was different. So my partner arrives there
Speaker 1: and I meet him at the place where this individual,
Speaker 1: who was on their way home from work, had reported
Speaker 1: this guy and Kimo across the fence. And and I
Speaker 1: knew through my limited training of working with canine handler
Speaker 1: that you know, I didn't need to contaminate this scene. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do what I for. I'm an old coon hunter,
Speaker 1: was Brent. There is a law that is unbreakable in
Speaker 1: coon hunting, and that is, when you see a coon
Speaker 1: cross the road in front of your truck, if you
Speaker 1: just stop and turn your dogs out, you almost never
Speaker 1: treat that coon. And so what you do, and I
Speaker 1: want to see if this is what y'all did? You
Speaker 1: wait minutes less than that, because no coon hunter has
Speaker 1: the patience to wait that long. But then you go,
Speaker 1: but you let the track, something happens in the scent settles,
Speaker 1: and you go anyway. I just thought of that when
Speaker 1: they said they saw a guy across the road. They're
Speaker 1: bringing a dog. I'm thinking, if you turn it out quick,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna catch it. So he also didn't want
Speaker 1: to contaminate it with humans, and go ahead, go ahead,
Speaker 1: So it thirty minutes had passed. Let's so you're right.
Speaker 1: So partner gets there at the time and uh, he
Speaker 1: dumps the dog out, and the dog, you know, starts
Speaker 1: doing their crazy back and forth back and forth, kind
Speaker 1: of raining in that scent. And then all of a sudden, man,
Speaker 1: there the two of them go, and they're over this
Speaker 1: fence and they're tracking this guy. Y'all worried about being
Speaker 1: in the impact zone. I'm always worried, tell the chaffe folks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so we would call, don't shooting tanks in there.
Speaker 1: We would always even in areas that were closed to
Speaker 1: general public that may not be live fire or active
Speaker 1: or anything like that, we would we had protocol. We
Speaker 1: would call range control and they always had that facility staffed,
Speaker 1: and we would let them know, Hey, we're we're down
Speaker 1: range of range eight eight or whatever the range number was.
Speaker 1: Are we good to work through this area? Give them
Speaker 1: the heads up, But but you gotta remember this is
Speaker 1: the impact area, and we got to catch these guys.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we're going, as they say, our
Speaker 1: high water right, And so we're going and so I
Speaker 1: I look up and and my partner and this dog,
Speaker 1: they're they're fading in the distance fast, and so I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: what I do? And there's not much I can do
Speaker 1: at this point, because I didn't want to go circle
Speaker 1: around this guy or or spooking or you know whatever.
Speaker 1: And so I go to this city down the road
Speaker 1: called Charleston, and it's probably three or four or five
Speaker 1: miles and I just wait because my partner and I
Speaker 1: had worked together for so long and it was not
Speaker 1: uncommon for me to dump him out of the truck
Speaker 1: and him just start walking and him to call me
Speaker 1: an hour later or seven hours later and say, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I'm on the other side of this range or I'm
Speaker 1: on the other side of this ridge. Can you come
Speaker 1: pick me up. That's not uncommon. So I knew what
Speaker 1: I how how comfortable was with it. So I went
Speaker 1: to this little area in Charleston and I sat there
Speaker 1: outside this convenience store and my phone rings about two
Speaker 1: hours after dark, and he says, man, I found this
Speaker 1: gilly suit and I found this rifle and it's at
Speaker 1: the base of this tree. And I'm four miles inside
Speaker 1: the impact area or some crazy number, right, So the
Speaker 1: dog did their job and so but no man, no man.
Speaker 1: So they stopped there. He photographs evidence or whatever he
Speaker 1: needed to do, and the dog takes off and they
Speaker 1: track this guy all the way out the other end
Speaker 1: of the impact area, which is on the far eastern
Speaker 1: boundary of Fort Chaffee, which is probably another three miles
Speaker 1: to the highway. And then they get to a car
Speaker 1: wash which is about another mile up a paved road,
Speaker 1: and there this guy set and he had arked his
Speaker 1: car under this car wash, which is five or six
Speaker 1: miles from even touching Fort Chaffee at this point. That
Speaker 1: was his intense commitment. Absolutely, So he was walking on
Speaker 1: blacktop roads. Yes, wow. So he popped out of Chaffie
Speaker 1: and then walked on and to trail him that far
Speaker 1: and and the car wash. What I didn't tell you
Speaker 1: is the car wash that he was sitting in that
Speaker 1: car was about a hundred and fifty yards from where
Speaker 1: I was sitting, right under my nose. It was a
Speaker 1: car he had changed his clothes, stuffed him in a backpack.
Speaker 1: And when we and when we caught up with the guy,
Speaker 1: which my partner, did you know, I was sitting there,
Speaker 1: almost about to eat dinner at this point, and he's like,
Speaker 1: I got this guy. He's he's scared to death. He's
Speaker 1: sitting here and he said, you know, when we got
Speaker 1: him to talk It's one of those situations where he
Speaker 1: was just like, man, I didn't know if you'll ever
Speaker 1: gonna catch me because I've been doing this for about
Speaker 1: seven or eight years. Gosh, you hadn't surrounded that night
Speaker 1: time was on our side. That's incredible. Yeah, So that's
Speaker 1: that's the dogs the day, those those kind of that's
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, those kind of situations can be
Speaker 1: a little dangerous, intimidating at times, even for a skilled
Speaker 1: canine handler. And you know, because it's that unknown. That's
Speaker 1: the our guys and gals that that do this every day.
