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Outdoor Wisconsin host Dan Small welcomes you to his special on-line sanctuary. Join Dan as he notes the shortage of game wardens in Wisconsin.  Awards Highlights
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Theme3/25/98 Wisconsin Needs More Wardensby Dan Small
Gov. Thompson recently said he would ask for $1.2 million to hire 18 new wardens and get them into training by the end of the year. That's barely even a start. Some officials don't think the problem is as severe as I've outlined it here, but it seems clear to me that we need a lot more wardens pronto. ©2000 Milwaukee Public Television
January 15, '98:
Orange Fades Like a
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You may have read this
elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Wisconsin ranks 49th in
the U.S. in the ratio of wardens to hunters and anglers.
Wisconsin has one warden per 12,500 hunters and anglers,
while the national average is one per 7,700. Only New Jersey
has fewer than Wisconsin. Add to that the fact that
Wisconsin wardens are responsible for all natural resources
enforcement, while in many other states conservation
officers are responsible only for fish and game enforcement,
and you can see we have a serious problem.
In 1997, Wisconsin's 185 conservation
wardens responded to over 20,000 citizen complaints and made
over 250,000 personal contacts with citizens. "Our
conservation wardens live in communities where, for the most
part, they are the Department of Natural Resources. Often,
they are the only DNR employee in the community," DNR chief
warden Tom Harelson says, in a January 23 report to DNR
secretary George Meyer and the media. Wardens are
essentially on call 24 hours per day, seven days per week
and are often the only DNR employees available during off
hours and weekends to respond to citizens' concerns.
Harelson asked Meyer to help him address the warden
shortfall and its impact on the state's natural resources.
Cell phones and other technological improvements have
helped, he says, but "the overall impact has been negligible
compared to the losses in enforcement efforts since
1979."
Since then, warden enforcement effort has
declined substantially, workload pressures are causing
serious morale and personal problems, compliance with
natural resources and RV laws is declining and pressures on
the resource have grown dramatically. Wisconsin would have
to hire 139 new wardens right now just to reach the national
average, and many would argue that we need more than that.
Back in FY 85, the average work week for a state warden was
55 hours. In FY 96, as a result of changes made because of
the Fair Labor Standards Act, wardens worked an average of
46 hours per week. In addition, increases in the number of
hunters, anglers, boaters, snowmobilers, ATVers,
environmental laws and other pressures on resources have
created a need for more wardens that has not been met.
Between lost hours of effort and lost effort from growing
needs, Wisconsin has suffered a net loss of 158 full-time
wardens, or 289,140 warden hours. That amounts to an 85
percent loss since 1979.
While wardens are essentially on call around
the clock, standard staffing practices in police agencies
provide 2.3 officers to cover one eight-hour shift. That
would translate to 6.9 wardens to cover one 24-hour shift
now handled by one person! Many field wardens work out of
their homes without any clerical support and can best be
described as a "one-person service center." They routinely
respond by themselves to a dangerous situation involving
weapons - backup from other law-enforcement officers is
often untimely and limited. Aggravated assaults on wardens
have increased by 30 percent from the 1980s to the 1990s.
Violations, too, are on the increase, as might be expected
with the gaps in enforcement. In 1979, wardens issued some
13,000 citations. By 1996, that number rose to 22,000,
despite an 85-percent reduction in warden effort.