Game Warden Interview: Lt. Colonel Danny Shaw Tells It Like It Is

Located in McKinney Falls State Park at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Danny Shaw was kind enough to sit down and enlighten the Texas Landowners Association with answers regarding the relationship between a game warden and a landowner.  We were able to get information about game wardens and their duties as well as his personal experiences in the force. 

Tell me a little bit about your career and how you got to where you are now.

I started with Texas Parks and Wildlife in 1986, as a game warden.  My first duty assignment was Cameron County, in Port Isabel.  Moved around a couple of times as a game warden; I worked in South Texas mainly, then went to Northeast Texas and worked. 

In 2002, I promoted to Lieutenant; 2004 I promoted to Captain, in San Antonio, as a district supervisor.  In 2008, I again promoted to Director in Training at our Game Warden Training Center, which is in Hamilton County.  I’ve been here as Lieutenant Colonel since October 1, 2012.

What was the hardest part of your job as a new game warden?

The hardest part for me, and for most game wardens, is your first duty assignment and learning your counties and meeting the landowners, understanding the issues that landowners and constituents are having, as it relates to game and fish violations, just immersing yourself into the community. 

We believe in community-oriented policing and that means you really have to become involved in being a member of the community.  We believe in serving the people of that county to the best of our ability.

In your current roll as Lieutenant Colonel, what are your primary responsibilities?

My primary responsibilities are all of the field operations.  We have five regions in the state of Texas with 532 game wardens, so my main responsibility is to maintain continuity throughout the state of Texas with all the game wardens. 

I also am in charge of our aircraft division.  We have five pilots who supplement our enforcement opportunities in the field, so I’m pretty busy, but I try to relate back my experience from the field while also being a supervisor in the field to assist the majors and captains with the day-to-day operations of game wardens.

Tell me a little bit about the aircraft division.

We have five pilots, we have helicopters and planes; we are going through some growing pains right now with that, we have some older helicopters and some older planes.  Thanks to the legislature this year, we’re getting a brand new helicopter which is going to be a huge benefit.  What our aircraft division does is help us with our enforcement of game and fish laws; they fly daytime and nighttime. 

Our game wardens are involved in a lot of homeland security activities now, on the border, so our aircraft division helps us in that area.  Also, because of the conservation agency that we work for our pilots assist our wildlife biologists, and our coastal and inland fisheries divisions, by flying bighorn sheep counts, antelope surveys, and things of that nature.  So they do a little bit of both but they are a great asset to us from the law enforcement side.

Can you tell me about one of your most memorable law enforcement cases, are there any that stand out?

There have been a lot of them; I don’t know the most memorable, for me, personally.  I guess one of the most memorable because – you hate to say it, but it was almost sheer luck – but it was sheer luck. 

I was stationed in North East Texas, and it was winter time, it wasn’t duck season, but at that time there were thousands of ducks on this body of water and I had noticed that.  So the next day, I was going to go down early at sunrise and take my video camera and actually just videotape the ducks coming in-and-out of this body of water because it was pretty unusual to have that many at that body of water at that time. 

I got there early, it was before sunrise, and positioned to do some videoing and it just so happened that evidently there were some individuals that had noticed those ducks also; and didn’t think anyone would be around.  Again, duck season was closed, but there were five individuals that killed, I think, about seventy-two ducks.  I was lucky to be there for me, unlucky for them; but that is kind of one of my more memorable cases, but there have been several.  They’re all pretty special.

People say that Texas Game Wardens have more authority than any other law enforcement personnel.  Is there any truth to this statement and what are they referring to?

I think what they’re referring to is that game wardens have inspection power, and in regulating wildlife.  Game wardens do have authority within inspection to enter private property without probable cause of a violation. 

Most other law enforcement officers, before they can come into your property, have to have probable cause or reasonable suspicion that a violation has occurred.  That’s what most people refer to, but we do have that inspection authority so we [as game wardens] have the ability to enter private property to inspect deer hunting, dove hunting, and those type of activities; just to make sure that the people participating are staying within the law, not with the suspicion that they’re breaking the law. 

From all other aspects, game wardens have to follow the same rules that all other peace officers have to follow.

Do you think there are any common misconceptions about game wardens?

[Laughs] I’m sure there are some common misconceptions.  Depending on whether you have ever been given a ticket by a game warden might influence your feelings about what game wardens are and what games wardens do; but, game wardens are here to serve the people of the state of Texas and to conserve the natural resources.

When you do the job we do, you do end up, at times, putting people in jail, writing people citations – for some people, that’s not what they want to see out of the game warden.

What would you say is the biggest problem game wardens face statewide?

I guess I’d have to refer back to the fact that most game wardens in Texas counties are single duty sessions.  The biggest problem, I would say, is just that there’s not enough time in a day, or enough time in a person’s life sometimes to do everything that needs to be done. 

