If you want to learn more about the topics of
today's episode, visit the podcast website at
naturessecretservice .com. Thanks for listening.
Okay, people, listen up. Here we go. My name
is Ed Newcomer. I'm your host of Nature's Secret
Service, the podcast that puts you in the room
with the men and women of wildlife law enforcement.
Today, our guest is Steve Furr, joining us from
his home in Washington State. Steve was a special
agent for the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
originally stationed in Sacramento, California,
but later transferred to a single agent station
up in Olympia, Washington. He served many years
as a, not just a special agent, but also as a
regional and national firearms instructor for
the service, which is a great help to all of
us agents. And he was the recipient of the very
prestigious Guy Bradley Award in, I believe 2017,
right Steve? That's correct. The Guy Bradley
Award is a recognition of a long career of outstanding
service and is named after Guy Bradley, who was
the first wildlife officer killed in the line
of duty back in 1905. Prior to becoming a Fish
and Wildlife Service Special Agent, Steve served
as a wildlife officer for the state of Washington
for many years. So I'm super happy to have Steve
here. Steve and I worked together in the same
region for a number of years, and we know each
other quite well. But Steve, thank you so much
for being on the podcast. It's great to have
you here. Yeah, absolutely. It's good to be here.
You're looking good. You know, you and I both
worked in what was known as Region 1 at the time,
which included California, Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Hawaii, and all of the Pacific Islands.
We always had such a great camaraderie among
all of the agents in that region. And I think
part of that is because throughout that region,
there were a lot of similarities in some of the
cases we did, or at least in terms of kind of
the high profile of the West Coast in terms of
the overall Fish and Wildlife Service mission
with regard to law enforcement. So we were always
kind of under the same or we were on the same
hot plate in terms of, there was a lot of attention
on the cases that were handled on the West Coast.
I don't know if you, I think you and I share
a, we share a mutual acquaintance, a wildlife
officer up in the state of Washington named Greg
Haw. And Greg said something to me once that
really struck me, because I always knew Greg
as a very hard charging, you know, uniformed
wildlife officer. He was always out there chasing
poachers in the middle of the night. working
his, you know, working his butt off on weekends
and holidays. But he said something to me once
that really struck me. And he said, you know,
if I could do my career over again and start
over, I would have focused a lot more time on
habitat cases. And that I agreed with that from
my perspective as an agent. I wish I would have.
And I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, you know, as a new agent starting out,
you know, you're looking for direction on you
know what to do right i mean what's important
what do they want me to do and as as you know
we had priorities that were spelled out um you
know in the service manual and you know if you
if you ever cracked it open and read it you know
the number one priority was endangered species
uh habitat destruction so you know but they're
Very unattractive cases, you know, they're they're
always political You know, nobody likes doing
them Try selling one of those to a US attorney,
right? There's there's just all kinds of problems
with them So it was always ironic to me that
you know, it was you know This thing first mentioned
on levels of priority But very few of them ever
ever got done, right? I mean, I think you'd agree
with me I mean just there's really just probably
been a handful of criminal cases over over the
years, you know that have been done on Habitat
destruction of it, you know endangered species
habitat. So yeah Yeah, that is true. And you
know, in fact on my way over here to the studio
today I looked up I went online and I looked
at the Office of Law Enforcement webpage for
the Fish and Wildlife Service and I looked for
the priorities. And even right now, the priorities
for the Office of Law Enforcement, number one,
I'll read it to you. I got it here on my phone.
It says, number one priority is unlawful commercial
activities and or activities involving habitat
destruction affecting wild populations of fish,
wildlife, or plants listed as endangered or threatened.
That's like the number one priority for the Office
of Law Enforcement. And yet, you're right. I
mean, you hardly ever hear about those cases.
I think in my whole 20 -year career, I worked
on less than half a dozen for sure. And of those,
I think maybe one of them got prosecuted. And
they're complicated to work. They're complicated
to explain to a prosecutor or a jury. They are
rife with political landmines, right? And yeah,
they're just, they can be very controversial
because a lot of times they interfere with, you
know, quote unquote, private land ownership use
and things like that. Yep, development. And how
often do you have bodies? Well, yes. That's a
key most of the time, you know, you're just relying
on science and that you know, these species were
there or this is the type of habitat and You
know, I was lucky on a few of them that it was
well documented that you know, the species was
there, you know, and that was really key because
you know, try going to an assistant U .S. attorney
with, well, we think they're there, you know?
I mean, the habitat looks good. So, you know,
believe us, they're, you know, they're there.
And they're just, they're just not going to buy
that. It's just not clean enough, you know? Right.
And that's where this relationship between the
law enforcement side, the agent, and the ecological
services side of the Fish and Wildlife Service,
where the biologists are, is so critical because...
So often, they're not even in the same offices
most of the time. They're separate offices. And
they don't communicate very well and very often.