Speaker 1: That's the world that they walk into with that dog.
Speaker 1: Would he is he trained to apprehend someone? No, no bite,
Speaker 1: that's just a trailer? Correct? What kind of dog? Was
Speaker 1: it a labrador? All of our Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah. Are
Speaker 1: one of the tennis ball waiting for him to throw
Speaker 1: a tennis? Are all the dogs trained to to no bite? Are? Yeah? Interesting?
Speaker 1: It is? That is wild, that's wild. That's the officer's
Speaker 1: job to bite. Is it the same for canines in
Speaker 1: like a you know the ones they have up here
Speaker 1: at the police stage. Some of them dogs are definitely
Speaker 1: trained to apprehend people, you know, I mean attack them.
Speaker 1: Basically hold restrain them. They would never need to do
Speaker 1: that with me. Sold, you got me. My grand Danes
Speaker 1: are trained to knock down and lick. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: So do you guys have anything that you would like
Speaker 1: to confess to Lieutenant? Before we closed? There was a
Speaker 1: time I did not get a ticket for it. I
Speaker 1: was just kidding, Josh. I did go fishing and at
Speaker 1: the end of the day looked at my license and
Speaker 1: it was three days. So I just confess that I
Speaker 1: just wanted to get on board with you too, Clay.
Speaker 1: We'll pray, we'll pray for you later. So in that
Speaker 1: in light of that, not in light of that, but
Speaker 1: how much how much time would you guys spend on
Speaker 1: game versus fish? Do you have officers that are specifically
Speaker 1: assigned to game and some to fish. No. In the
Speaker 1: State Arkansas, it's it's based on season. A lot of
Speaker 1: times our seasons will overlap, uh, like in the heat
Speaker 1: of the summer, for example. Our primary responsibility right now
Speaker 1: is water safety and water patrol and compliance on our waterways,
Speaker 1: trying to keep people from running to each other, having
Speaker 1: serious accidents on the waterway transition into the fall, it's
Speaker 1: dove season. Both season opens up and then we roll
Speaker 1: right into it seems like every single weekend through the
Speaker 1: first of December, there's something else coming at US duck season,
Speaker 1: deer or whatever, And so we vary our workload based
Speaker 1: on the seasonal stuff. When you talk specifically about fishing,
Speaker 1: just like I mentioned earlier, you know, fish or finite resource,
Speaker 1: And so we try to explain that to our officers
Speaker 1: out in the field. Is we really in the spring
Speaker 1: when the cropper are spawning and the bass are starting
Speaker 1: to become active and the walley are running up the rivers?
Speaker 1: Is is we really have to protect that resource in
Speaker 1: that moment, And sometimes it overlaps into Turkey season, like
Speaker 1: it does here in the northern band of those arcs
Speaker 1: and the White River chain of lakes and and those things.
Speaker 1: So so we just kind of go where the activity
Speaker 1: is and we know when we need to be out there.
Speaker 1: Hashtag keep Them, keep Them wet um did did uh?
Speaker 1: Did your time with agency overlap with Joel camporra it did?
Speaker 1: Did you? Yeah? So I went to high school with
Speaker 1: Joe Campora. He was one year younger than me. Just
Speaker 1: talking about talking about water safety made me think about Joel.
Speaker 1: I wrote a story about Joel right after that happened.
Speaker 1: Joe Campora was he was killed and I think June
Speaker 1: it was in late May. Ye. Uh, just thinking about
Speaker 1: the responsibilities that these guys have. Um, I'll tell the
Speaker 1: story as I as I remember it. But there was
Speaker 1: a flood in um Scott County that was a different
Speaker 1: one food in Scott County and uh, I guess Joel
Speaker 1: was where it was based out of Waldron at that time,
Speaker 1: and uh, big flood and there was a house that
Speaker 1: was being flooded and there was some as I remember
Speaker 1: the story being told, there was some elderly ladies that
Speaker 1: lived in this house and they called and water was
Speaker 1: coming up in the house and then just talking about
Speaker 1: chain command and like when you guys might be called. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Joel was called along with the sheriff Cody Carpenter of
Speaker 1: Scott County. And so the Arkansas Game and Fish Game
Speaker 1: Warden and Cody Carpenter went and and using a game
Speaker 1: and fish boat went to make a water rescue with
Speaker 1: with these was it two ladies and the black It
Speaker 1: was in the black of night too, it was pouring
Speaker 1: rain and they ride out in the water to this
Speaker 1: house and I mean, you know, it's fast moving water,
Speaker 1: and you know, no one knows the details, but they
Speaker 1: go in the house and the house collapses, and uh
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's I mean, no telling what kind
Speaker 1: of calls you guys are gonna get, and and and
Speaker 1: every they all perished, and it was it was real.
