How prevalant are Game wardens?

Interesting. I tend to see them in the East Texas area between ~ Tyler to north of Houston.

I don't have that list but I'm betting that Loving county (population < 100) doesn't have 1.
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Loving County - HENDRIX, JOSEPH C is the game warden.

Here is the list... https://tpwd.texas.gov/warden/game-warden-list.phtml
"In my state, trespassing is a criminal offense, not a wildlife violation and a call to a warden about trespassing will get you redirected to the county sheriff. This does not mean a warden will not assist a county mountie."

In my state, the "uniforms" are certified state LEO and have full arrest powers. The agency lobbied for this, got what they asked for, and then complained about having to spend time performing "common" LEO stuff.
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Here in Texas, they have "STATE POLICE" on (most? all?) game warden vehicles in part because people have trouble believing a game warden can write tickets for traffic violations or make drug busts. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nkf-561/20176943212
 
The number of wardens in the places that I hunt varies based on how prevalent poaching and other wildlife crimes are, and the popularity of the area.

Where I will be hunting mule deer with a muzzle loader later this year in Utah, for example, there will be three to four game wardens patrolling an area of about 400 square miles - working together and individually. During the "rifle" hunt, the number will increase to somewhere between eight and fifteen wardens for the same area. (The "rifle" hunt is much more popular.)

However, on the other side of the state and at the opposite end of the spectrum, there is an area covering 7,300 square miles that only has one game warden assigned (and no Forest Service officer - but that's another subject). Where the other wardens only have about 100-130 square miles to cover, each; this guy is responsible for everything going on in an unpopulated area larger than the state of Connecticut or the country of Kuwait. Even though it is much less popular and has much fewer game animals, the massive area still has to be patrolled. By one guy.


Why do we have so many, overall? I think other posters hit that pretty well: Because we do have big problems with poaching, waste of game, and 'wrong take' (shooting a bull elk with a cow tag, shooting a moose with an elk tag, shooting a buck antelope with horns too short to be legal, etc.).
Just yesterday, the Fish and Wildlife dropped a press release asking for information about two bull elk that were shot a couple hundred yards apart and left to rot. Not only is the waste of game a major issue, but it's not rifle season anywhere in the state and that area doesn't have an elk season, at all.

Why so different? (Speaking of the areas that I hunt or have lived.) ...Because a lot of people, especially those living in very rural areas or in the mountains, think they can do - and get away with - whatever they want. Unfortunately for everyone else, more often than not, they're correct. Plenty of people from cities do stupid things, too; but most repeat offenders live out in the boonies, 'where the law don't go' (...until someone turns them in).
 
"...trespassing is a criminal offense..." Usually a 'ticket' thing vs 'criminal' in most places. The whole thing depends entirely on where you are.
The biggest difference between anywhere in North America and Sweden is what bunch of unelected civil servants are responsible for enforcing the hunting laws. Here, it's the Ministry of Natural Resources. It's the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency over there.
 
Things have really changed here in Georgia. Back in the 1970's when I 1st started hunting each of the 159 counties had 2 wardens. In addition there are dozens of Wildlife Management Areas and Public fishing areas that each had an area manager.

I used to know every local warden personally, had their home and later even cell numbers and would advise them of any problems I saw. At the time deer populations were small, but growing. They aggressively watched over the herd and were proactive in catching illegal activity. They used to be very visible and I have been checked many times.

Now because of budget cuts and an exploding deer population things are much different. We now have 2 wardens to cover a 6 county area. They almost always now only respond to complaints and I rarely see one. I haven't had my license checked in years.

Deer are considered a nuisance now and killing as many as possible is encouraged. There is a dozen per year limit and no one much notices if rules are bent. Illegal baiting has been so common that they finally legalized it instead of trying to fight it.

Those guys have a tough job and I've never had a negative experience with any of them.

I've hunted and/or fished out of state in Colorado, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, and Kentucky . I've never interacted with a game warden in those states.
 
I see them every fall at the elk or bear check in stations.
Otherwise i can think of only 2 ocassions when i've been hunting and seen one. Mostly during spring turkey season.
Not that i mind running into them. To me they have a job not for the feint of heart, as most people they are dealing with have a weapon close by.

I played game warden last weekend. Couple of 4 wheelers on gamelands. I popped out of the bushes in front of them. Took all their pics with my phone. Informed them it was illegal to ride on gamelands and i was sending pics to game commission. Which i did.
They were not happy with me.
 
Another thing about Colorado,the DOW was changed to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
The "Game Warden" I grew up with had a relationship with hunters and fishermen. A kinship. A mutual respect.

The merging of Parks and Wildlife allegedly was about duplication of services,budgets etc. Maybe.