And so the biologists, they really have no idea
what the agent's going to need when they show
up on a habitat destruction case. And if that
documentation has been done before, that these
animals are there, they were there, and they
are there, and they were there up until this.
land was destroyed, then you have a much better
shot at making a case. But if that documentation
is not there, a prosecutor is just going to see
reasonable doubt everywhere, right? And the service
doesn't have the resources to document every
available habitat for all these species. They
never will. That would be a massive undertaking.
Some of the hot spots for these species, they
have good data and they know where they are and
they've detected them there for years and years.
But a lot of times it's just not there. And there's
managers in those offices with those biologists
that are leery of getting their people involved
in these cases. They know it's going to be a
time sucker, right? It's going to just take them
away from their duties and you're going to own
them for a while because they might need to write
you a take statement or be out there in the field
with you. There's just problem after problem
with these. They're just not, they're not easy,
and you really have to have some resolve to push
one of these things through. Yeah, 100%. I have
two stories on that really quick. One was, you
know, when I was an agent in Southern California,
we used to try to go up to the ecological services
officer, at least talk to him on a Zoom call
or something, and do some training for them on
what is it that... you need to show to make a
criminal case if something if criminal cases
ever, you know, in play, the biologists need
to know what they need to document and how in
order to set you the agent up for success, right?
Right, right, right. And then the other one is
to your point about, you know, selling a case
to a prosecutor. Agent Aaron Dean and I once
worked really hard on a habitat destruction case
that involved San Diego fairy shrimp, which are
endangered. But you know, they're a tiny little
animal that you're not going to find a body,
right? We actually put together a great case.
We actually got a confession from the person
who who destroyed the habitat and they admitted
that they knew that there were fairy shrimp there.
Took it to a prosecutor with a confession in
hand. And the first we walked into the prosecutor's
office in the first words out of his mouth were,
so what is this, some sort of little mud bug
that you were dealing with? And that just like
set the whole attitude for the case and he never
prosecuted it. Even with a confession in hand,
he would not file charges on that case because
it wasn't sexy enough, you know? Well, and they're
misdemeanors, right? Exactly. That's the other
thing. Yeah. I mean, unless you find a false
document or obstruction or something like that,
you know, it's just It's a misdemeanor and, you
know, they're busy, right? These aren't, you
know, something they're dying to... So, you know,
a lot of times, you know, the service wanted
us to go civil. But we really didn't have a good
civil process. That wasn't strong in the service.
And if we had a real strong civil process, it
might have been more attractive, because you're
going to do all this work like it's a criminal
case anyway. I almost never tried to push anything
civil, because from my perspective, because the
Endangered Species Act maximum penalty is only
a Class A misdemeanor. I at least wanted that
criminal conviction on the defendant's record,
right? Because the punishment for criminal versus
civil wasn't going to be that different. It was
mainly going to be money. It was going to be
money. But I wanted that criminal conviction
on their record. So I very rarely went. If I
was going to put in the time that you and I are
talking about, I went criminal always. And if
you couldn't make that, just forget about it.
When I talk to the public, whenever I talk to
them, I'm sure this is true for you, too. And
you tell them that the maximum penalty under
the Endangered Species Act is a Class A misdemeanor.
Maximum time in jail is one year. And what is
that, $100 ,000 fine, I think? It's shocking.
You kill the last tiger in the world, and the
maximum penalty would be one year in jail. Yeah,
right, right. Anyway, we could go on about that
all day. I want to talk to you about a particular
area in the Sacramento district where you worked
when you were an agent there in Sacramento called
the Susan Marsh. Can you tell us about that?
What is it? Where is it? Yeah, this is Susan
Marsh. So I started out in Sacramento. I worked
a year there in Iraq office, resident agent in
charge. And after that year in the Sacramento
office, I decided to take the Burlingame office,
which was over in the Bay Area, near the airport
there in South San Francisco. And so that was
part of the area I worked, was the Sassoon Marsh.
It's known as the largest brackish water marsh
on the West Coast. Most of it has been diked
off to tidal flow originally for grazing and
agriculture, but then they turned it into all
these duck clubs and there's literally like 158
duck clubs that are part of the Sassoon Marsh.
And it's just a bunch of walled off duck ponds
to the bay, right? From the bay. So explain to
our listeners who might not be familiar, what
is a duck club? What is that for? Well, a duck
club is just usually a group of guys or a family
that has gotten together and purchased land.
And in the case where we're talking about it,
they... They do what they call manage these wetlands.
They're called manage wetlands for waterfowl.
And they try to raise and lower water levels
in order to promote certain types of plants to
grow that are conducive to bringing ducks in
for hunting. And so a lot of this marsh, you've
got to remember, a lot of this marsh has been
diked off for many, many years. All the animals
and the plants that were associated with a natural
marsh, a flowing marsh or tidal wetlands, that's
been part of the reason there's so many listed
species in the San Francisco Bay areas, because
a lot of these tidal wetlands have all been drained,
diked for salt production, agriculture. you know,
development, whatever. And so very few of these,
very little of this tidal marsh remains. I have
a couple numbers for you. So if you want to get
into that a little bit, but historically there
were 60 ,000 acres of tidal wetlands and now
there's less than 8 ,000. So that gives you an
idea how little tidal wetlands And a lot of places
like up here in the Northwest, we are breaching
levees and bringing the tidal flow back in, mostly
for salmon. And it's the same thing down there.