Speaker 1: It was a real moving deal. There's a there's a
Speaker 1: part of that highway now and I'd see it every
Speaker 1: time I drive to Mina, and every single time I
Speaker 1: drive to me, no matter who's with me, I tell
Speaker 1: them about Joel Camport and my kids know all about it.
Speaker 1: But there's a section of the highway that's the Cody
Speaker 1: Carpenter section and the Joel Campora Memorial section. But both
Speaker 1: of those guys past the way, and the ladies did too.
Speaker 1: But two longest days of my life were you were
Speaker 1: you were there. Still rough to talk about today, but
Speaker 1: uh yeah, And I tell you, we have got a
Speaker 1: lot of great men and women that surround us every day,
Speaker 1: and law enforcement and it's wildlife officers, and you know,
Speaker 1: we always say when conditions are at their worst, we're
Speaker 1: at our best. You know, it's one of our mottoes.
Speaker 1: And they were certainly at that at their worst those
Speaker 1: two or three days around that, and you definitely saw,
Speaker 1: definitely saw the best in people through all that they
Speaker 1: were I mean, like hunt a couple of hundred people
Speaker 1: there from other law other states because they couldn't they
Speaker 1: couldn't find they couldn't find them. Yeah, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: and you know, I probably need to pay closer attention
Speaker 1: to it because I was so involved in it. But
Speaker 1: almost you almost tenure is removed from it now next year.
Speaker 1: You know, there were so many moving parts. But that
Speaker 1: is one thing when we talked about pride in your
Speaker 1: co workers and what what we know and how we
Speaker 1: know to operate, is we all as wildlife officers plugged
Speaker 1: in in that moment because we knew what our capabilities were,
Speaker 1: and we knew how we assisted agencies when it came
Speaker 1: to critical incidents and you know, overcoming these dire times
Speaker 1: and dire periods of adversity. And so we all just
Speaker 1: jumped in that first day and it was kind of
Speaker 1: a chicken with your head cut off movement, but we
Speaker 1: didn't didn't really have a calculated response and and by
Speaker 1: the time we got our people in there, by the
Speaker 1: end of that first day, and we had this calculated
Speaker 1: effort on how we were going to proceed. It was
Speaker 1: the very next morning we found Cody Carpenter and then
Speaker 1: the following morning we recovered Joel's body. And uh, man,
Speaker 1: I tell you, it's almost slight. You know, you look
Speaker 1: at it for the last ten years of reflection, and
Speaker 1: you think about all the training and trials and tribulations
Speaker 1: that we go through, and the commitment and the sacrifices
Speaker 1: that we make for this career, this line of work.
Speaker 1: It's almost like we were molded for that particular experience
Speaker 1: to have occurred. We could endure it and see it
Speaker 1: through the other side. Mm hm. Extremely sad situation anyway
Speaker 1: you look at it. People lost their lives, friends lost
Speaker 1: their lives. But I I do this job today because
Speaker 1: of those men and women that carried that torch with
Speaker 1: us through that whole deal. It's a it is at
Speaker 1: the root of who I am forever basically in your agency,
Speaker 1: I would think absolutely absolutely, you know, I think I
Speaker 1: think the what I remember the game and Fish really
Speaker 1: took great care of Joel's Joel's widow Rebecca, and and
Speaker 1: and still do. Yeah, absolutely, I mean and that that
Speaker 1: spoke a lot to me, m and I think you
Speaker 1: know you see that, and you can speak to this
Speaker 1: in the in the law enforcement community, regardless of what
Speaker 1: segment you're in. You know, you you go to work
Speaker 1: for these agencies, you go to work for these departments,
Speaker 1: and they talk about this brotherhood and we're all a family.
Speaker 1: And I can assure you with certainty that the Arkansas
Speaker 1: Game Fish Commission wildlife officers and their families are a family.
Speaker 1: I mean, we couldn't do it without it. You know,
Speaker 1: we have flexible work schedules, we don't have shifts, and
Speaker 1: when the phone rings at three thirty in the morning,
Speaker 1: like it did that morning that Brian Bailey called me
Speaker 1: on the phone and saying I need help you you
Speaker 1: answer the call. You don't have back up, and so
Speaker 1: it takes that person on the other side of the
Speaker 1: bed of you. You have to have their sport. Yeah, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: and our agency recognizes that. There's no doubt. Well we sure,
Speaker 1: we sure appreciate the work that you guys do. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are really grateful for it and grateful for your
Speaker 1: service and sacrifice. Mm hmm yep mm hm. Well thanks
Speaker 1: so much for coming up today. Really has I tell
Speaker 1: you I've so this this ends in basically an eight
Speaker 1: week period where we were talking about something to do
Speaker 1: with the law and we're moving on finally. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: French rated talking about squirrels. I'm tired of glory and
Speaker 1: flying outlaws all the time and I can't even defend
Speaker 1: them anymore. But uh yeah, So anyway, this is this
Speaker 1: is a great it's a great way to end it.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you coming up for sure. Thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to be here, Yeah, glad to be here. All right,
Speaker 1: that's a wrap, guys down