Okay, people, listen up. Here we go. This is
Nature's Secret Service, the podcast that puts
you in the room with the men and women of wildlife
law enforcement. I'm Ed Newcomer, your host,
and today we have with us Cash Schrieffer, retired
U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent,
coming to us from his home in Louisiana. Cash,
thanks for joining us. Yes, great. Cash and I
actually worked together. and not together at
the same time. We were agents at the same time,
but we didn't work in the same part of the country.
So our experiences were very different. I'm super
excited to talk to him today about his experiences
as a special agent with the U .S. Fish and Wildlife
Service working in the southeastern part of the
U .S. I love that you so many of us after we
retire, you know, we end up going back to our
roots so many times. Right. You know, I want
to jump right in and ask you because I know people
who are listening and watching are going to be
really curious about, you know, what does a special
agent do? Your last field office was Monroe,
Louisiana, right? Actually, I had a little office
right after that. The end of my career was New
Orleans, Louisiana. Oh, you actually went to
New Orleans at the end. Yeah, I did. I got a
promotion, went to New Orleans, and then I got
diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, so I retired
a little early. Gotcha. Okay. Yes, New Orleans.
Yeah, that's actually interesting because I think,
you know, so you went from Monroe, which was
a single agent duty station, right? Yes. But
when I was in New Orleans, it was actually me
in the office and a wildlife inspector and then
later two wildlife inspectors. Okay. We were
there mainly the Port of New Orleans. It's both
a seaport and, you know, of course an airport.
And we have, as you well know, most of our designated
ports, as they're called, have a lot more wildlife
imported than exported. And an exception to that
would be New Orleans. Most of everything is leaving.
Alligator hides and turtles, live turtles. Yeah.
You know, I've talked about this before as that,
I think you retired in 2013, is that right? Yes.
Yeah. So I'm sure you saw the same thing that
we saw when I was working in Los Angeles. In
the earlier 2000s, what we saw was a lot of wildlife
coming into the U .S., and then there was a change.
And we started to see more and more wildlife
headed out, particularly amphibians, turtles,
reptiles, things like that, headed out to Asia.
Is that what you were experiencing there in New
Orleans? Well, just kind of, I mean, this is
rule of thumb, but if it was a turtle and it
was headed for Asia, it was to be eaten unless
it went to Japan, pets. If it was going to Europe,
it was pets unless it was going to Belgium or
France, because turtles are part of the diet.
Isn't that funny how you can kind of narrow down
where and why a particular species of wildlife
is being traded based on where it's going, right?
Yeah, as you know, a lot of this use of wildlife
is cultural. And turtle soup has always been
a big thing for French speaking people, at least
Louisiana. in France, Belgium, and pets, you
know, the Japanese, not everybody in the world
has pets, but they do love their pets. I think
the pet trade in the exotic animals is also increasing
in parts of other parts of Asia, like China,
South Korea, even in Vietnam now, as those economies
are growing and people have more disposable income,
they are turning to, so there's a threat now
for these species leaving the U .S., going into
them. food trade as well as the pet trade all
across Asia. Yes. So that's actually great that
you worked in New Orleans at the end. And let
me just explain to our listeners what a wildlife
inspector is. So within the Fish and Wildlife
Service Office of Law Enforcement, there are
special agents who are the armed sworn law enforcement
officers who do investigations, make arrests,
but there's also a uniformed branch of wildlife
inspectors and they act often just like a customs
officer would. They're usually based at ports
of entry, border points, airports or seaports.
They're uniformed officers and they conduct inspections
of people and parcels and mail going in and out
of the country. Cash, you worked for a while
in a single agent duty station where you're all
by yourself, right? I did. I worked a little
over 25 years total before I retired, but almost
18 of that was in single agent duty station in
Monroe, Louisiana, which is in Northeast Louisiana
near Arkansas. I imagine that is, I never worked
in a single agent station aside from being overseas
for five years, but I imagine it's uh kind of
nice because you're you know you you determine
what you're doing every day but you also don't
have a partner to work with regularly do you
that is true but we as you know and i would say
even in single duty stations or anywhere i partnered
up a lot with state officers with what was known
then as federal refuge officers now wildlife
officers and the fbi say whoever whomever right
i mean not routinely but i if i needed help there
was several sources i could depend on. Right,
for sure. I mean, most of the time we are, you
know, Fish and Wildlife Special Agents should
always and usually do have a good relationship
with their counterparts in the state wildlife
agencies and work with them a lot. But when you
need to, you also of course reach out to FBI
or ATF or Secret Service or US Marshals or whoever's
available and handy and willing to help you if
you need it, right? Correct. So Tell us a little
bit about, you know, one of the things that I
think is so cool about being a special agent
for Fish and Wildlife Service is that what you
do and the things you work on vary so greatly
depend on where you are in the country and what
field office you're assigned to. And in the southeastern
United States, I think a lot of people might
say, well, why do we need a federal wildlife
agent in Monroe, Louisiana? So tell us a little
bit about what are the federal conservation issues
going on? in that part of the country, Louisiana,
Southeast? Well, over the years, since even before
I was hired, we never had more, except for training
purposes, sometimes more than one agent in North
Louisiana. Two -thirds of our population are
in the southern third of the state. But to put
an agent in North Louisiana or closer to the
Arkansas border, it fills a big gap because the
other agents out in the area would be Little
Rock, Arkansas, or in the northern part of Mississippi.