These are really important areas for juvenile
salmon. And they're really trying to breach a
lot of these levees and bring them back into
tidal marshes. So there are certain words that
I can never pronounce. This marshes name is one
of them even Soon it's spelled funny so when
I my brain is there certain words I cannot say
that I will never say on this podcast because
I cannot pronounce them So tell us what what
kind of species are there that what this marsh
is important to what species Yeah, there's a
number of listed species, you know A number of
fish, the delta smelt that's been in the news
lately, that's an important one that's just tanked.
There's green sturgeon, there's Chinook salmon,
California clapper rail, salt marsh harvest mouse,
a couple of plants, California lease turn. I
can go on and on. I think I've probably covered
three quarters of them, but there's probably
some I'm missing. So because these are all species
that depend on tidal marshes, you know, they've
all just really tanked over the years. And you
say listed, you're talking about listed under
the Endangered Species Act, like the smelt and
the clapper rail for sure. Yeah endangered or
threatened, you know one at one of the two and
you know, California clapper rails They used
to market hunt those things, you know, I mean,
you know around the turn of the century I mean,
they were going to restaurants in San Francisco,
you know, there were you know that that those
kinds of numbers and Some of the stuff I've looked
up lately. I mean, they think there's 1200 of
them left Yeah, see and that fits perfectly with
that number one highest priority for the Office
of Law Enforcement. You've got habitat where
critically endangered species are living and
yeah, that's a high priority. Yeah, so you're
given that as a high priority. You you arrive
in this new duty station. You're under the Sacramento
Rack District, but you're there in Burlingame.
What? Tell us how how did you get involved with
the marsh? What what happened? Well, you know,
it's it's there's some duck hunting that goes
on there it's not like it used to be in the 70s
and a lot of that is because the ducks have shifted,
you know to all the rice in the Central Valley
and So these guys that own these clubs, you know,
they're really scratching all the time to try
to make things better, you know and and so Originally
my partner and I at the time Todd we we started
going out and looking at the marsh, just trying
to get an idea of who's who in the zoo, and what
kind of practices are going on there. At that
point, the way the federal baiting regulations
were structured is you couldn't mow anything
that had a seed on it. It was just prohibited.
All your mowing you had to do before Any kind
of seed production, even if it was a native plant,
happened with the plant. There was a lot of mowing
going on in the marsh, and we weren't looking
at it as a huge deal, but we were trying to get
our handle around what was going on out there,
and if there were guys baiting with outside crops.
and that kind of stuff and we really weren't
even focused or I wasn't at the time on endangered
species issues because I just newly arrived,
really didn't know what was happening. So my
rack at the time, the resident agent in charge,
he gave me a list of some names of some people
to go talk to that would give me some intel on
possibly who the poachers were. you know, what
kinds of bad things were going on. And of course,
you know, I had port duties too, you know, with
import -export, but this was kind of my recreational
activity on weekends. And, you know, I'm a hunter,
as you know, big duck hunter, so I love the marsh.
And so one of the people he had top of the list
was the executive director for the Sassoon Resource
Conservation District. which was, you know, like
a water district that was in charge of the Sassoon
Marsh and all the duck clubs. And they were the
ones that consulted with the Corps and got the
Corps permit for all the activities that they
wanted to do in the marsh. That's the Army Corps
of Engineers, right? That controls how those
dikes work and all that, yeah? Yep, all the...
And so lots of regulations, as you can imagine,
so... SRCD was formed, Sassoon Resource Conservation
District, is to deal with all the permitting,
deal with the 158 dug clubs. Cow Fish and Game
has a huge presence there. They have a big wildlife
area, Grizzly Island Wildlife Area. And so SRCD
had a small staff. biologist and then this executive
director that I was, you know, ended up wanting
to meet with, you know. He's introduced to you
as a possible, you know, source of great information
about what's going on, right? Absolutely. Absolutely.
Like, you know, I'm, you know, he's going to,
you know, I'm going to find out all about, you
know, all the bad guys doing bad things in the
marsh. We set up an appointment with this individual,
and I'm going to keep his name out of it because
there's no reason at this point. He's deceased.
We can talk about him. So anyway, we decided
to go out there, and they actually share a building
out on the cow fishing game wildlife headquarters.
There's buildings out there and shops and everything,
and we meet with them out in his office. and
we start chit -chatting about one thing or the
other. And I can tell right away, I'm like, so
this is my boss's, you know, good source of information.
Cause you know, you're getting the body language
automatically, right? That he is not happy with
these feds. And he just, you know, he is like,
what are these guys up to? You know, a couple
of young bucks, you know? And so we started talking.
