A wildlife conservation officer is in charge of enforcing all of the country’s conservation laws by checking licenses and harvests of hunters and fishermen. A wildlife conservation officer’s responsibilities also include conducting wildlife and habitat inspections and educating the public about wildlife rules, regulations, and dangers. The wildlife conservation officer is usually in charge of forestry laws, boating laws, and pollution investigations. This can include manning watchtowers to prevent forest fires and wildfires, patrolling forests by fire lane, and investigating reports of fire and dangerous camper activity.
Wildlife conservation officers, also known as game wardens, are on the front lines of animal control in a number of areas. The wildlife conservation officer investigates reports of illegal activity and conducts checks on sportsmen in the field and on the water, from poaching to legal hunting. The conservation officer ensures that only legal methods for harvesting animals and fish are used by checking for proper licenses and tags, as well as the use of proper sporting equipment. Officers at check-in stations in some areas examine the wild game harvested. The animals are examined for age and sex, and a sample of the carcass is taken in some cases to test for diseases like chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer.
In most areas, a wildlife conservation officer has the same legal authority as a police officer, allowing him or her to issue citations and make arrests. When inspecting a boat, a conservation officer has the authority to declare it unfit for use and order the boat owner to make repairs and have the vessel inspected before relaunching it into the water. Lack of a fire extinguisher, failure to properly display registration numbers and/or stickers, and the absence of a battery box are all violations that can lead to a boat being deemed not seaworthy. In addition to not having floatation devices, operating a boat while inebriated or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and dangerous driving are all ticketable offenses.
In the course of their duties, conservation officers usually drive government-owned vehicles. By setting out decoy animals or monitoring waterways frequented by trappers, illegal fishermen, and those with fish in excess of the legal limit, the wildlife conservation officer frequently sets up traps and ambushes for poachers. This is a dangerous job, and some wildlife conservation officers have been shot and killed in the field by criminals.