And the thing is, two cases, type of cases I
worked a lot on in Monroe, is the Louisiana black
bear is the only subspecies of American black
bear that was ever listed as endangered or threatened.
And in 1992, it was listed as threatened. And
so that meant pretty much anywhere a Louisiana
black bear was taken, we had jurisdiction, we
had authority to investigate. Now we had federal
refugees across the state. and anything of course
killed there, we already had jurisdiction. Nothing
to bald eagle. Trying to remember and I think
it was still threatened possibly when I moved
back to Louisiana, maybe even endangered. So
anytime we had a bald eagle killed or anything
to do with bald eagles, that was a high priority.
Yeah, especially because, you know, eagles for
a U .S. Fish and Wildlife Special Agent are pretty
important for a lot of reasons. Like bald eagle,
of course, was listed under the Endangered Species
Act for many, many years, and it's one of the
great success stories as far as recovery goes.
But even now that it's not listed, of course,
eagles are still protected by the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act through the MBTA, which is a major
law that the Fish and Wildlife Service enforces.
And of course, there's also the bald and golden
eagle protection act. So there's a lot of laws
that affect them. Yeah. Birds of prey, you and
I know that even when the Migratory Bird Treaty
Act took effect in 1918, it excluded raptors.
In 1940, they listed in a separate act the bald
eagle protection act. In the early 60s, they
added our only other eagle, the golden eagle.
And even now, with the bald eagle off of the
endangered species act, it's still... higher
protection and higher penalty potential under
the Eagle Protection Act for both ball and goblins.
Exactly. Small, very narrowly defined act, but
very important. Exactly. And arguably stricter
requirements than even in the Endangered Species
Act. Right. Yeah, exactly. Early in my career,
it was very clear that agents... prioritized
eagle issues, you know, because there weren't
a lot of protections for them aside from the
federal. I think the count down, because of mainly
DDT in Louisiana, we're down to like 11 nesting
eagles in the state. Now we're way over 300.
And in time, we may catch Florida. But Florida
and Louisiana are two big states, particularly
for nesting eagles in the southeast in the United
States. All our wetlands. You'll never find an
eagle too far from a wetland. Yeah. That's exactly
right. Yeah. And you mentioned DDT. DDT, of course,
is a pesticide that was widely used in agriculture
for a long time and took a while for us to discover
that DDT causes, basically it aggregates itself
the higher it goes in the food chain. And by
the time you get to the predatory birds, It's
at high enough levels that it causes their eggs
not to harden properly and they end up accidentally
crushing their own eggs and they have very, very
poor nest success. On top of that, eagles, of
course, build these huge nests in trees and people
are cutting the trees down all the time and destroying
nests, which is also a violation of the law.
So there's a lot of things that affect eagles
or have affected them. So let's let's talk about
the MBTA or the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, because
I know that In Louisiana, that's a very important
part of what a special agent is involved in.
You mentioned it was enacted in 1918. It's an
oldie. It's one of the oldest conservation laws
in the United States. You know a lot about the
history. Why was the MBTA enacted in the first
place? What was the problem it addressed? Well,
earlier we had enacted in 1900 that we knew as
the LACIAC. govern interstate commerce or illegal
wildlife. But back in that time, we had a lot
of market hunting where you go to big cities,
and you could buy waterfowl, ducks, geese, in
the open market, their numbers were plummeting.
And another thing, you had women's fashions back
then were plumes, a lot in their hats, they'd
use egrets and heron plumes. And there's numbers
of these wildlife that furnish these carcasses
and these feathers. the numbers started to really
crash. So they tried at first to pass the migratory
bird law based on interstate commerce. And it
was looking like it was going to get shot down
at the Supreme Court. So they decided to go with
one of the other couple of methods to have federal
jurisdiction and go with the Migratory Bird Treaty,
which we signed and it's so back long ago with
Great Britain on behalf of Canada. And later...