You're out there with your partner, Todd Eckhart,
right? We're out there with Todd. We start talking
about marsh practices and who's doing what. He
starts telling us, well, we need to mow out there
because it's really important for water circulation
when we flood these ponds, if there's vegetation
in the way. Well, prior to that, Todd and I had
been out in the marsh. We could, we witnessed
this one individual going out with a tractor,
with a brush hog, you know, a big mower on it.
And all he was doing is going from one patch
of nut grass to the other, which was this naturally
occurring, it's called alkali bull rush or nut
grass. And he was going from one big patch to
the next mowing and spreading the seed that this
thing stuff produces. Right. Yeah. So I'm trying
to remember the conversation, so I kind of called
bullshit on what he was saying there. You know,
I think I said something along the lines of,
well, you know, we were watching this guy mow,
and it looked like all he was doing was going
from one patch of nut grass to the other, spreading
seed before he flooded it. Right. Which would
be, as you described earlier, that essentially
is baiting that field to draw ducks in, right?
Yeah, was back in the day right before they changed
the ranks, you know, so we had a one of my previous
guests in an earlier episode was cash reefer
who worked in Louisiana. He talked a lot about
the baiting regulations and why it's illegal.
So hopefully, hopefully people listen to that
episode. They know what baiting is and why it's
why it's illegal when you're hunting ducks. But
anyway, OK, so you're just challenging this guy's
statement about the importance of mowing. Yeah.
And it's important to know that regs have changed.
So, you know, native plants, you can do that.
But when we were having this discussion, it was
still against the regulations, right? And so,
you know, we weren't there to make a huge deal
out of it, but, you know, as agents, you know,
you got to call bullshit on bullshit, right?
And so I just, I just mentioned this to them,
you know, that what we'd seen and The guy just
got beet red in the face. And I mean, this is
the executive director of a government entity,
right? And we're on cow fishing game. I'm kind
of thinking we're going to form a relationship
of some sort here, and it's going to be good.
He turned beet red, stood up on his desk. or,
you know, humped over his desk there, looked
me right in the eye, came closer, looked me in
the eye, and he says, I'm gonna do everything
I can to get your ass out of this marsh. This
is our first meeting. You know, we're only into
this thing 10 minutes, you know? And so I just
said, well, I guess we're done here, you know?
And Todd's over, you know, just shaking his head
and. And we just walked out and said, wow, that
was something. What have we kicked over here?
Exactly. You know what I mean? And in the detective
business, when you run into somebody with that
kind of attitude, kind of gives you a clue that
there might be some illegal activity afoot, right?
Yeah, yeah, and you know in hindsight when we
when we go through the rest of the story You
can see why this guy did what he did, you know,
I mean he was in charge of everything Suddenly
here come a couple feds He knows endangered species
are at the top of our list of priorities At the
time it really didn't even occur to me. I thought
this was just like stay out of our duck clubs,
you know and We don't want to be worked by you.
We're on a state facility. We don't need you
out here checking us. So this is interesting
too, because in his role, anytime there's an
endangered species in habitat, there has to be
what's called a habitat conservation plan or
an HCP, right? Yeah. And this guy, in his role,
what was his relationship to the HCP there on
the marsh? Well, he's the keeper of the endangered
species. He's the one that's negotiating the
permit with the Corps of Engineers for what they
can and can't do. He's supposed to be the enforcer
because he signed the Corps permit that allowed
everything to happen on that marsh, what dredging
was allowed to happen. you know, a whole host
of activities out there. So pretty intimately
familiar with what animals are there and what
the rules are. Yeah. That's all they do. It's
all they do. So great knowledge. Absolutely.
Yeah. That's what we're going to get, you know,
great. It doesn't get any better than that. So
what, after that meeting, now you're kind of,
your focus is even maybe more on the marsh. What
happens next after that, after the meeting? Well,
what really, you know, so So Todd and I, we went
out and made some, there was an agent up north
in Chico who used to work that area. Okay. And
you know who I'm talking about there. You know,
he was involved in one of your cases prior to
you being involved. I think the John Mendoza.
Yeah. And so John had some really good contacts
there and he was feeding us information on, you
know, some some good over limits that were happening
out there in the marsh and I think I'll just
tell this story real quick because it was it's
a small group right everybody knows each other
so when somebody gets pinched for an over limit
right it's just gonna it's gonna spread like
wildfire yeah and Todd and I sat on an individual
and the information was right on you know he's
out shooting double limits every day you know
that's what he does he kills 14 The limit was
seven. He brings half in at one time and then
goes out and gets the rest of the birds when
the coast is clear. We watched them, the better
part of the day, kill 14 green winged teal. We
came in by boat. These places are real difficult
to get into. The government bought me a great
16 -foot lunge. And I used to run around those
channels and they couldn't keep you out because
there was a lot of channels and if you knew what
you were doing, you could go anywhere. And so
we came in by boat, watched him kill 14. And
what was so amazing to me is he brought his legal
limit in. We contacted him where he came into
the clubhouse there with seven birds. We immediately
just said, hey, we're not going to beat around
the bush. Where's the other seven? We've been
out here all day watching you. And he just kind
of dropped his head and had me get in the boat
with him. I went down the channel back where
he came from, where the blind is. And there on
this little hummock of ground was the other seven
that he'd put 100 yards away before he came into
the clubhouse dock. And my point on this is he'd
been doing this so many years that this hummock
of ground was just bare. It was just bare dirt
that should have been grass because this guy
had been doing this for God knows how long. And
it just took people to go out there and sit all
day to catch them. And who's going to do that,
right? I mean, it's work. We got up at dark 30,
ran a boat through the dark sloughs. So we were
pretty happy. But that had an effect on the marsh
pretty soon. All of a sudden, there's two feds
in there. They're willing to do this kind of
work for an over -limited docks. And so that
just kind of added to it. But what got me into
the whole endangered species take situation was
there was a flood event in the marsh. So this
marsh is at the confluence of the Sacramento
and the San Joaquin rivers, okay? So they come
together right there. Huge, huge amount of water.
