imported post
Well, this may sosund odd coming from me, but I don't care if they're operating solely in EW or just on Potholes res.
Game cops should be G-A-M-E cops. Period. End of story.
This photo raised a fair number of hackles among people who have had a hell of a time getting a game cop to respond to a poaching, cougar complaint, any number of problems. You think county sheriffs are stretched thin, game cops are stretched thinner.
And it genuinely pisses some people off to see the continued militarization, or para-militarization of civilian law enforcement.
WSP can learn the woods, they can get a frigging map, they can work in concert with county sheriffs deputies.
This is not a new problem. Years ago, I was working at Fishing & Hunting News and for a week I kept getting complaints from guys who had reported several gillnets abandoned in the Duwamish in Seattle, and fianlly, I called down to Olympia and got an enforcement guy on the phone and talked to him about it.
He said they were aware of the nets.
I told him that if the nets were not out of there by 5 that afternoon, they would be on the capitol steps at 9 a.m. the following morning, per what some of the angry anglers had told me, and that the press would be there.
SHAZZAMM! those nets were out of there by 3 o'clock.
I have no idea what the game guys had been doing that kept them from responding to a week's worth of complaints, but they stepped on it when they found out that this was about to blow up in their faces.
I have nothing against game wardens. Virtually all of my encounters have been pretty good, here and in other states. But that's because they were busy checking licenses, issuing citations to poachers and watching the resource, not out pulling dope grows.