Japan got added to it, Mexico got added to it,
the Soviet Union, after they broke up Russia,
acceded, agreed, we'll stay under the treaty.
When that came in, you had a federal offense
to help protect migratory birds. And when you
started having the ability to take cases to federal
court instead of your local courts, and there's
politics at every level sometimes, but at local
levels. when you're bringing in people in front
of the judge's DA that are relatives, you try
to take, you know, making it a federal offense
really took a lot of the now processing and dismissals
out of it. So it was a good move. I always like
that when he went to the Supreme Court, there
was a case, a guy who was a U .S. Fish and Wildlife
Service agent, Holland, and he called the attorney
general in Missouri. and it went all the way
to the U .S. Supreme Court on constitutionality,
and Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a decision, nine
to nothing, as constitutional. It was based on
the international treaty. And so that's at the
stage of us to really started to crack down on
all this commercial activity with birds. And
it's just a big market, you know? People love
to waterfowl, and you can raise them, but why
not go out in the wild and kill some? And it's
kind of hard to... you know, that's this whole
idea of sport fishing and hunting, or even commercial
fishing and hunting, whatever, is to make things
sustainable. When everybody's just taking as
many as they can because they can sell it, it
can be a huge problem. Yeah, and that's really,
you know, that's one of the things special agents
tend to focus on is not just illegal activity,
but illegal activity that commercializes wildlife,
because that really is the big threat to not
just you know, individual animals, but whole
populations of animals. And that we learned 100
years ago with almost decimating our own waterfowl
population just for the meat market. And then,
like you said, you add on top of the demand for
ornamental feathers, you know, that went into
people's hats and clothing at that time. All
the all the migratory birds were getting hit,
not just the waterfowl, but as you said, egrets.
Yeah. I mean, it would have been a migratory
bird had it stayed alive, but the supposedly
most numerous bird in North America, the passenger
pigeon, absolutely disappeared off the face of
the earth. That's a very good example of why
these laws needed to be enforced to protect these
birds. And I think the really interesting thing,
and the key word here is migratory, because these
birds move. thousands or even, you know, tens
of thousands, I don't know, tens of thousands,
but certainly thousands of miles twice a year
when they migrate. A big impact on them, say
in Louisiana, could impact their nesting success
up in Canada when they go up there in the summertime,
you know? Exactly. Unless you have a disease
come into play, it's much harder. And out of
Leopold, Professor Leopold from the early part
of the 20th century, well known for pretty much
creating the science of wildlife management,
is that when you have a migratory population
of anything, you destroy any area within that
past of migration, you could be greatly endangered
or threatened of species. Where you take like
deer, like in Louisiana, they don't migrate,
they pretty much hang out in a small area. But
when suddenly you have waterfowl nesting in Canada,
and they go through Northern United States, Sometimes
they don't, they go all the way to South America.
And at any point you damage or just flat out
destroy their habitat, the population can crash
or disappear. So, you know, it's interesting.
A lot of people don't realize that, well, hey,
you know, Canada our neighbor, Mexico our neighbors.
Japan out in the Pacific, the western, excuse
me, eastern part of what is now Russia, formerly
Soviet Union. We have these mutual interests
in protecting our wildlife. Absolutely. Absolutely.
And the whole migratory scheme is interesting.
I always try to remind my friends and family
that, you know, when you see a hawk on a telephone
pole in June and then you see a hawk on that
same telephone pole in December, It's probably
not the same hawk. You know, it's probably the
hawk you see in December is probably a hawk that
spends its summers up in the Arctic. And the
hawk you see in June is probably one that spent
its time. So there are a few like subpopulations
of the various migratory birds and just how many
are there? Oh, 800 something species are listed
on a migratory bird Trudiac. Over 95 % of the
species. of birds that inhabit, wild birds inhabit
the Canada and the United States is a migratory
bird. I know I used to like say Louisiana or
even this applied when I was in Texas. What is
not a migratory bird? Louisiana, Turkey, wild
turkey. Then you have quail, wild white quail,
European starling, and that's it. Everything
else is either a resident bird Like I say, everything
else, migratory birds, all your songbirds, all
your birds of prey, water birds, little bitty
finches, a lot of birds. Yeah, it's definitely
easier to name the ones that are not listed than
it is the ones that are listed. Exactly. So why
is Louisiana such an important place for migratory
birds? You explained it to me once and you have
a great way of explaining why Louisiana is so
critical for migratory birds, particularly waterfowl.