So as you know, you know, when the... California
gets rain, they get rain. It's usually too much
and it all comes at once. And so there was a
huge flood event out there in the marsh. And
again, these are all duck clubs and there's some
nice clubs and there's some reason to be concerned
about flooding, obviously. So the Corps kicked
out what was called an emergency permit, right?
Because some of the levees were starting to fail,
and there was some holes punched in them. And
so the Corps kicked out an emergency permit,
and that permit said, look, you can go repair
the damage, but if there's any endangered species
concerns, you need to consult with US Fish and
Wildlife Service immediately. Then you're gonna
have to mitigate with them if you end up destroying
some habitat You know is it kind of put the onus
on the landowner to get a hold of the service
And you know fix your problem, but then figure
out what what to do from there Well all these
not all these clubs, but a bunch of the clubs
and of course the main Construction company that
dealt with all the construction out there was
paid for by the clubs to do the construct construction,
they just went crazy, right? Because they use
this as a way to go out and just dredge, baby
dredge, right? I mean, because they hadn't had
access to the kind of dredging forever that they
wanted to do to shore up these levels. So I get
a call eventually from the Sacramento field office
like it's gone crazy out there. They're in all
this listed species habitat day after day doing
whatever they want because they want to strengthen
all these levees under this emergency permit
and going way above and beyond what they're supposed
to do. I got called in to the Sacramento office
and Essentially, my job was to go out and document
how much had been done. That was going to take
up a month or two of my time at that point. It
was such a huge amount of dredging all over the
marsh. Luckily, they gave me full rein to rent
some aircraft. And a lot of it, a lot of it I
did by air. I just flew around and took pictures
of all this new levy work and doc, cause who
was going to do that? Right? Who was going to
keep these guys accountable for the amount of
work that was being done. Right. And so, and
of course, biologists who contacted you, they
could tell these guys, Hey, you're, you're, you're
You're damaging habitat and you've got no mitigation
plan, but the biologists can't force them to
stop or do anything else, right? Yeah, that's
right. That's right. And so really, it started
out being generated from the Sacramento field
office. And the biologists that worked out there
that knew where all this habitat was, they knew
the species that were being affected. I went
out, I started the process of documenting all
this. And, you know, we were looking at it as
a civil case, right? Because, you know, when
I started the documentation process, I went into
the U .S. Attorney's Office in Sacramento, and
they weren't interested in anything that occurred
under emergency permit, right? They just... They
just said, hey, we know the language is really
good as far as endangered species, and they can't
do this, and they need to get a hold of the service
before, and blah, blah, blah. But they just weren't
going to touch it. So that's kind of what happened.
But there's a lot more to it. And if you want
me to go on, I'll continue. Go on. So you've
documented now all the destruction of the habitat.
And now what? Now what? So, again, I'm making
up these binders. I'm documenting, you know,
there's 158 dot clubs. I can't tell you to this
day how many were involved in this dredging and
this work. There was generally just one construction
company that did all the work, a lot of it by
barge. And so I'm putting together these binders.
Well, in the course of this, suddenly there's
kind of information trickling in from sources.
You know, we're getting calls that, hey, there's
a lot more going on and there's a lot of illegal
work going on that's not part of this emergency
permit. and was done prior to the emergency and
is being done well after the emergency permit
expires, okay? So at that - You gotta go talk
to the construction company, right? You're gonna
go interview those guys. Well, yeah. Well, you
know, and I knew what the answer was gonna be,
you know? I mean, this is kinda like, it's such
a closed group, right? I mean, I can't talk to
anybody without, you know, the beans. being spilled.
So John, up north, the agent in Chico, he said,
well, if you need help, get a hold of the FBI
in Fairfield, California. He goes, there's an
agent there I've worked with before on endangered
species act cases. He's a great guy. And he'll
help you. He's right there in Fairfield, which
is right there on the Sassoon Marsh. And I'm
going, OK. So I got a hold of that agent and
we ended up, you know, just becoming really good
friends as part of this case and, and working
it together. He, when I gave him the information
on the, the director of the Sassoon resource
conservation district, he started saying, well,
this guy's gotta be up to no good. And you know,
why is he letting this work happen? You know,
when he's supposed to be the gatekeeper, right?
