Page 41 - 2021 JAN/FEB Outdoor Oklahoma Magazine

It had only been a year earlier,
at one of the regular district
meetings, when District 1 Capt.
Jeff Brown shared some odd
information with the 16 Game
Wardens he supervises.
Brown and the other seven
statewide district chiefs in the
Law Enforcement Division of
the Oklahoma Department of
Wildlife Conservation hold a
monthly staff meeting at head-
quarters to receive relevant
information to be shared with
the troops in their charge. Also Carlos Gomez Lt. Jamie Cole Karlin Bailey
attending the most recent staff
meeting was Oklahoma’s only U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Game Warden extraordinary satisfaction. Their daily lives
Special Agent in Charge Matt Bryant. are pledged to do whatever is needed to preserve our
Bryant had a request to make. Affectionately referred to state’s natural resources. But perhaps there’s a bit more
as “the fed,” Bryant worked well with Oklahoma’s Game buzz when they know they’re helping fight the global war
Wardens and often beamed about the quality inter-agen- on wildlife.
cy relationship he enjoyed when working with Oklahoma’s There has been other work with federal officers on
wildlife law division.
Occasionally, Bryant attend-
ed these staff meetings to “If anyone sees box turtles crossing the roads during
discuss the more serious, your morning patrols, grab up a few for the feds.
large-scale wildlife crimes
afoot in our state, crimes that They’re needing some for some kind of a commercial
were typically interstate or case they’re working on”
even international in scope.
And wardens always seemed
a bit more perked-up whenever such information was given major investigations over the years. One such recent case,
to them because they knew it was typically about some- “Operation Red Snag,” successfully corralled an interna-
thing bigger. tional ring of poachers who’d been pillaging paddlefish pop-
“If anyone sees box turtles crossing the roads during your ulations in northeastern Oklahoma. A caviar black-market
morning patrols, grab up a few for the feds. They’re needing had destroyed the world’s European sturgeon populations
some for some kind of a commercial case they’re working
on,” Capt. Brown shared with his charges.
Several wardens glanced at each other, perhaps feeling CarloS GomeZ/oDWC
a little puzzled or even let down. Turtles? Box turtles? The
kind that every little kid captures and keeps as a tempo-
rary pet at some point during childhood? How could this be
something big?
Small, harmless, and easy-to-catch critters have always
served as outdoor primers for beginning wildlife enthusi-
asts. Introducing and connecting them to the wildlife world
around us perhaps helps foster budding curiosities and the
appreciation we all should have for all things natural.
That was the sort of turtle issues wardens might have ini-
tially thought of. This news lacked the sound of anything
big, organized, or meaty — the sort of wildlife plot that
Game Wardens like to sink their teeth into.
These Game Wardens may have been expecting to hear
about impactful, large-scale, poaching schemes some-
times discovered by other Game Wardens, tip calls on the
Department’s Operation Game Thief hot line, or someone’s County roads near Mannford in northeastern Oklahoma were getting
undercover operation. Those cases are the type that give a scoured in the early morning by collectors looking for box turtles for
international buyers.
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