If you want to learn more about the topics of
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naturessecretservice .com. Thanks for listening.
OK, 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 our guest is Mark Madison, a historian
at the U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Shepherdstown,
West Virginia, located at the National Conservation
Training Center, NCTC. Mark, thank you so much
for being on the episode. I've been looking forward
to having you on as a guest for a long time.
Me too. We had a little bit of a hiccup there
with the government shut down. You were scheduled
to be on a while ago, but we had the delay. But
you're here now and that's all that matters.
Mark, as you know, I was a special agent for
many years and I did not even know that there
was a historian for the U .S. Fish and Wildlife
Service. One day, I was at NCTC for one of our
special agent in -service programs, and I don't
know how it came to my attention, but down in
the basement below the auditorium is your offices
and your archives. Maybe you came to speak to
us, I don't know, but you invited us to go down
there, so I just went down and met you and looked
around, and it's astonishing. It's amazing. It's
very cool what you've done down there. Tell the
listeners and watchers, you know... I introduced
you as a historian. What do you do? What do you
do down there at NCTC? Great question. Nobody
knows. I've been around underground. I've actually
moved to another building. I'm above grade level,
but there's no windows still. In 1999, Fish and
Wildlife Service decided to hire their first
historian. If I don't screw it up, hopefully
there'll be more in the future. The primary thing
I do, which you mentioned, Ed, and you saw, is
manage the archives and museum. So we have the
Fish and Wildlife Service Archives and Museum
out here. And since we opened them in 1997, we've
gotten about half a million items in the archives.
And I'd have to say probably the division that's
given us the most is Fish and Wildlife Service
law enforcement. The archives are full of law
enforcement, historic artifacts, confiscated
items, things that tell the story about nature's
Secret Service, basically. We also do displays
out here, and then I give historic talks to a
number of the courses out here to tell our Fish
and Wildlife Service folks. about how the agency
came into being, maybe how their program, be
it law enforcement or migratory birds or refuges,
came into being. And I have to say, you've seen
where I worked, it's the best job in the world.
Unlike most archives, so I'm a PhD historian,
I did research and all the archives I went to
was a world of paper. Tons and tons of paper.
Thanks to law enforcement, our archives has rhino
heads, bejeweled daggers, elephant tusks, all
sorts of fascinating things, not to mention a
lot of historic things that go back to 1900 that
are wonderful to tell stories about, teach us
a little about our history, and explain why law
enforcement is really important over the last
126 years, at least at the federal level. Yeah
and you know like you said you have tangible
things in your archives and one of the things
i was so fascinated with is some of the things
you have are equipment that was used by agents.
Fifty sixty more more years ago and you know
as an investigator myself who had the advantage
of having sophisticated equipment of my era.
It's so interesting to see what other agents
had that would have been sophisticated equipment
of their era Right, which is really cool. I'm
so happy that it's there and I'm so happy you've
taken an interest in documenting it Correct me
if I'm wrong. I have always told people I believe
it to be true, but you'll know You know US Fish
and Wildlife Service courses under the US Department
of Interior and I'll ask you in a second to explain
the different names that the U .S. Fish and Wildlife
Service has had over the years, but it's one
of the oldest law enforcement agencies in the
United States. One, it has many functions, but
one of the functions of the U .S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is law enforcement. And that goes back
at least to the 1900s, right? I mean... Yeah,
with the Lacey Act in 1900. Yeah. That's usually
where I trace the origin point, is 1900. I think
that is the first place that it said, you know,
uh, our, our officers of that agency have law
enforcement authority under Lacey act. So can
you kind of explain the historical name changes
and that the U S special service? I'll try. Okay.
So we began way back in 1871 as the fish commission.
So our agency was founded right after the civil
war. The Fish Commission was chartered by President
Ulysses S. Grant. So that gives you a context.
It literally was right after the Civil War. And
then there was a parallel agency that was in
charge of all wildlife that's not a fish called
the Biological Survey. And eventually those two
bureaus, the Bureau of fisheries is what the
Fish Commission was called eventually, and the
Bureau of Biological Survey were combined in
1940 to make the Fish and Wildlife Service, which
is why we have a redundant name because fish
is a type of wildlife. It's kind of a historical
relic just like all the artifacts we were talking
about. But our law enforcement function began
in both agencies. There were actually fish law
enforcement agents who tried to protect fish
and maintain some federal regulations on fish.
But the more substantive one where we trace our
roots to was in the biological survey. And biological
survey began its federal wildlife protection
with the Lacey Act, an act that was proposed
by John Lacey in Iowa. The Midwest is going to
play a big role in our historic talks today,
which is good. I'm from the Midwest. We always
play for the most important history area. So
it began in 1900 and our first folks who did
law enforcement were called Lacey agents or Lacey
inspectors. And it's actually somewhat similar.
I don't know if you've had any wildlife inspectors
on, but it's similar to what they do. Except
today, our wildlife inspectors are often at seaports
and airports and so on. The Lacey inspectors
were at railroad junctions and that's where poachers
were shipping illegally poached. wildlife to
major urban areas, New York, Chicago, and so
on. So these Lacey agents would hang out at railroad
junctions and catch poachers shipping. you know,
passenger pigeons or any other species to urban
markets illegally after the Lacey Actress passed.