Well, the largest waterway, the largest river
on the North American continent is the Mississippi
River and all its tributaries. 31 states, all
a part of 31 states and parts of two provinces
of Canada drain eventually into the Mississippi
River. And there's wetlands all along that drainage,
but when you get on the coast, that's where you
also add things like cypress swamps, also marsh,
various types of marsh, fresh salt marsh and
intermediate marsh or whatever. So it gets cold
in the North. Birds are going to migrate wherever
they are in the world to warmer areas, particularly
in the fall and the winter. And that means all
the birds in the top area for nesting a waterfowl
in America or Canada. is north central United
States, continental United States, and Canada.
And those birds, almost every one of them leaves
in the winter, and they work their way down to
Louisiana. And a lot stay here because we have
a lot of wetlands, but some even go further.
And it's just quite a trip these birds make every
year. It's crazy. So basically, Louisiana, I
mean, has massive populations of protected waterfowl.
And non -waterfowl, migratory birds in general,
right? Yeah, we've been seeing some change in
the last few years because of the various agricultural
situations, warming, various things. But overall,
we still have a very high population of waterfowl
at times and just other type of migratory birds.
We have thousands and thousands of acres of bottomland
hardwood, bar, swamp. And we also have man -made
wetlands in that every year you have about I
think the numbers now up to like 300 ,000 acres
of fallow rice fields are flooded to raise pond
-raised crawfish. Right. Before about the 1960s
they were all caught in swampy areas. Now people
actually flood out these rice fields they had
just recently harvested and you have crawfish.
I grew up on a farm where we had cattle, rice,
crawfish. We had 180 acres of crawfish at the
most. And for many years, we sometimes would
catch over a ton on average per acre. Wow. And
when I was a kid running traps for my dad, the
price was like 30, 40, 50 cents. Now we had a
big drought here last year, and the price was
up there like $15 a pound. So very important
rotational crop. for these farmers to not only
just have their fields for grazing, for cattle,
for rice production, but they can also catch
coffees. And that's another thing, part of the
culture. People love to eat that, eat coffees,
little lobsters, fresh water. And back to the
MBTA, we were talking about how that was enacted
to stop this widespread overutilization, that's
commercialization. But interestingly, commercialization
of wildlife still occurs to this day. And I know
you know who this person is. We're going to do
a whole episode on a guy named John Perry, who
went by the nickname Dopey. I know you know who
that is, going way back. But tell us about an
agent you know, a fish and wildlife agent you
know more about than I do, a guy named, I think
it's Joe, is it Creco? Joe Greco. Greco. Anthony
Stefano was his real name. And he went frequently,
his covert name was Joe Greco. Okay. He was actually
an attorney and he worked for us for a number
of years and he went to very prominent waterfowl
spots throughout the country. Chesapeake Bay,
Coastal Texas, Louisiana, Central Valley of California.
And he had various covers. The one he used here
in Louisiana was he posed as a potato chip salesman.
He'd go around selling, and to just fit in with
the culture, he'd be like, what do y 'all like
to do? And they'd ask him invariably, do you
like to eat ducks? Do you like to eat geese?
Yes. Well, we'll sell you some. And so he made
buys here. And anyway, finally, after a number
of years, it's time to what we call take the
case down. It's time to make certain search warrants
and to arrest people. And it was about in Southwest
Louisiana, I think it was numbers of about 70
or 80 people arrested for illegally selling waterfowl
that had been illegal since 1918. It's not like
this came out of the blue. And anyway, they arrested
quite a few people somewhere, at least in the
Louisiana portion, were brought to court for
initial appearance in Lake Charles, Louisiana
or Lafayette. And quite a few of the people went
to jail. And it wasn't super long sentences,
but when most wildlife cases in America, you
violate the law, you pay a fine for minimal things.
But suddenly, people are going to jail. And I
was a boy in the 60s when this happened. And
it's like, suddenly, nobody would even think
about selling waterfowl at all, wild waterfowl.
So they broke it up. They broke it up. And you
and I talked about it the other day. of activity,
especially commercial activity, you just cannot
slap a person on the wrist. You have to put them
out of business or just cripple their business
so much where it's a behavior modification. You
know, we can't make anybody do anything, but
not too many people want to spend their time
in a federal lockup for a situation that they
don't need to be. Well, even with migratory birds
now not being allowed generally to speak commercialized,
I mean, some of the feds as you can, right game
birds for fly fishing and things like that but
there's still a lot of money in waterfowl hunting
and dove hunting and people lease their lands
and all the clothing the various brands of camouflage
and shotguns and decoys and boats and motel rooms
and camps and everything so per se we may not
be selling feather plumes anymore or carcasses
to eat but people are making money off the resource
still in a different way. Yeah, there's always
somebody looking to game the system, right? Exactly.