And so he kind of started looking at it as a
public corruption case. Oh, interesting. We've
all worked with the FBI in our careers at different
times, but it's typically not on a habitat destruction
case. Yeah, right. So, you know, he had a great
angle, right? I mean, he had a, you know, and
I was a new agent. I was a fairly new agent.
So, you know, he was talking to me about things
I didn't even think about, you know, like money.
where are they getting the money to do this and
yada, yada, yada. And so I got the FBI involved
and then also since there was illegal dredging
going on, EPA is the one that enforces that for
Rivers and Harbors Act is what it's called when
you're doing illegal dredging and violating a
court permit. So I ended up linking up with an
EPA agent in Sacramento, super helpful, right?
It was totally into it. It was endangered species.
She was just gung -ho. And so was this FBI agent.
So we kind of started a little task force and
we said, well, you know, if there's dredging
outside the emergency permit period, you know,
we're going to take these people on a criminal
ESA take, because they all have the knowledge.
They all are part of this core permit. They all
have read it. They've all been mailed copies
of it. And we're going to look into it and see
what happens. Interesting. And that's another
thing. EPA is another agency that has law enforcement
authority, and they do have special agents that
work for the EPA. That's another agency that
we frequently can get involved in, particularly
on habitat destruction or pollution cases and
that type of thing. So where does this lead you?
So now you're definitely on a criminal track.
You've gotten good knowledge. You've documented
that there's take outside this emergency plan.
In the normal course of this investigation, then,
where do you go next? At this point, we're getting
some really good informants developed. They just
come out of the woodwork. We start working with
these people closely. They're in the know. They
start telling us who's doing what, when it's
done, how much damage. It's done outside the
emergency period. There's full knowledge. Guess
who? Pops up is one of the main illegal habitat
take Suspects in the marsh, but the the director
of the Sassoon resource conservation district
So the informants or the sources you've got start
to actually point fingers. Yeah this guy Yep
said he did a huge dredge in critical habitat
for these endangered species California clapper
rail Delta smelt Took took a lot of habitat way
out, you know had nothing to do with an emergency
And so this is a guy that's telling other club
members our club owners You can't do this on
your club, you know, this is you know a violation
of the permit So and and you got to remember
this individual he's tight with fish and game
He's got mucky mucks from fish and game hunting
his club from the regional office. I mean, it
was pretty intimidating. You knew there were
a lot of powerful people that were not gonna
be happy with the outcome here. And you're talking
about California Department of Fish and Game,
which is now California Department of Fish and
Wildlife. But yeah, so you've got officials at
California Department of Fish and Wildlife who
are tight with this guy and actually hunt on
his property. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Regional
managers, that kind of thing. And what they knew,
I don't know. I mean, I don't know how you couldn't
know. I mean, they're doing these huge projects
and floodgates and dredge material and things
like that. So, you know, but you you you know,
I couldn't talk to them about it again, you know
There was very limited people I could talk to
in the know and if it wasn't for these people
that came forward and a lot of Risk to them career
-wise right? I mean they these are all people
that are in that the field right and and They
came through and they they gave us some really
good information enough that we eventually wrote
a number of search warrants and had about 40
agents from FBI, EPA, and Fish and Wildlife descend
on two homes, two private homes, SRCD headquarters,
the construction company headquarters, and seized
computers and files. and everything to document
what was going on. Yeah, so that's what, when
you do a search warrant like that, what are you
looking for? Documents mainly or what? Yeah,
I mean, a lot of these people, you know, this
is, you know, transitioning into computers, right?
But a lot of these were paper files, you know,
that had a duck club's name. And, you know, this
is the work that's been done. There was a really
interesting twist to this, Ed. I'm going to bring
it up now before I forget about it. It shows
you how crazy things get. Well, there's a congressional
act called the North American Wetlands Conservation
Act, right? And it's NACA. People use the word,
the name NACA for this. Well, NACA was a bunch
of matching funds to do work on wetlands. We
have pictures before all this went down of in
ducks unlimited magazine with our regional director
right from the Fish and Wildlife Service standing
there with big checks and the the executive director
of s srcd You know with these standing with these
big fake checks the service basically giving
money money to these duck clubs to do work on
their property. Which would be habitat restoration
work. Supposed to be. Or whatever. Or whatever,
right? Supposed to be. At one point I was, as
you recall, or you brought up earlier, the region
was Was a huge region at the time and in Sacramento
office I believe they had kind of like a deputy
director, you know somebody that you know Just
handled a lot of the California, Nevada issues
that you know was still run out of Portland But
this person was you know right under the director
in Portland and at one point my boss asked me
to give a briefing to this guy Okay, because
as you'll also remember we were under a different
chain of command back then You know the sack
the special agent in charge used to report to
the director right exactly in in the in the direct
up in Portland Yeah, they're the reach to the
original director. Whereas now law enforcement
has what's called line authority They go directly
to the assistant director for law enforcement
in Washington DC Back then right special agents
in charge for the region answered to the non
law enforcement Regional directors for this service.