Eventually, in the 1920s, we went through a variety
of names. We went through game wardens. My favorite
was Game Protector. That was kind of a charming
name. Yeah, and then US Game Agent. became a
popular one although we were informally known
as duck cops because as we'll talk about later
it was as migratory birds were kind of a critical
part of our function particularly migratory waterfall
until the present when we have a variety of names
special agents wildlife inspectors and so on
and they're also in the early years the the refuge
officers the refuge law enforcement wing was
part of that too. And we were talking about the
archives. We have images of Lacey agents going
back to 1900, confiscating uh tundra swans confiscating
other swans from Chesapeake Bay and so on and
they they were in fedoras and they look like
they're from the 1900s all the way up to uh sadly
9 11 we have rich quadagno's badge out here who
died on flight 93 so right um the archive the
museum kind of covers the whole trajectory of
the last 126 years at least of federal wildlife
law enforcement That is amazing. I'm definitely
going to mind you for some of those photos that
I can put on the website associated with this
episode because we are going to go back in time
a little bit to talk about some specific officers
that you know about and one that I know about.
The thing that I think is worthwhile talking
about before that though is you mentioned market
hunting and for listeners and watchers to get
an understanding of what was going on in the
country at that time. Correct me if I'm wrong,
but basically, you know, the U .S. was kind of,
its food sources were changing. And now moving
toward more of a modern agricultural style production
of food supply. But there was this tremendous
demand for wild meat. from the Midwest and the
West, the supply, the big markets and restaurants
in Chicago, New York, all the big cities on the
East Coast. And a lot of that wildlife was wild.
I mean, it was wild. The game meat coming in
was wild. And it was being poached at unbelievable
levels, taken at unbelievable levels in the West.
Let me ask you to describe something. A punt
gun. To describe what a punt gun is. I think
it'll give people an understanding of the kind
of decimation that was happening in our wildlife
populations just to supply these markets on the
central and east coast. That's a great one. We
have about three punt guns back here and they
basically look like cannons. Right. 50 to 75
pounds. You couldn't carry them into a blind
or anything. They were hard mounted on a small
boat, a punt boat has their name. And basically
you shot them into a flock of waterfowl and you
could kill 50 or 60 at a time. And clearly you
weren't doing that for your own. pantry that
was to be sold to urban markets. And we have
old menus showing what these New York and Chicago
restaurants were serving. And the menus are basically.
all wild game. The problem with that was it made
a lot of species highly endangered and threatened.
It even made one species, the passenger pigeon,
which was largely hunted for food and then shipped
by rail to urban markets extinct. It had a huge
impact. Anything you could eat, be it a mammal
or a bird, the numbers just crashed. in the late
1800s. I mean, it's hard to imagine today, but
things like Canada geese, wild turkeys, you just
didn't see anymore on the East Coast or the Midwest.
They'd just been hunted nearly to extinction.
So it really decimated the nation's resources.
So shortly after the Civil War, America decided,
you know, our next battle was going to be to
save America's wildlife and law enforcement was
the first major tool. that we used to do it.
Yeah. And you know, law enforcement, I think,
plays a super important role in protecting species,
preventing them from going endangered or extinct.
And part of that is giving them what I've always
described as the breathing room they need to
recover, right? And with these punt guns, for
example, we're targeting ducks and geese. As
those animals we've talked before on this podcast
with other guests about flyways and migratory
routes of migratory birds and you know, they
may gather in a field by the tens of thousands
and you know Half a dozen poachers out there
with punt boats and punt guns Can can probably
decimate half the half the ducks there and half
the geese there in just a few days and that has
significant impact on their ability to breed,
feed, migrate. You're taking out a lot of animals
from the environment in a very short period of
time. And you mentioned the passenger pigeon.
People always remember the huge herds of wild
buffalo and bison that used to roam across the
United States. But the passenger pigeon, I believe,
was considered maybe the most numerous. wild
animal in the united states it was maybe the
world the most most populous avian species probably
ever to exist right and it was hunted to extinction
through this type of market hunting and uh you
know market hunters game hogs there were people
that weren't sportsmen they weren't sports hunters
going out to shoot a goose for Christmas or at
the family dinner. They were in it for the profit
and they didn't care what happened to the species.
And Ed, you bring up a good point. A lot of these
punt guns come from places like the Chesapeake
Bay. So these are choke points where you get
over the course of a migratory period, millions
of birds in this one area that you can just...
decimate. The Gulf of Mexico, where they congregated
along the Mississippi, along these flyways, is
where the poachers congregated. What really did
them in was rails. When the Transcontinental
Railroad was built, when the nation was connected
by rails, suddenly you could slaughter a lot
more birds and get them quickly to urban markets
and really make a profit without them spoiling
and so on. That's really what did them in and
threatened to do in a whole slew of other species.
You mentioned bison around here where I'm in
West Virginia, amazing as it is today to consider
it. There weren't any white -tailed deer left.
Most of the white -tailed deer that we have in
Pennsylvania and West Virginia and these places
which are rather ubiquitous now came from Michigan.