And that case you just described is a classic
example of how enforcement can actually make
a big difference in protecting a whole species
or a whole population of animals because it does
really deter people. Migratory Bird Treaty Act
is a wildlife law that actually has felony provisions
in it. And the felony provisions kick in if you're
selling or offering to sell migratory bird parts
or birds. So that's a great case that you talked
about. Yes, it was. And you know, you have, I
think, one of the things I always admired about
you as an agent is that, you know, a lot of times
as agents, we get focused on catching the next
bad guy. Who are we going to catch? Who are we
going to arrest? You know, that's the stories
that we tell to each other. But you always have
viewed your responsibility as an enforcement
officer, not just in catching people and arresting
people, but in educating people. And I wonder
if you could just talk about that a little bit
on how you viewed your role as an agent in terms
of not just your ability to make that case and
hold people accountable with consequences in
court with a conviction, but also just changing
behavior by education. What do you think the
role is of an agent in that regard? And I want
to talk about specifically that case that you
and I talked about a few days ago after that
hurricane. Yes, well, state wildlife agencies
that manage wildlife. and even our old agency,
the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they have
information available about what regulations
and rules are and statutes and everything. But
that said, I mean, your job is to, when you see
violations, take people to court. But however,
if you can solve a situation with just information,
everybody comes out better. every kind of better.
And we had a case back in Louisiana back in 2008.
This was three years after Katrina hit New Orleans,
when a hurricane came through in early September,
and that was the height of the harvest season
for several types of commodities, soybeans, corn,
cotton. And we have in central Louisiana, back
then, it was like the largest single piece of
property that was agricultural and where all
these crops are planted. and it came through,
devastated it, they're not gonna harvest, but
for the purpose of the Migratory Bird Treaty
Act, baiting regulation for game birds, you can
hunt for waterfowl, ducks, geese, also sanio
crane, which is not waterfowl. It's much more
restrictive rules and regulations than doe hunting.
And so what these people could have done is the
crop was lost. They could just flood it up or
it's already flooded because of 20, 30 inch rain,
hunt it like that. But they want to go ahead
and knock it down, plow it, manipulate it. And
the thought was to get ready for the next planting
time, which is about a year away, less than a
year. But anyway, so we told them, you know,
like, look, you can't do this under the regulation.
We greatly encourage people to hunt over agriculture
lands if they're not full agriculture, fake agriculture.
So this crop that we even allow you the regulation
to hunt it as it is and even flood it. But normally
it would be harvested and with the waste grain,
the water would come in there. So it's like,
in this hunting area of 40 ,000 acres, they had
a hundred duck blinds at least for $5 ,000 a
blind. You know, pretty good money off of that,
too. And it's to educate some people. Some of
us a little harder to educate them. So the guy
called me that was head of the hunting area,
that area. He says, what's the penalty if we
don't know this area? I say, well, it can be
up to six months in jail or fifteen thousand
dollars or both. If you hunt it. So I get a call
back about half a week later. He said, well,
that's a pretty big penalty. I said, well, I'm
going to tell you about another one that if you
violate the baiting regulation, particularly
the placement of bait, or anything in the baiting
regulation, I said the penalty can go up to one
year in jail and are $100 ,000 for an individual
or 200 ,000 for a corporation or double the gross
gain or double the gross law, as you know in
the Title 18. So I thought that's going to kind
of get our message across. And then he calls
again and he's agitating. I said, look, we've
got to know a lot because of Lacey Act that has
felony provisions that it forbids that you leave
the knowing or sale of illegal wildlife, which
this is, you've been told this is illegal. So
this could be up to a five year felony for selling
illegal guiding or outfitting circus. sealing,
illegal guiding, outfitting services. So then
I got a call, which I wish that's the guy who
would call me to start with, his attorney. And
we just, you know, we go down to regulation.
We agree. That's what it says. But it was like,
you're not going to enforce that. I said, we're
going to enforce it. Well, debating regulation
started in the 30s. After that, press pass in
May 1918. I said, yes, we're going to enforce
it. And so in my only time in my career, They
hired a pretty good attorney firm in central
Louisiana. They filed an injunction against us,
against the director of the Fish and Wildlife
Service, or the Fish and Wildlife Service and
the director. So we had a hearing. The injunction
was to keep you from enforcing the law, right?