When I talk about community oriented policing, the most effective game wardens are game wardens who have built relationships in the county and with the people that care about conservation, they’re all over the state of Texas; but if you don’t build those relationships, you’re one man, kind of on an island.  If you do build those relationships, you have hundreds of pairs of eyes watching out for you to provide you information to allow you to do your job better.  That’s probably the most difficult thing for a game warden because a game warden only does his job because we are very passionate about what we do, and that is protecting resources. 

It is frustrating at times because you can’t be in ten places at the same time.  Through building relationships with landowners and getting that information and feedback from the landowners allows a game warden to schedule their patrol in areas where they now know there are some issues possibly going on.  So I would say that’s probably the biggest problem.

What are ways landowners can help with this problem?

Just constant communication, develop a relationship with your game warden, or game wardens if there is more than one in your county.  If you see something that’s suspicious; suspicious vehicles, if you can provide descriptions, for example, ‘Red, Ford pick-up’, and if you can provide a license plate possibly.  It might even be somebody that’s driving really slowly up and down a county road on your property that looks out of place. 

Just those kinds of things, if it’s not an emergency, if there isn’t really a violation occurring, you can pass that information on to the game warden so they can be more aware.  Giving descriptions – the time of day or night, possibly just a little description of what they were actually doing.  It all goes back to developing a relationship and being able to communicate back and forth with the game warden.

Are there any regions of the state that require more attention than others?

Each of the five regions requires a lot of attention.  I hate to keep going to the border, but it is a very active place right now.  Thanks to our legislature, we have increased the personnel along the border and the border counties; again, working very, very closely with the landowners down in that part of the state because of the encroachment onto their property from across the river. 

Specifically, you could talk about the member plate’s area in Fort Worth and the sheer number in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and its spread and there are a lot of people in a very small area.  When you look geographically that increases the game wardens work load and the capacity to carry is just the people they have to interact with and deal with.  So, each one of the five regions has their own particular issues, but they all require about the same amount of attention.

What’s your busiest time of year?  For you specifically and also for game wardens.

For me specifically, I am very fortunate and my job is pretty easy because we’ve got some really great people working for Texas Parks and Wildlife that are game wardens.  I would say that as our job has evolved, probably the time from March through August is an extremely busy time for game wardens, now, because of the water safety and those issues on the public lakes and the face that more and more people are getting out and enjoying that; plus, the game warden still has his/her responsibility because there’s still things that happen in the counties for the landowners that they need to take care of, so that’s an extremely busy time now. 

When I went to work twenty-seven years ago, my job was not near as difficult as the job a game warden has today, and I say that because we were very focused on hunting and fishing, and of course, it also depends on where you might be stationed in the state of Texas.  If you’re in West Texas, you have some very busy times during hunting season and if you’re a game warden in San Antonio, Bexar County, and the surrounding counties you’re going to be busy during hunting season. 

Then again, as the spring approaches, fishing and water safety season becomes more active, and you’re even busier.  Now-a-days, a game warden doesn’t have a lot of free-time; they’re extremely, extremely busy.  Part of that is because of not just game and fish and the water safety side, but they provide another component in the counties that they live in from just a regular law enforcement perspective. 

So I’m going to guess you don’t get a lot of fishing and hunting time yourself.

Myself?  [Laughs] Not what I would like.  Sometimes a misconception of being a game warden is “I’m going to get to hunt and fish all the time.”  Well, a game warden, typically now, spends their time working when the fishing is good; the hunting is good because that’s what we regulate. 

Now, I’m not going to say I don’t get to do my share, because we do and you know, I still love to get out and have my time to fish, but it’s not as much as I like [laughs].

What are some tips that landowners can use to prevent poaching?

Be vigilant.  Fences, if you have good fencing, you know I know it’s difficult sometimes, a lot of landowners that like to leave gates open or gaps open; people will take that as an invitation sometimes to just drive on in your property. 

We have parts of the state where landowners don’t have fencing; there’s a lot of country in East Texas or timber country, you can mark purple paint; there’s trespassing signals that you can put up to warn people “If you come pass this, you will be trespassing.”  I think it’s just being vigilant about what’s going on around you.  Communicate with your game warden; if you do, your game warden will probably spend time coming out, that’s one of our biggest deterrents because most of the game wardens are by their selves. 

When people see a game warden – sometimes if they’re considering illegal activities – they’ll go somewhere else.  I think it’s just that communication with your game warden.  When you see something that appears to be out of the ordinary, I would tell landowners “Don’t think it’s too small to call me and let me know.”  You don’t have to immediately call me if there’s not an emergency, but, if you see something that’s out of the ordinary, please let me know because I might’ve seen or be able to tie that to something that’s going on somewhere else and that’s going to help me as a game warden to do my job better.

I know at King Ranch they have game wardens that check up and down their fence lines.  Is that something they have requested or have the game wardens taken it upon themselves to check things out?