They were transplanted. They just hunted them
out of the area. It's just mind -boggling. Canada
geese. We have so many of them now. You see them
migrating. I saw them today when I went on a
walk for lunch. They were removed largely from
the East Coast and had to be brought back. So
it was around 1900, around the time of the Lacey
Act, it really was a low point. American wildlife
and people were concerned with the future generations
be able to see wildlife be able to engage in
traditional sports like deer hunting and duck
hunting for the next generation unless something
changed. Yeah and we certainly do not want to
repeat history right so no. these animals may
appear to be very, like you said, ubiquitous.
I can never say that word populous. There's a
lot of them. There's a lot of them. But it may
seem like there are a lot of them now. But we
got to remember just not too long ago, they were
pretty hard to find. And we had to actually spend
a lot of our, you know, money, our government
money to reintroduce a lot of these animals.
And one of the things that really struck me when
you just said that it was it was not about poaching
to put food on your table. It was poaching for
money. And that is something a hundred and now
twenty five years later, that's still the driver
between behind wildlife trafficking. It's money.
It's greed. And, you know, it's so interesting
to me that the wildlife protectors and Lacey
agents of, you know, nineteen hundred to 1930s
were chasing people who were driven by the same
greed and money lust that we're chasing today,
special agents. You'll see a lot of similarities
historically between the type of people that
engage in these illegal activities, between the
reason they do it, you mentioned profit, and
even some of the techniques we use to capture
them. So history isn't just you know, timelines
are boring old facts. There's lessons to be learned.
And also a pride in being part of an organization
that has ensured that you and I can still see
deer and turkey, the geese, which it was questionable.
We can't see passenger pigeons, we can't see
ox, we can't see a number of species that Carolina
parakeets, ivory -billed woodpeckers that are
gone. But we saved most of them. And that's important.
Yeah. Yeah. And we're going to talk now about
a guy named John Perry, who came from this era
a little bit later, 1900, but a little later.
It's actually an interesting era in terms of
law enforcement and crime in the United States.
And he's one of the most interesting characters.
And he's a great example of you mentioned a lot
of the same techniques we use today were used
then to catch bad guys. And one of the things
I always tried to remind new agents of is that
The most important skill you've got is good old
-fashioned detective work. It doesn't matter
if you don't necessarily need night vision, you
don't necessarily need the most sophisticated
equipment. Detective skills have been around
for hundreds of years, and a good detective who's
willing to get out on the street and put the
shoe leather time in to go interview people and
do surveillance, see what's going on, collect
records. is way ahead of the guy who's just sitting
in the dark with a pair of night vision goggles
trying to watch something. Detective skills are
the key. And if those are perfected any era,
you're going to be fine. You're right. Absolutely.
The most important law enforcement tool is your
brain. Is your brain? Yeah, we'll see a lot of
innovations over the years. And those aren't
coming because they bought best tool. It's because
they came up with a new technique to catch these
folks. The poachers, the criminals, their techniques
are always changing, so we have to evolve with
them. Yes, but yet apply those basic detective
skills that have worked for detectives going
back hundreds of years. Let's talk about John
Perry a little bit. In the timeline of different
titles of wildlife officers for the U .S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, Where does John Perry fall
in this? What was his title? He was a game protector
at the time, which was our name in the 1920s.
And John Perry is one of my favorite law enforcement
agents. I mean, it's one thing to talk about
the laws, but that kind of makes your eyelids
start to droop and so on. But it's the people,
right? People have to enforce them. People have
to be innovative. So John Perry is a law enforcement
agent in the state of Illinois in the 1920s.
And anybody that's seen the Untouchables and
LEMS, That was a tough time to be any type of
federal law enforcement agent because during
prohibition there was an explosion of gang activity
primarily involved in bootlegging and the center
point of it was Chicago. There's a reason the
Untouchables took place in Chicago because that's
where the big gangs were. Dillinger, Al Capone,
they were all in the Illinois area. its proximity
to Canada and illegal booze made it a hotbed
of crime. It was also by far the toughest place
to be a federal wildlife agent. It was in Illinois.
We have tons of cases where people struggled
and it was dangerous work. A lot of incident
reports from the 1920s involved federal wildlife
agents going by themselves with one or two people
stumbling upon illegal activities and being seriously
injured. And so it was really dangerous work.
And John Perry, through his innovation, actually
made it somewhat less dangerous, but highly effective.
And I appreciate that about John. So John, in
this era knew that the bootleggers were also
what we call duckleggers. So it turned out, just
like today, people that have means of smuggling
illegal things in the country aren't very discriminating
about what they smuggle in. If you can smuggle
in illegal drugs, you might also be smuggling
in illegal wildlife parts, anything that can
make a buck, as you said earlier. Well, back
in the 20s, turned out that all of these smuggling
pathways, these hidden parts and automobiles
and trucks and so on that were bringing booze
were also used by people like Al Capone and John
Dillinger, all these gangs, to smuggle illegal
wildlife, primarily ducks and geese, because
there was a huge market and a huge demand and
a huge profit to be made by selling these to
restaurants and places like Chicago. So the duckleggers
took off in the 1920s. Once you have illegal
roots and illegal hiding cavities and stuff in
cars and that you can you can smuggle anything.