But the New Ranger/Game Warden has different roots.The "Park Ranger" force is strong. This new CPW warden MAY be more oriented to mountain biking,bird watching,and MAY not like guns or hunting/hunters..
I'm not putting them all in that box ,but there are some. The old DOW Officers ...and the new CPW officers just have a different vibe.

I don't know if the program is the same these days,but the DOW established a partnership between themselves,hunters ,and landowners.
Landowners suffer game related crop damage and hunter problems.. Hunters want access to private land.
The DOW worked to open lands to hunting,with the promise to landowners the hunters would respect the land.The landowners allowed access.

The DOW took that responsibility very seriously.

The trespasser or disrespectful or slob hunter who got a complaint would feel the full book thrown at them.
The DOW held hunters to high standards and supported the landowners

One year we had some folks from out of state mess up our private land antelope hunt by trespassing.We told the DOW officer,with video.
Later I read a very irate letter in Colorado Outdoors Magazine written by someone from that state who was prosecuted .It seemed familiar. I give DOW credit for supporting the hunter.

The Western States have public land.All sorts of folks use it. In some cases,both locals who feel "native" and out of staters spending big dollars feel entitled. Some people are just stupid,and some are slobs.
I'm grateful to the Wardens for doing the job.

Most folks are just trying to have a good hunt,and play by the rules
 
I seem to run into at least one every year on a hunt in my home state. Also was checked by the warden’s on both of the out of state hunts I did ( NM &WY ).
 
Wardens are hunter.....hunters of violators. Like any good hunter, a warden knows the best place to find their quarry. They know where the best "stands" are and those areas where they are most likely to witness a violation.

Like regular LEOs. wardens cannot enter your home or property unless they have a search warrant, have witnessed something to provoke probable cause or have a there is a legitimate threat of eminent danger. That is why you see them patrolling mostly on public land and cruising public roads with binoculars. If you only hunt private property and do all your violating out of eyesight of your neighbors and the road, odds are you can go your whole lifetime without seeing a warden while hunting. One reason you see them more on water is because, here, water is public domain and they are just more visible.

Folks are quick to criticize wardens here locally and on these types of forums. Truth is most are overworked and underpaid while doing a bang-up job of protecting and enforcement. I for one am happy to see them while in the woods and on the water.
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You might want to learn search and seizure law. You are a bit off on your "facts." As retired L.E. with most my time in vice, I know my facts. Study "open fields doctrine." Me and the rabbit sheriff are close personal friends. I am not running him down, I am stating a fact about him.
 
I’ve been checked by game wardens a few times in Texas, but never in Louisiana (where I grew up).

Goose hunting west of Houston - he showed up on an ATV and checked what we had and checked our shotguns for legal amount of shells.

Deer hunting in the Hill Country of Texas - he showed up like a ghost at my remote camp, and checked out the buck I had shot. Really big guy with a Dirty Harry revolver. All business, and refused my offer of coffee and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Deer hunting in South Texas - showed up to check out our deer harvest. Very friendly and had coffee with us.

Got checked while fishing a couple of times in Texas.

I keep expecting to see a GW here at our little ranch, where I shoot targets a lot and hunt constantly when the weather isn’t too hot (hogs, coyotes, squirrels, and deer, as seasons also).
 
Don’t make the mistake of thinking they are all honest. I thought that for fifty years anytime I was checked just checked my license few questions everything was fine.Then I met one who wasn’t fine in fact he was a liar.Said he watched me with a rifle in a unit I didn’t have a tag .Its a long story but I didn’t do what he said.He thought I was somebody else when he realized he messed up he went goofy.1500 miles from home and they set my hearing date two days before Christmas. I did call his supervisor later found out what he arrested me for wasn’t illegal by that time the warden had resigned the supervisor wouldn’t say whether it was forced or not.
 
Don’t take my post above thinking I dislike Game Wardens.Most are honest hardworking and what they do is greatly appreciated.But there are some Bad apples in every profession. I used to think when people talked about being fined for nothing that they probably did something now I don’t know what to think.
 
In all my years hunting in Upstate NY, I saw exactly 2 game wardens "in the woods".

One of them was just driving slowly down a seasonal limited use road, looking in the woods. I waved, he waved.

The other thought he was Dirty Harry and wanted to give me one hell of a hard time for no reason at all. Long story, but it literally ended with me asking him if I was being detained because if not I had enough and was leaving. He told me I could leave.

Otherwise, I never saw them anywhere except the occasional road checkpoint.

Everyone I ever talked to in NY pretty much said the same thing. Almost everyone I know who hunts there commits some form of violation, from hunting with illegal weapons (like a rifle in shotgun areas or a crossbow during bow) or not tagging animals. I don't know anyone who's ever been caught.