Regulation. Yeah. But what we knew, not only
did they have that conversation earlier with
that particular area where they were hunting,
I knew it was going to be a problem, so LSU,
which is the Land Grant College of Louisiana,
the Agriculture Authority, they put out a news
release warning people, or just educating people,
that hunt your field that's been destroyed by
a hurricane, but don't go manipulate it or knock
it or plow it down. So when we had that hearing
in court, you know how it went in court. You
kind of tell, it kind of sways back and forth.
But it's looking good for us. But whenever I
took the stand and the judge learned that we
had gone the extra mile to notify not only these
people, but people throughout the state. And
it's like, look, beware. This is a violation.
That's strengthen our hand considerably. Excellent.
Because we were reasonable in our attempt to
notify people of what the regulation was, what
the penalty was, and why. I mean, this area there
that they couldn't hunt, we would surveil it
two or three times a week for the rest of the
winter. And they would have at times three quarters
of a million birds on ducks and or geese. Wow.
That's pretty significant. Including one of the
three biggest areas for camisback ducks, which
is not a very common duck. And there's times
in that area. where something like 40 % of all
the cameras back in the world were in there.
So there was a, there was a huge potential for
massive take of waterfowl on this one property
alone, right? Yes. And even if people don't go
over the limit, the regulations are set up at
least the biology behind all of it. It's like
if everybody that goes hunt gets the limit every
day, the seasons wouldn't be as long. I mean,
there's some days it's not expected you to get
a limit, but those birds are so plentiful, they
were going to have some awfully good hunts, even
if they never went over to them. Right. You know,
there's so many interesting things about this
story that I like, but I think to be fair to
listeners who are not, if you fish and wildlife
service agents or state officers, I got to back
up just a little bit and I'm going to try to
explain. I'm going to explain this as if I was
trying to explain it to my mom, and you correct
me if I'm wrong. But basically what we're talking
about here, so first of all, we've been talking
about the MBTA, which prohibits the take or killing,
whatever, capture of a migratory bird. But with
regard to waterfowl and doves, and as you mentioned,
sandhill cranes, there is some hunting allowed,
and it's set through regulations. The federal
government sets the regulation. And when they
talk about limits, that's how many birds you
could kill per day, per hunter during the hunting
season. And so those federal regulations are
set, and those are enforced by either Fish and
Wildlife or state officers. So there's that.
But what you're getting into is really interesting
because you're getting into what's called the
baiting regulations. And the federal regulations
generally prohibit hunters from hunting over
bait. And the reason for that is because obviously
you get a lot of waterfowl congregating over
seed or grain or whatever that's put out as bait.
And you can kill, you know, in one day, you could
kill hundreds of animals or, you know, just take
too many, basically. And and what one more thing,
I got to get it out of my head and then you correct
me if I'm wrong. So when a field is destroyed
like that. that is not necessarily bait, but
if you change it, if you manipulate that, you
can then create a baited situation where you've
got a baited field. Is that accurate? That's
very close. Yes, it's accurate. As you can tell,
I didn't work on a lot of waterfowl cases. As
you know, that regulation is not as easy to understand
as hunting without a license. No, not at all.
Yeah, and so that's true. Some of the greatest
waterfowl hunting is on farmland. And so we rely
on these agriculture extension agencies to tell
us what actually is legitimate farm practice.
Because somebody could say, well, I'm planting
rice in fall. Well, nobody plants rice in America
right in the late fall or the winter. And so
it makes people stick with what is necessary
to have a legitimate crop. And most people want
to hunt, want to harvest and make money off the
crop, but there's waste grain left over, which
attracts waterfowl. It's okay. We're gonna allow
you to hunt, but you can't have fake agriculture,
generally speaking. But like the, you know, the
easiest to understand is you can't go pour out
of a bucket. or a truck or whatever. In case
I worked in Arkansas one time, they had a big
fertilizer spreader and manure spreader, and
they just would buy the sack, load the grain
in there. And this is pre -game cameras. And
so two agents in Arkansas dropped them off for
four days in a row. And what great video where
this big truck with swamp tires just spreading
tons of grain out all over this field. No wonder
they had good hunts every day. Yeah. So that's
a good clarification. If it's, if it is a manipulation,
it's got to be a legitimate agricultural purpose,
right? Correct. Yeah. As you can tell in, in,
when I was based in Los Angeles, technical things,
but if it's a post harvest manipulation, you
can go, yeah, you can't, you can't manipulate
prior a standing crop. Right. As you can tell,
working in Los Angeles, I didn't do a lot of
waterfowl baiting cases, and they're complicated.