And then the challenge was how do we catch these
guys. And John Perry came up with a unique and
innovative way to do it that, as far as I can
tell, hadn't been used before. It turned out
that the duckleggers and bootleggers smuggled
all this stuff into Chicago. But he usually came
in with one or two people, and they would hire
what at the time they called hobos. These were
destitute people, often with alcohol problems
that would hang around the waterfront. And they'd
pay them a buck or two to unload their trucks.
And John Perry knew that. Everybody knew it.
And the beauty of hiring these people is there
was no real way to trace them, and they didn't.
testify against anybody. And even if they did,
who would listen to them, right? They just say,
well, this is a drunk person that hangs out at
the waterfront. He'll say anything for a buck,
you know, so you couldn't really use their testimony
in court. So in that era, you become a snitch.
It's a fast way. Right? Yeah. Yeah. If you're
hanging out at the waterfront and you turn them
in, that would be a problem. Yeah. So Perry's
solution was to dress up. as a hobo, and he not
only was probably the first federal law enforcement
agent to go undercover, he also was a method
actor. To a certain extent. You know what, as
well, anybody who's good at undercover work,
to some extent, is a method actor. He was. Yeah.
So he took out a whole persona, came up with
a new name, went by Dopey, and he would put on
the most raggedy sweater. He'd button it wrong.
like he buttoned it up drunk on this little sweater.
He had a beat up fedora with cigarette burns
in it, crushed in on one side. He wouldn't shave
for a couple of days. And just to make the costume
perfect, he would pour some whiskey or rum on
his sweater. So he smelled like a drunk, even
though he wasn't drinking. He'd hang around the
waterfront and inevitably he would get picked.
to help unload illegal wildlife, and he'd be
paid a dollar or two. In fact, he commented several
times the gangster said, thanks Dopey, we'll
see you tomorrow with more to unload. And then
he'd show up a couple days later, had the crispest
uniform I've ever seen, clean shaven, didn't
look anything like Dopey the hobo looked totally
different and arrest them. And he said the gangsters
never caught on. This was the same person. He
would, he called it the old drunk trick. Um,
and he had really, uh, great success and was
never, uh, injured seriously, uh, during this
period. And it really helped break up those rings
to a certain extent, at least the ones who was
able to arrest. Um, and it was a great innovation
and something we still do today. with our special
agents infiltrate groups. It's dangerous, right?
If you ever get caught and so on, but he really
kicked it off. And once again, it was something
new. Nobody was suggesting you do that, but he
was highly effective at it. And we have images.
I can share them later for your website, Ed.
But when you juxtapose how he looked as a hobo.
to how he looked as the most spit -and -polish
wildlife law enforcement agent you're ever gonna
see. Yeah, you wouldn't recognize him, right?
It was dark. Here's this guy with a fedora. He
smells of whiskey. Just like everybody else,
I'm loading the trucks and then somebody else
comes by the next day and catches you in the
act. And so John Perry was a real innovator.
And I don't know if you've had anybody tell the
story, but I think the other great undercover
triumph where we probably were the first was
when we had an agent dress up like a gorilla.
Oh, we have not told that story on the podcast.
I'll hold that off for somebody else or a later
date. It's coming. We may need your help on that
one. We've had a couple innovative attempts.
It just shows, you know, people like going wildlife
law enforcement. It isn't the most traditional
law enforcement pathway and i think we tend to
get individuals yes come into it because they
like the environment or because they like the
the. Add to say it. The creativity involved in
it and so we do get a lot of innovations you
know we want for sure. I think what i've noticed
at least the people i worked with and it looks
it appears to me to be true historically as well
is. The best agents and where are cops for they
think like cops but they are absolutely dedicated
to the mission of the service to protect wildlife
so yeah they think and they work like like cops
are not biologists were carrying a gun they are
cops but right they. They love the mission and
they're dedicated to the mission so they. They
like work incredible hours. They think outside
the box. And one of the things that just fascinates
me about John Dopey Perry is unlike current special
agents, which, you know, in day to day work are
plain clothes. They're like FBI agents, you know,
make worse tie one day or jeans and a t -shirt
the next. But armed, you know, carry handcuffs.
Firearms can arrest people, but they're plain
clothes officers. Right back then. John Perry
during his day -to -day activities was a uniformed
officer. Yeah. Yeah. Uniform and a gun belt and
a hat and a badge on his chest. Everybody who
saw him out in public would have known, okay,
that's a law enforcement officer. But one of
the things I really love about him is, and you've
mentioned this before, and I've never found anything
that contradicts it. I believe John Perry was
the very first federal law enforcement officer
to do undercover work. It just wasn't done by
the feds prior to that. And to think, you know,
you've got Now you have FBI, US Marshals, DEA,
HSI, ATF, all these, you know, alphabet agencies
with all these incredible histories of doing
undercover work. And yet the first guy to do
undercover work was a wildlife fed who was looking
at duck poaching out of the Midwest. Awesome.
Yeah. Who even knew about duckleggers? Right.