So that was a very awkward situation particularly
in cases like you're describing. Right. So these
guys are going down, giving tons of money to
these clubs for their managed wetlands down there.
And what are they doing with the money, right?
What are they doing with these NACA funds? So
I was kind of ordered more or less because I
was really uncomfortable doing it because it
was kind of in the middle of this investigation.
And I knew that this deputy manager that was
not law enforcement knew all these people I was
dealing with at a super high level. And so I,
you know, I went to Sacramento like I was told
and I remember a statement that this guy made.
He looked at me at one point during my briefing
and said, for God's sakes, please don't tell
me there's any knock off funds being used to.
to destroy endangered species habitat. And I
just said, I said, we haven't made that connection,
but I guarantee it's happening. Because you're
writing these guys checks and they're spending
it any way they want. And they're writing their
own invoices. And, you know, it'd take a dozen
agents to ferret through all this. And so I went
to Department of Interior OIG Office of Inspector
General. Yeah, in Sacramento at the time, totally
uninterested in the case. Interesting. Because
I thought, hey, this is right down their alley,
right? I mean, you know, and I couldn't get them
interested, you know, to work that angle of it.
And like, as you know, things get so time consuming,
right? I mean, this would have been a whole nother
facet They're going through books, you know,
more search warrants, bank records, you know,
trying to tie in these checks for NACA funds.
So, you know, what these guys were actually doing
on the ground and whether it was in, you know,
destroying endangered species habitat. So, go
ahead. When you did your search warrants, did
you do interviews and what was the result of
those? Did you get anybody to confess or anything?
Yeah, well the timing we did you know since we
started to have some people on the inside We
actually did the timing so a couple of the principles
were gone You know like that because we wanted
you know unfettered access to some of the places
that we were going so like the the deputy director,
I mean, I'm sorry the the executive director
for SRCD He was gone. He was obviously our main
target on this thing because we knew he was in
charge and he'd violated. So he was gone. So
we did interview his deputy during the day of
the search warrant. And it was a warm day in
this little bit of a cramped office building
out in the middle of the marsh. Boy, we just
worked on him and worked on him and worked on
him and You know just sweat was pouring out of
this guy's forehead and Finally, you know after
after a long interview I kind of took over part
of the way through and it started out with the
FBI agent working on him and then I and Then
I took over and and we finally got him to admit.
Yeah that his boss the executive director did
a huge illegal dredge in endangered species habitat
in the Sassoon March. And this is the guy's name
that's on the permit for the Corps of Engineers
that I will not do any of this stuff. And I'm
signing. Pretty good case at that point. Great
knowledge. So at that point, I'm like, well,
any prosecutor's going to take this. I mean,
I really felt like, you know, if this isn't knowledge,
I mean, I'm just going to give up doing habitat
cases if this isn't good enough. If this isn't
it, then there is no good case, right? Yeah,
there is no good case. I mean, here's the guy
that negotiated the permit with the court, right?
OK, so here's the $100 ,000 question. Did you
were able to sell it to a prosecutor? Did you
get charges out of this case? So what were the
charges and what was the outcome? So we ended
up charging through information misdemeanors.
We charged the executive director for the Sassoon
Resource Conservation District. We charged him
with a take of endangered species and listed
Delta Smelt, California Clapper Rail, and Chinook
Salmon. as the principal species, because it
was all habitat outside the levees that these
animals use. And then we also charged the principal
contractor, the construction guy, for the same
violation. He was in the loop with everybody.
He knew all the permit conditions. And they both
pled. Pled guilty. Pled guilty. So these were
criminal charges under the ESA. Great. That's
correct. They both pled guilty. OK, good. Do
you remember what the outcome was, what the sentencing?
You know, we asked for jail time. Of course,
we didn't get it. I think we ended up, I think
they both got $10 ,000 fines, which isn't much,
particularly for the amount of work that went
into this. But it was symbolic, right? I mean,
it was really symbolic. It had a huge ripple
effect through the marsh. The board of the SRCD,
which is made up of, you know, duck club owners,
landowners in the marsh, they terminated him
immediately, which I gave him high marks for
that. And so he lost his job there. Good articles
in the newspaper, Sacramento Bee. and the local
Fairfield paper and was pretty easy to find a
number of articles on it for quite a while. So,
again, I don't know, there's something, this
is why I think going the criminal route is so
important because I think I'm sure some of the
people listening or watching will say, didn't
go to jail, $10 ,000, that's nothing. But it
really is because at that point, once they pled
and they were sentenced, even though it's a class
A misdemeanor, it is a federal crime on their
record, right? They now have a record. And if
anybody ever runs them, they come up as a person
convicted of a federal crime. And that has consequences
in a lot of different avenues of life. And more
importantly, when people might say, gosh, why
did that, you know, That agent's work was wasted.