They're very complicated. And I think it's why
educating the public is so important. And funny
enough, Cash, a story just from my career, one
of the few times I ever thought a situation was
going to turn violent was when me and two other
agents were out in the El Centro Valley in Southern
California. And we did just what you're talking
about. We found a field that had been, you know,
I think it had been manipulated, if I remember
correctly. We went and talked to the landowner
and we had told him you were not allowed to hunt
that property and you can't have any of your,
you can't lease it out for hunting. And he became
so angry. He was so angry. I thought it was,
he was gonna be violent with us. Yeah. Yeah.
I've seen some of that. We don't realize part
of any kind of law enforcement job is to be also
psychologist, peacemaker. That is exactly right.
And, you know, I still don't quite know for sure
why he backed down. Something happened in our
interaction and he was, I mean, he was given
off all those signals that, you know, as law
enforcement officers, we're trained to recognize
as pre -assault indicators. And all of a sudden
he just calm down. And I don't even really understand
what happened in that relation, in that interaction,
but he went from almost violent to calm. That's
why I always try to sell them down pretty quickly.
If it's just one person and it's one or more
agents, then it's not as pressing. But when you
have two or more subjects or their friends there,
I've seen too many women in particular, significant
other, like you're going to let this, this government
man do this to you. It's like, please miss, please,
sir. Let's all keep this car to where everybody
goes away from here in one piece with undamaged.
We're just here to do our thing, protect wildlife.
And you know, people just get upset. They get
upset and that's understandable. But when you
start making those threats, non verbally or verbally,
We don't want them to get her, and we certainly
don't want to get her. Exactly. I was on another
podcast as a guest myself recently, and I was
telling the story about Vic Blazavik, our agent
who was shot in the line of duty. And he had
been ambushed by duck hunters, which I think,
especially today with a lot of agents working
on commercialization and international or interstate
trafficking. You never know who's going to be
dangerous. It might be that person who's just
really mad at you because they can't hunt ducks
today. Correct. You never know. And I've seen
people and known people that it's an addiction.
Yeah. In Shreveport, Louisiana, one time a man
came in and he was about, really, he sentenced
to six months in jail for hunting. He had had
a prior fortified violation. He had been put
on probation. and a fine community service, but
a special part of probation. You can't hunt anywhere
in the world for five years. You can't go to
a hunting camp. You can't be with hunters in
the field. Well, he hunted and he got caught
and we made a mistake and he got divorced not
long after and he just told his wife and back
to the judge, I love duck hunting more than I
even love my wife. Well, that's not a good thing
to say to the judge, especially with your wife
in the courtroom. Definitely not. Not at all.
Not at all. Not at all. Tipperary insanity. But
anyway, but some people, that's their life. I
mean, so we think about golf, tennis, whatever.
They want to go to the duck camp every day, every
day or the deer camp or whatever. That's their
thing. That's their thing. Exactly. And that's
true all across the U S there's a, there's kind
of a There's a great case that one of our agents
in Idaho did once, and the penalty included not
only inability to hunt on federal land, but you
couldn't even, the defendant during his probationary
period, he couldn't even visit federal land.
And Idaho, there's a large percentage of Idaho
is either US Forest Service, BLM, and this poor
guy in Boise. Really, that impacted his life.
Well, Dave Hall, who you've heard of, I don't
know if you've met him. Dave's kind of a very
famous fish and wildlife agent. Yeah. Well, he
also was a master's graduate in wildlife management
from Mississippi State University. He had a questionnaire
that the professors did for him and asked four
questions. How many times during the course of
a year do you go over the limit on waterfowl
or ducks? How many times do you go over the limit
on geese? Do you hunt of a rate? Do you for geese?
Do you not? And they already knew that all the
people, the questionnaire were sent to were hunters
that had already been apprehended. Okay. And
what do you think the penalty should be? And
almost a person, the worst thing was not serving
time in jail. It was to be put on probation and
have your hunting rights taken away. Exactly.
Cause I mean, we have had some people go into
clinical depression. Because, you know, their
life was around being at the camp since they
were little children, and now you can't even
go to the camp. Right. Or with any hunter in
the world. Yeah. You don't have to put people
in jail when you have penalties like that. That's
true. That's a good point. You know, sometimes
we lament the fact that some of our penalties
are fairly low under the federal sentencing guidelines.
But there's a lot of things a judge can do to
deliver consequences to somebody and change their
behavior. And somebody... preservation, more
so non -game birds, and migratory birds can be
divided non -game and game, of course ducks and
geese and doves, cane birds, very structured
seasons. And certainly we want the species to
get threatened or endangered, but also the whole
sport of hunting is to evenly spread the resource.