All the all the all the glory goes to the untouchables
and Elliott Ness. And, you know, they made their
case through tax evasion. Exactly. Much more
exciting story. Totally. And yet, John Perry
was running around Chicago at the same time,
Elliot Ness, all the other famous, you know,
G men of the era were chasing down John Dillinger
and Al Capone. they were all in their contemporaries
at the same time, which is just mind boggling
to think about. It is mind boggling. We had one
of his colleagues, Ken Rowan, who worked the
same time in the 1920s. Once again, I told you,
Illinois is tough. Rowan never went undercover,
but on at least three occasions, he stumbled
upon illegal stills in the woods where Capone's
gang was brewing up hooch. Basically, if they
didn't smuggle it in, they made their own. And
he was looking for poachers, but the same place
a poacher would be, in the middle of nowhere,
off a dirt road, these stills were. And he was
constantly having to have these terrible gunfights
where he was outgunned and shot three times.
And it was just a rough, rough area. And just
like Elliot Ness. I mean, they were going at
these gangs in different ways to shut them down
and developing new techniques to do it. It's
really the people's stories are important and
they were a tough breed. It also makes me thank
heavens we have the Federal Law Enforcement Training
Center, FLETC now, that it's become a much safer
profession because there's real training back
then. With John Perry and Ken Rowan, these old
timers, it was kind of you hung out with another
law enforcement agent. You were given a book
of regulations and kind of sent out there to
do your job, and you kind of made it up as you
went along. Now our training is superb, best
in the world, and it's made the job safer. I
agree. Back then, you probably had to supply
your own pistol. Some of them did because they
didn't like the... In fact, you hear them all
excited about getting the newest colt and so
on and sometimes they buy their own and sometimes
they buy their own uniform components. It was
rough. What was the name of the other officer
you mentioned? Ken Rowan. Ken Rowan. He stumbling
across stills. That sort of thing happens to
US Fish and Wildlife Service agents today. We're
investigating a wildlife crime and we come across
drug trafficking or human trafficking or you
know some state violation that's another crime
and happens all the time. You know one of the
fun thing about Ken Rowan just to show how dangerous
this was that what he and John Perry were doing
he was not only shot a number of times but at
one point his his federal vehicle was dynamited.
What? Yeah these guys were the gangsters were
serious rotten people. Eventually, he was moved
to Montana for safety. He went to judges who
sometimes were in cahoots with the Capone gang,
couldn't get his cases tried. Then when his car
was dynamited, that was kind of the last straw
for him. It's time to move on. The agency agreed.
It's like, all right. Ken time to move you out
to montana which was a little quieter back then
yeah that's taking things to a new level we may
have to do a whole episode on ken the character
i never heard quite a character he was quite
a character i've never heard of him to be honest
with you that's interesting these are some of
the stories we have in the archives i love to
bring it to life yeah i love it you also mentioned
that uh one of dopey's experiences john perry's
was that He would go undercover and then later
return in uniform fully shaved and the bad guys
wouldn't even know it was the same person. I
had that experience. In one of my cases, I infiltrated
a group of people, hung out with them for 14
months. And when it came time, and I also didn't
shave out a big mustache bigger than the one
I have right now. I didn't shower very often.
I kind of purposely made myself look dirty. I
rubbed the dirt on my hands and face when I would.
Adam so look like i was in a blue collar worker.
Fourteen months later came time to arrest everybody
we didn't have enough agents to handle it all
so i had to gear up and. Participate in the arrest
and so. Now i'm clean shaven i'm showered and
i'm wearing our body armor and our raid gear
with that we wear when we go out and do arrest
and i actually personally arrested one of the
guys i had hung out with every weekend for fourteen
months i never knew is me. It kind of was mind
boggling to me. I'm like, I didn't tell him it
was me, but I, I, I, here I am physically putting
the handcuffs on him, giving him commands. No
clue. No clue. It was me. It was unbelievable.
Yeah. I don't know. I just love that connection
between the past and the present, even though,
you know, the work. the animals, the people they
were dealing with, the technology they had to
work with was so different. Yet, if you could
sit down, if I could sit down at a bar or a restaurant
with John Perry today, I'm sure we would see
everything in common, you know? It's just astonishing.
Yeah. Share stories. Share stories. I would love
to do that. I'll tell you. There's another guy
you mentioned to me that you have kind of a fondness
for, and that was Ray Holland. But I don't know
anything about Ray Holland. What can you tell
us about him? Ray Holland is something somebody
we should all know and he gave his name to one
of the most important Supreme Court cases ever
which is something we don't normally get to do
in wildlife law. Let me tell you about Ray because
it's a great story and Ray was born in the Midwest.
bright young man, published nature stories as
a teenager under the fake name Bob White, which
only a biologist would come up with. So he loved
birds, loved the outdoors. He was so bright,
his parents sent him to New Jersey to go to Princeton,
but he missed the Midwest birds and the Mississippi
River and the wetlands there. So he came back
and was a freelance Nature writer wrote about
how birds migrate wrote kind of like stuff David
Attenborough might do in a documentary And then
Wait, wait, wait, what what era are we talking
about? What time frame we're talking about early
1900s 1910 right before World War one even before
John Perry then before John Perry Yeah, so this
is shortly after the Lacey act, but he's he's
a writer and then in 1916 well A couple years
before that, we passed the first bird protection
act called the Weeks McLean Act. And that's passed
around, I think 1914, if I recall correctly.