Oh, I forgot... one place you will seem them in swarms is the Salmon River around Pulaski during a run. I swear, they bring in every warden in the state. They wear plain clothes so you can't tell who they are but I swear it's every other guy on the river. You can't blink sideways without seeing a badge come out.
 
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I don't think I've ever encountered a game warden while hunting. Well, once or twice the local guy would come by after the hunt and just chat with the local fellows. I never knew him to actually "check" anything, just a sort "How'ed you boys do today?" type visit.

Maybe a half dozen times while fishing. Most of the time they just stopped to chat, (slow weekdays). I asked one if he needed to see my fishing license and he just said, "You got a 25,000 dollar bass boat...you got a fishing license." Once or twice I had to produce my license.
 
yes the fish police are after money during the new York salmon run. a group of quit going up to new York because of that. its very easy to commit a volation with out being aware of it, plus all the expense for hooking a fish that don,t bite that's going to die and stink up the place any way and be full of mercury. good by new York.
 
The Kill em all boyz

The best thing about gross violators? They tend to be stupid, knuckle dragging Neanderthal types.

The title will be familiar to folks in Or and Wa. Truly disgusting, wanton waste of truly superb game animals. Running bear with dogs out of season. All about watching their dogs kill the bear...Leaving gorgeous 5 X 6 elk to rot.

It is very fortunate for the prosecutors that the trophy's they kept were cell phone videos of their "activities"

There were about 20 of these guys....their violations went on for years in both Or and Wa.

Oh and there is something useful about the idiots. One can tell the political bent of TV commentators. The good ones call them poachers,, the bad ones call them hunters.
 
I guess I didn't really touch on it before...
In Utah, I get checked by game wardens almost every year - but usually only if I'm driving somewhere, sitting on a road (for lunch, getting ready to hike out, etc.), or if I'm in camp.
In Idaho, I don't think I've ever been stopped by one while hunting. I've passed their parked trucks and have occasionally seen them check other people. But I've never been stopped, and I haven't needed to stop at any check stations (because I wasn't hunting that day, or I came through after they shut down for the night).
I've seen a few in Wyoming. They either came into our camp to check carcasses and tags, or witnessed a kill and came to make sure it was legal.

I find some comedy in discovering a warden's 'day job' when encountering a new one (primarily in Utah). Wardens that deal with hunters a lot keep their eyes and ears peeled, but don't make a fuss about being surrounded by people with firearms (usually loaded). Those that primarily deal with fisherman, invasive species inspections, and roadkill surveys, however, tend to want to disarm everyone they encounter and still seem uncomfortable while finishing whatever check for which they stopped the hunter.
 
When I first started hunting in southeast Arizona about 10 years ago, they would drive through the area stopping at each camp checking licenses mid-day. The last one I saw about 5 years ago actually came to the spot I was hunting to check my license. I had pitched a spur camp on top of a 400’ tall hill. Just enough flat spot to lay a sleeping bag flat. But I could hunt from my sleeping bag. I could see the main road from my vantage point and saw his truck stop and I assumed he saw me and was glassing me. Sure enough about an hour after I saw the truck leave he walked into my camp. Nice guy and certainly motivated. It wasn’t quite a straight up climb. But almost. He Carried an AR. Come to think of it, that close to the Mexican border I think I’d carry an AR too.
 
Don’t make the mistake of thinking they are all honest.
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Yep, a few years ago we had one that was hunting after hours and without a permit (poaching) when he heard gun shots. He went to investigate and got shot by the idiots target shooting without a proper backstop. It was argued that he "transitioned" {from poacher} to officer mode and so was able to collect worker's comp for his injuries. Chris Fried survived, only paid a small fine, avoided felony charges for his poaching, and not only got to keep his job, but has been featured on the TV show "Lone Star Law."
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/tex...gally-hunting-avoided-felony-charges-kept-job

https://www.mystatesman.com/news/wo...aw-but-holds-onto-job/0WKbcIjFS6fzGJx8du6RDN/
 
at least as far as Idaho is concerned we have a few. you rarely encounter them while out hunting unless they are responding to reports of poaching or conducting game surveys. you usually see them most at checkpoints when there are mandatory stops for hunters so they can come up with statistics and the like for number of people hunting,number of days hunting, success ratios and taking a census of harvested game.

wolves and mountain lions only require inspection if you intend to sell the hide. bears you are required to present the skull to a game warden or other designated person to have a molar extracted and if you plan on selling the hide have it inspected and marked. idaho is a fairly hands on region in comparison to other states but at least in my area, the wardens aren't too intrusive.
 
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