The King Ranch – yeah, and I’ve worked, I lived in Premont (just south of Alice), so I had the fortunate, or the privilege, to work around and on the King Ranch, and yes they have some game wardens but they don’t have near enough to cover their country. 

That’s another good thing, as a landowner, you have an opportunity to drive your fence lines.  One thing that was very beneficial to us, and a lot of ranches do it, is clear the brush six feet inside the fence and they might drag every once in a while because if you do you can see footprints or movements coming in.  As a landowner if you’re checking your fence and you see that somebody has pulled the wire up and they’re coming in between the barbed wire, those are all indications that somebody may be accessing your property from a specific location. 

I guess to go back to your question, that’s a good point, those are some other things you can do, just be vigilant in noticing anything out of the ordinary.  The violators have become more and more wise; you might see someone “marking a location”.  They used to take a coke can, or a beer can, and maybe put it on a fence post and that could’ve meant different things: they could’ve shot an animal on your property, they marked it, they’re going to come back and get it later; they could’ve dropped someone off to trespass on your property, and that’s where they’ve marked for a location to pick-up – so just those kinds of things. 

As a landowner, if you notice, those are great things you can document and relay back to game wardens.  I am starting to see these kinds of things where inside the fence there’s trash typically stuff that shouldn’t be in those locations.

What are some challenges in keeping in front of poachers?  What are you guys doing to stay ahead of them?

They [poachers] have become more and more sophisticated.  They’re using night vision equipment, communication equipment.  We use our aircraft division to try to keep up.  Game wardens now use night vision equipment, we use trail cams that people put at their deer blinds.  We’ve implemented those in certain areas where we either have information or suspect we might be getting traffic in certain times and again a game warden can’t stay in one location, 24-hours a day, so we’ve tried to keep up with them. 

It seems like every time we think we’ve caught up, they go one step ahead, but I think we’re getting pretty close to them.

What are the most frequent violations you are seeing out there, right now in today’s society?

They’re no different than the one’s I saw twenty-seven years ago, I mean, I wish and I don’t know for what reason, I think that we have tried to make the laws as understandable and as easy to understand.  We still have people, I think, that aren’t intentionally trying to disobey the law.  But, when it comes to resource protection, you know, we do a lot of information education programs. 

We spend a lot of time trying to educate the public of what the laws are.  That’s really what our job is; we want people to understand the laws and obey the laws.  We’re not trying to trick anybody so they don’t know the law so we can catch them and write them a ticket, because that’s not our purpose.  We still find that we have a lot of violations that occur during dove season.  That’s probably, from a hunting stand point, one of the more major times of the year that game wardens issue a lot of their citations, is during dove season.  Whether it’s because people don’t know the law, or they find themselves in an area that has a huge abundance of dove and they just can’t stop [laughs], so that’s one of the areas. 

Fishing is another area, where, for whatever reason, people will try to catch a few too many fish, or, for whatever the reason, take fish that are under the bag limit. 

You go back to the hunting side and affecting the landowners, and you know as well as I do, in Texas, there’s a lot of landowners that supplement their income with leasing their land by allowing hunters to come out, so we find – particularly in my case – most landowners wanted to follow the law, they wanted their hunters, that they lease their property to, to follow the law because they understood the importance that if you don’t, your land in three years will not have any income if you just let people come in and take what they want or take over their bag limits and things of that nature.

What can sportsmen do to support you and make your job easier?

Understand the laws, if they don’t, game wardens in every county can be contacted nowadays; you can access your computer and go to Texas Parks and Wildlife and you can find your game warden, you can get a cell phone number for that game warden.  If you have any questions regarding the law, call the game warden.

Are there things that landowners should not do in relation to wildlife conservation?  Is there anything that you’re seeing landowners do that is counterproductive to good conservation?

From our perspective, if a landowner sees something out of the ordinary and doesn’t report it to a game warden or doesn’t think it’s important, it might be really important, so communication. 

I would encourage no landowner, and this has happened in the past, to try to take things into their own hands, catching violators on their property.  I mean you never know who you’re going to deal with and going out and confronting and armed suspect, which most of them are when they come onto your property, I would encourage you never to do that. 

I can’t think of many things landowners do that hurt us doing our job.  It’s probably just not communicating enough, getting that information to us so we can assist them.  That’s probably the biggest thing.

Any tips/advice for hunters in this upcoming season?

We got some good rain in the spring, if it keeps raining like it is in the summer, I think it’s going to be a good year.  I would just encourage people to get out, to enjoy themselves, but if there’s any questions regarding the law or bag limits or anything like that, to take some time, get a hunting and fishing guide, and if there are any questions, call a game warden.  Ask any questions, that’s what game wardens are for, and to serve the people of the state and we want to educate people why and how it’s important to stay within the law, rather than have to go out and catch somebody.