And it's the first attempt to outlaw spring hunting
of birds. And spring hunting makes no sense because
you're killing birds before they have more chicks
and more birds. It's a poor way to invest in
your hunting future. It's also while they're
trying to nest, right? Right. It's the worst
time. You're never going to decimate them and
that's what happened. This law is passed in Congress,
but it's difficult to enforce. a number of states
rebel against it, and it literally dies in the
Supreme Court. It moves up to the Supreme Court,
and for some reason, the Supreme Court had a
death up there, and the case is just never heard.
It's just gone. So the biological survey, the
law enforcement division says, well, what are
we going to do? We passed this law, but nobody
really, the states wouldn't enforce it with us,
and we don't have many agents. And they come
up here's another innovation. They say, well,
the states, sometimes they are slow to accept
new laws, especially ones that actually make
migratory birds a federal resource as opposed
to a state resource. But they would have a harder
time ignoring a treaty. international treaty.
Why don't we pass a treaty? This all comes out
of the biological survey. We're a little agency
whose job is really to study birds and protect
birds. We have a couple of wildlife refuges,
but we come up with this idea. President Wilson
at the time says, okay, even though by this point
we're in the middle of World War I, there's things
going on in Europe. In 1916, they say, well,
why don't we sign a treaty with Canada? to try
to protect birds that migrate across international
borders. Canada makes more sense. It has the
biggest border with us. A lot of birds spend
their summers in Canada and then come south for
the winter. So, and to give you a sense of how
far back this is, when the treaty actually is
signed, it's... signed by King George V of England.
Of course. Canada is still a dominion of England.
And England's in the middle of World War I. First
World War. They got a lot of other things on
their mind, but they think this is important.
They sign it. President Wilson signs it. And
we have a treaty. It's like, great. This treaty
signed in 1916. Unfortunately, before they can
pass enabling legislation. So even when we sign
treaties, then we have to pass legislation, how
we're going to enforce it, we get into World
War I. It's really busy. We're fighting a world
war. We've got boys overseas. It's a tough time.
So two years later in 1980, 18, the Migratory
Bird Treaty Act is passed. And that really transforms
our agency. Prior to that, we'd had these Lacey
agents, but there weren't very many of them.
Right. And when the Migratory Bird Treaty Act
is passed, the agencies like, well, we have to
hire some new agents to enforce it. Piratory
bird treaty agents is what some of them are called
initially on informally duck cops and informally
game protectors and so on. But we don't have
anybody to enforce this. It's in the middle of
World War One. It's really hard. And so they
start looking around and the chief of our law
enforcement remembers this guy who writes all
these articles about birds. named Ray Holland
says, well, he'd be a pretty good law enforcement
agent. He knows a lot about birds. He knows the
flyways. He knows the Midwest. And by the way,
I need an agent to cover seven states. So this
guy's all over the place writing about Illinois
to Missouri to Kansas to Iowa. So he offers them
a job. Okay. in these early years. And Ray Holland
comes to work for us in the teens. And when the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act is passed, Holland's
ready to really jump in. He says, it's great.
Now that the act is passed, he can hunt ducks.
He's an avid duck hunter in the fall, and he
can hunt poachers in the spring. That's what
I'm going to do as a law enforcement agent. Perfect.
Perfect. The act is passed and guess what? The
states aren't any happier with the migratory
bird treaty act than they were with the earlier
act. They're like, no, this is overreach. In
particular, Missouri is really upset about a
lot of ducks, a lot of private hunting clubs
in Missouri. They say the congressional arm cannot
reach as far as Missouri. it's going to force
this hated law. relationship between the federal
government and the state governments in terms
of who's got the power and who, yeah, this goes
back on a lot of issues, but this is interesting.
Okay, so the states are bulking. So the states
are bulking nowhere more so than Missouri with
these sportsman's clubs and the attorney general
down there, a fellow named Frank McAllister,
is the most vociferous because he's going to
run for governor. And he says, you know what
would be a good issue? I got more duck hunters
than I do federal law enforcement agents. So
I'm going to run on not enforcing this law. And
even tells the sportsman, if you go out and shoot
ducks in the spring, don't worry, we won't prosecute
you. We'll even defend you if the federal government
comes after you. So Ray Holland knows that this
law is important. He really wants to get rid
of spring hunting. Remember, he wrote all these
articles about how migratory waterfall breed
and feed and the importance of letting them alone
in the spring and he decides he's going to go
after this attorney general because the attorney
general is not only saying he's not going to
enforce the law but he says come out with me
and i'm going to go shoot a bunch of ducks in
the spring and let's see them come and get me
and holland purposely says I need a big case
to let people know because his job just like
today with law enforcement is split between education
and enforcement. So during the hunting season
he goes to every sportsman's club he can and
explains about these new laws because they are
new and he explains why they're important. You'll
have more ducks in the fall if you don't shoot
them in the spring. So he needs a big case. to
educate people about this new law and for them
to take it seriously. So he learns that McAllister
belongs to a small private club, only 25 people,
the oldest club sportsman's duck hunting club
west of the Mississippi. And he goes out there
a lot and that's probably where he's going to
go to illegally hunt. birds in the spring, like
he's told the newspapers he was going to do.