You know, you don't get to, because you have
the great hunting spot, kill 100, 200 ducks or
whatever. The limits are usually way below 10,
10 at the most for a waterfowl. And that way
you kill your share and your neighbor can maybe
kill a few too. And, but when you get to, I want
it all. Yeah. It's just not good for the species.
Not good for the whole idea of sport hunting.
Exactly. Yeah. Every regulation we have regarding
migratory gamers is like limits take in some
kind of way. When the act passed in 1918, there
were only two components. You either were a non
-game bird where you couldn't hunt at all, or
game bird, if it's a game bird, when the season
was and when the limit was. Then later we realized
by the 30s and the country was in this deep drought,
all over, the numbers plummeted at waterfowl.
That's when they came up with the federal duck
stamp, another act to support wetland purchase.
And so you had all these people, you know, what
are we gonna do? And so they came up with things
like baiting. You couldn't bait, you couldn't
use shotguns with capable of holding more than
three shells at one time. And if you have the
regulation to restrict harvest a little further,
live decoys, that was passed then too. So yeah,
I mean, we got to do what we got to do to keep
it to where we too much impact on the species.
No idea where the birds have enough numbers to
reproduce and keep their numbers steady, or if
they're down, bring them back to our land. Exactly.
Exactly. So it's there for everybody. Yes, everybody.
And many people, there's more money in bird watching
than there is in hunting. Yes. That's a deck
-and -eye boon to the country. That is true.
Wildlife watchers now, the money that they spend
on doing that activity out outstrips what hunters
and fishermen spend on that activity. I always
find that very interesting. With regard to that
case you just described with the hurricane, one
of the things I love about it is so many people
that we deal with in an enforcement capacity,
as you know, when you arrest somebody or you
give them a notice of violation or a citation,
they often characterize us as overly aggressive
or jackbooted thugs or very cold, mindless enforcement
officers. But the example you gave there were,
you know, you and I'm sure other agents went
above and beyond to educate, educate the violators,
potential violators before they became violators.
Yeah. I mean, it's such a great example of we
are not out there just to put as many people
in jail as we can or get as many people caught.
We're trying to save the species. That's what
we're trying to do. Sure. And I mean, like information.
is always available, a phone, internet, whatever
websites. And, um, the, think about a hunter
or a fisherman, especially if they've been out
of a while, they, they know, or should know the
regulation. I mean, there've been many people
I apprehended on whatever hunting violation and,
uh, they would have the regulation with them.
And I'd ask them, did you read this? Well, no.
Exactly. Or they didn't have it. And I says,
you could have called me. Exactly. Call one of
us and inquire, and just load the gun and go.
Exactly. So listen, we're coming close to our
end of time here. But before I let you go, I
wanted to just ask you, is there something, as
you look back on your career, both as a federal
agent and as a state officer, is there any one
thing that kind of jumps out at you that you're
really proud of or really feel was a great accomplishment?
Well, I think that I had an advantage growing
up on a farm where we were waterfowl. We were
migratory bird hunters and we had a lot of other
migratory birds. And I did a lot of reading of
Aldo Leopold and Muir Thoreau. And I'd read Field
and Stream or other outdoor hook and bullet magazines.
And I'd read these stories of people that would
obey the law. Yeah. And I thought it was fictional
almost because It's a problem that where there's
an abundance, even a small fraction of people
that are hundreds of fishermen can destroy the
resource. They're just so greedy. And so I think
these situations where we worked hard to apprehend
these people, in particular, making a lot of
money off of whatever they were doing illegally,
or even just sport wise. I mean, there's people
that they don't know for whatever reason, it's
their fault they don't know. But people willfully,
knowingly, we have this public trust over wildlife.
And, you know, I had one billionaire I apprehended
in my career, and that was like 30 plus years
ago. And the talk is, well, if he couldn't get
out of it, we, the common folk, what chance do
we have? So just apprehended of that person and
the successful prosecution and the good penalty.
changed other people's behavior. Yeah. You make
the right case and you can deter future bad actors
for sure. It's not like we're picking on anybody,
but we have to go where we can make the best
effort for the resource. 100%. 100%. Cash, thank
you so much. Thank you so much for all of your
service to the people of Louisiana and the United
States. I really appreciate it. It was such a
great honor to work with you as a colleague,
and it's so great to have you on the show. I
really appreciate it. Well, thank you. You're
doing a good thing in your retirement, semi -retirement,
and we love it. All right. Fantastic, Cash. Thanks
again for talking to us. Hopefully, we'll have
a chance to have you on again sometime. Nature's
Secret Service is written and produced by me,
Ed Newcomer, and is co -produced by the DHTV
team here at California State University Dominguez
Hills. Follow us on social media and connect
with us online at naturessecretservice .com.