He spent so much time doing that case and all
they got was a misdemeanor with no time. That's
not really the right way to look at it. What
you did was you proved a ongoing, you know, illegal
activity. You got convictions. It's on the record.
Any future violations of similar? That's where
sentences get much harsher in the federal system.
The federal system tends to cut people a lot
of slack on their first conviction, second conviction,
third conviction, not so much. Right. And it's
so it can be very, very important to lay that
first case down on someone's record, because
if they violate again, the penalty is going to
be much harsher. They have a much higher chance
of going to jail if they are second offender.
And so. You know, it does have a tremendous deterrent
effect, even though it's only a Class A misdemeanor
with no jail time in this case, right? No, I
agree. I mean, you know, and as you know, the
U .S. Attorney's Office, you know, they put out
real tight press releases that, you know, spell
everything out and super easy for the newspapers
to pick up and write, you know, and it's all
facts, right? It's just, this is what happened.
This is what this guy did. You know, he's in
charge of this. You know, he, he thumbed his
nose at the endangered species act and was, you
know, the major violator. And again, I think
of the duck clubs that he denied the same activity,
right? I mean, they must've been furious because,
you know, they're like, what, you know, you're
in charge of us and, and, you know, you're, you're
violating, you know, you're the, you're the big
violator. Yeah, so and and I did follow up on
you know, we we had a we had a gentleman An attorney
that was working out of Portland for a while
and I can't remember his name He did follow up
on quite a few of the civil civil cases during
that happened during the the emergency permits
and he yeah, he got some civil fines from some
of the clubs, you know, was allotted back and
forth negotiation. And, you know, they just finally
agreed to write a check for X amount, you know,
but so that that was followed up on. And, you
know, we did we did get some some justice there,
too. Well, hey, we have about five minutes left.
And I want there's a couple of things I want
to touch on real quick. You know, when you do
a case like this. As you mentioned, there were
some high level people at California Department
of Fish and Wildlife who were connected in with
some of these clubs. You've got some powerful
interests that are looking at this. I think it's
important for listeners to understand what the
fallout is from a case like this, just in terms
of you as an agent trying to do your job. So
for example, after this happened, I mean, tell
us. What was the, did it affect your relationship
with the state of California Department of Wildlife?
Well, it certainly did with above the warden
level. You know, I think the wardens were all
kind of, you know, thumbs up, you know, you know,
because as you know, I mean, the California Fish
and Wildlife Wardens top notch, right? I mean,
very hard work, top notch. I've worked all over
the West. I've worked with Many state wardens
and you know Cal fishing game at the time. I
mean is what their name was You know, they were
top -notch you could trust any any of them with
the same true in Southern California as well,
but So I think they were all you know thumbs
up, you know, here's a Fed doing his job and
doing stuff that needs to be done, but Above
that as far as you know any anybody above that
I think it was you know My name was mud right
because I was I was stirring the pot, you know
For sure in the Napa office. I know you know,
they had the same kind of You know Organization
back then were generally somebody that was in
charge was a non law enforcement person You know,
I mean the regional regional manager. How about
from the fish and wildlife biologists? How did
they react to your case? How'd they view you?
Oh Hero status, right? Yeah We're not worthy,
you know, I mean they were they were yeah, it
was great. I mean that was You know, that's that
was really nice to have that kind of accolades
from those guys I mean they those men and women
They're great scientists. They work really hard.
They produce a lot of incredible information.
And they were like, finally somebody's listening.
Exactly. So important. I think one of the best
things out of this case was, at the time, the
special agent in charge for our region was a
guy named Dave McMullen. And you told me that
after you finished up this case, he gave you
a call. And he just had three words to say to
you. Do you remember what those words were? Yeah,
it was a great case kid, you know something along
those lines You know, it was just like, you know,
he stayed out of it the whole time. I really
never heard Boo from him, you know, and then
I got that call and you know when the final report
went in and he read it and he just yeah He just
said a great case kid, you know, like that's
this is this is what we want our our men and
women doing you know, fantastic that was he was
a Very inspirational leader. And it doesn't surprise
me at all that he said that to you. Yeah, I was
I was real happy because there was a lot of rocky
roads, right? You know, there was, you know,
that path was not easy to get to that point.
Sometimes when you do those habitat cases, you
feel like you're really exposed and you're really
out there on your own. Yeah, I think, you know,
some of you know. We're going to have an agent
on eventually named Sean Mann, and, you know,
he was doing a habitat case and had a guy draw
a gun on him. almost gets in a shootout over
a habitat case. Yeah, I know. Crazy stuff. That
was Northern California as well. Steve, I know
we could talk about this all day. There's a lot
more to this case. We've got limited time here,
but you also have a ton more stories to tell
and I hope you'll come back on the show in future
episodes down the road. I will, I will. Because
I will force you to do it even if you didn't
want to. So that'll do it for today's episode
of Nature's Secret Service. I want to thank our
guest, Steve Fur. Thank you so much for your
time. I really appreciate you being with us today.
And we'll see everybody next time. 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.