Oh, boy. So McAllister goes down to Missouri
near the sports hunting club, determined to catch
him. Oh, Holland does. Holland goes. Holland
does. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Holland goes down there
and he's going to catch him and make a big case
and then get it tested in the courts. But there's
a problem. The it's a private club with 25 members.
Right. How does he get on it? Right. And he audaciously
takes a cab from the train station. It says,
uh, take me to the sportsman's club. And the
guy says, uh, you know, you know, it's a private
club with Gates and all that. He goes, Oh yeah.
No, I'm one of them. I remember here. And, uh,
the guy says, well, you don't have any, any guns
to hunt with. He tells the cab driver, oh, no,
McAllister took all the firearms out there. And
the cabby tells him, yeah, when they went out
the other day, they had a big enough armory for
the whole state of Missouri. Beautiful. So he
knows they're going to go hunting. So he goes
out there early in the morning. The hunt club,
the lodge is empty. They're all out in a blind
shooting birds illegally. And he and another
agent go out and arrest them. And then they have
tons of birds. There's about 50 illegally hunted
birds back at the lodge, probably from the previous
day. And then there's a bunch more. He watches
them for a while, sees how many take out, and
it's like, that's enough. We've got a case. Really,
they only had to shoot one basically, but he
wanted a strong case. Yeah. Show the egregious
behavior, right? Yeah. And it just gets worse.
These are bad. bad hombres. So he takes him back
to the lodge and says, you know, you're under
arrest. There's this migratory bird, you know,
treaty act, which assuming you're the attorney
general of Missouri, you know about you, you've
spoken about it. And the attorney general goes
ballistic. You can't arrest the attorney general.
I'm the chief law enforcement official of the
state of Missouri and, you know, this is never
going to stick and you're out of luck. The people
he's with, the other Hunt Club members, they're
a little less vociferous. They start offering
Ray Holland jobs. Oh yeah. The life insurance
company that one of them owns. Well, maybe you
could come work here as an investigator. We pay
really well. Another guy tries to bribe them,
but he doesn't have any witnesses. So he just
drops all. He says, well, I'm taking it to the
judge. Uh, the first judge he goes to, McAllister
goes right up to him and says, Hey judge, how
you doing? They know each other, but the judge
doesn't care. Judges sick of McAllister, floating
the law and says, Hey, you know, you guys. you
committed a crime, you're going to be charged
with this. And of course, McAllister defends
himself and starts fighting it through the courts.
And then both McAllister and Holland know it's
going to go to the Supreme Court because it's
a big decision. It's going to keep being appealed.
And it does. It takes a while. So the law is
passed in 1918 in the summer. Of course, McAllister
didn't waste any time in the spring of 1919.
As soon as he could violate the law, he went
out there and shot probably 100 plus waterfall,
half of which were put in a cold storage unit.
And then McAllister managed to get those removed
and given to a mental asylum in Eden. So that
evidence was gone, but Holland had kept the other
evidence and goes all the way up to the Supreme
Court. Big deal. So we have a Supreme Court called
Missouri versus Holland, which on the face of
it looks like it's the state of Missouri taking
on a European nation. But it's not. It's Ray
Holland. It's Ray Holland. Ray Holland, this
poor wildlife, federal wildlife officer who's
the first to kind of go after enforcing the migratory.
After a big. Yeah. Ends up with his name on it.
U .S. Supreme Court case. I love it. Goes all
the way up to the Supreme Court. By 1920, you
know, wends its way through the courts. By then,
Holland has actually left our agency. Holland
has a growing family. Law enforcement agents
aren't paid particularly well. He's having a
hard time supporting himself, and he takes his
job so seriously he doesn't have time to write
articles anymore, which was an important source
of income for him. So he's given the job, this
is a real job, not a bribe job, of being editor.
of the newsletter for the American Game Propagation
Association, that's a wildlife agency trying
to protect game. So he's in New York, but the
case is going on. The biological survey is pursuing
the case, goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
And the decision is written by Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr., probably the most famous Supreme
Court justice ever. And Oliver Holmes, Oliver
Wendell Holmes Jr. is not particularly sympathetic
to the attorney general of Missouri, who's flouting
the law, not only violating the law, but openly
flouting it and using it as a campaign issue
to run for governor. So he notes, you know, this
idea about state rights versus federal rights,
first of all, had kind of already been decided
in the recently ended civil war. Right. Other
things and comes up with the supremacy clause
that says, you know, international treaties are
the supreme law of the land. So we can't make
a treaty with Canada and then have Wisconsin
say, I'm not going to. abide by that treaty.
It's international. And then he goes on to give
a very wholehearted appreciation for conservation.
And that's probably the most numerous or the
most important thing. It's a Supreme Court decision
that could have been written by Theodore Roosevelt
or John Muir or Aldo Leopold. And he says, you
know, just because these birds land in your state
or your country, doesn't mean you have the right
to deprive other people of ever having the chance
to see them or hunt them or appreciate them in
any way. That's not the way it works. They're
a international resource and a national resource
that belongs to all of the American people and
should be protected for future generations. So
he didn't just narrowly look at the law and say,
hey, it's a treaty. You got to obey it. He really
made a strong conservation effort. in his decision,
and it transformed our agency. And that the reality
is there's so many species that migrate across
international boundaries, state boundaries, county
boundaries. The only way to protect those types
of species, or you think about oceanic species
too, is to have overarching protection for them.
And it really, after that, there aren't any more
challenges. And initially it looked like almost
all the states along the Mississippi weren't
going to enforce it. That was a major flyway,
a major Murray Pothole region, and it transforms
our agency. A lot of the conservation work we
do since then, all the way up through the Endangered
Species Act, that precedent is set in 1920 with
the Missouri versus Holland. So one agent who
worked for us for a relatively short period of
time, changed conservation history. Every first
year law student reads Missouri versus Holland.
I don't know if any of them know that Ray Holland
was a game protector whose job was to cover seven
states and spend most of his time giving fines
to the spring hunters illegally shooting waterfowl.
And it's a great story. One man can make a difference.
It is an awesome story. And you know what? I
went to law school and I did not know at the
time that that came out of a wildlife case. I
think. Yeah, I love my wife is a lawyer and she
studied it too. And it was like I was like, hey.
I have a history behind it. We didn't cover that.
No, not at all. Law school is all about the supremacy
clause of the US government when there's a conflict
between federal and state law, federal rules,
federal controls. That's what you'd study in
law school. You don't study the background of
the conservation issue. And when you were describing
what the justice said, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
he... It just sounds so much like the second
guest I ever had on this podcast was a retired
special agent named cash reefer, who worked in
the southeastern U S on a lot of migratory bird
issues. And, you know, could have been cash speaking
when you were talking about what the justice
said. It's, it's, um, that's unbelievable. You
know, the unsung heroes, you know, I didn't even
know who Ray Holland was till you brought him
up to me when we were talking about you being
on this episode. And, uh, It's just incredible.
Just think how many more people are out there
who accomplished amazing things who we don't
know about, right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's one
of the things we try to do in the archive and
museum and in my job is to unearth these stories
and realize how impressive your predecessors
were at and inspire people. to do great things
themselves too, right? If these guys could do
it in the 1918 and the 1920s with, as you noted,
very little technology, very few agents to carry
out these laws, imagine what we can do today
with much better training, much better support
as an agency and these precedents that came before
us. Exactly, yeah, never forget where you came
from, right? Yep. That's good stuff. I just can't
tell you how thankful I am that you're there
and that you do what you do because, you know,
I'm a hardcore, I was a hardcore dedicated agent,
I believe in the mission. I know you were. You
know, it means a lot to me to be able to learn
about what other people have done and who's gone
before me and wouldn't happen without your efforts.
So I really appreciate it. Have you we talked
a little bit about this, but you were talking
about how dangerous it was back at that time.
You know, in the 20s, there were a lot of shootouts
involving not only state game officers, but federal
game officers. A lot of them were killed, seriously
injured, a lot of gunfire were at some point
in this podcast. I'm going to do a whole episode
on or a series of episodes. I haven't decided
how it's going to go. I will for sure use you
for some help. But we're going to do a series
of episodes about officers who were either killed
or injured in the line of duty, going back to
the earliest days and tell their stories in,
in, in hopefully a very engaging, like, you know,
storytelling way that will bring people right
there back to whatever it was, 1920, 1918, 1940.
Um, at some point, our agency mentioned had the
title of the officers had changed to a game management
agent. And this is before we became special agents,
but we were still federal agents focused a lot
on Lacey Act and migratory birds. The last time
we had an agent shot in the line of duty was
actually 1962. I was a guy named Vic Blasevic.
Did you ever have occasion to talk to Vic or
do you know much about him? I do not know a lot
about Vic at all. I know he was shot. I did not
know he was the last agent. I'm happy. He was
the last. We've had a good run for the last 60
years or so, but I don't really know the story
about. You know, I when I came out of the Academy
in 2003, I didn't know anything about it. Never
learned. You know, when we were at the Academy,
there is no where at the time there was no section
on history about of our agency or our agents.
Anything you picked up, it was just kind of from
a lucky meeting with you, Mark or. Somebody said
something, and I don't even know where I heard
about it, but I few years after I became an agent,
I heard it, but that one of our agents had been
shot and I actually looked him up. He was retired
and I called him and I said, Hey, a new agent.
I just heard for the first time that you were
shot in the line of duty. Tell me the story.
And it's an incredible story. And, uh, Mark,
I'm going to, I'm going to tell the story. From
what I know, having talked to Nick and having
done some research about it, I'll make sure I
send you everything I've got about it. It's an
incredible story. The guy ended up being ambushed
and shot multiple times, survived, continued
his career, went on to become the special agent
in charge of investigations at headquarters before
he retired. He died in 2008, but I fortunately
had a chance to talk to him on the phone. But
sorry, with you, I'm going to tell that story.
I would love to hear it. I always like learning
new histories. Awesome. Mark Madison, historian
at U .S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Thank you
so much for being on the podcast. Everything
you do for the service is so important. And I
want you to know that you are valued by not just
the agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service,
but all of the employees and I think by the people
of the United States for what you do. Thank you
so much. Thanks, Ed. Appreciate the chance to
get to speak to folks. Hey, I will give you an
opportunity anytime you want to come on the show.
Sounds good. All right. Thank you, Mark, everybody.
Thanks for tuning in. Take care. 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.