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Patrolling for Poachers
By Regan Michelle White
The founding mission of the police force is to protect and
serve and for state police officers of the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission that means an unwavering commitment to protecting
wildlife and all those who enjoy it. However, they don’t do it alone. Since the
1980s, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) has implemented dog-officer
teams to help sniff out poachers with unprecedented success. These dynamic duos
of detection dogs and state police officers have proven so effective that
Florida’s program has steadily increased their numbers to become the largest
dog-handler conservation program in the US. The Florida program currently
consists of 12 dog-officer teams seeking illegal carcasses, bait and firearms
around the state. In May of 2004 FWC Officer of Volusia County, Jeff Gier was
teamed up with three-year-old Chocolate Lab, Bubba and the two joined this
tremendous task force.
Gier, a former Lieutenant for Fish and Wildlife, took a
demotion to traipse through the woods with Bubba and follow his commitment to
actively serving in the preservation and conservation of Florida’s wildlife. He
says, “I had wanted to be a conservation officer ever since I was in high school.
I studied wildlife management at Hocking College in Ohio. I was hired by the
state of Florida 17 years ago and have always had an interest in our K-9
program since it started 15 years ago, but due to limited available positions I
had not been able to get in. This past year when Col. Julie Jones (FWC’s Chief
of the Division of Law Enforcement) expanded the agency’s K-9 program I jumped
at the opportunity.”
It seems that Bubba jumped at the opportunity as well. Bubba
was donated to the program by a family in Tallahassee, FL and his signature
boundless energy has proven to be a perfect fit for his line of work. As with
most all dogs that excel in detection, John Snow, head of the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Conservation Commission’s K-9 program emphasizes that, “We look for
the hyperactive dog no one wants – the one that ate the couch; the one that
will retrieve all day long.” And Bubba certainly seems to fit the description
to a tee, bubbling over with so much extra energy that on a daily basis Jeff
will let him run behind the truck for a mile as they patrol the Volusia
Woodlands.
When asked about a typical day of work, Jeff is quick to
reply that, “There really are no typical days. Bubba and I ride on patrol and I
utilize Bubba in an area search where I know that hunters have been. We search
the area to gather information, inspect tree stand sites for bait, etc. We do
get tips through our Wildlife Alert Hotline but we actively patrol seeking out
violators, too. Often another officer will call us with a request. We could be
doing anything from working a simple littering infraction to tracking an
escaped prisoner. Volusia County is very large and we also work surrounding
counties as well. Occasionally we will also travel to other parts of the state
to assist with large details, for example during mini lobster season in the
Florida Keys.”
Bubba is trained to detect venison, spiney lobster, turkey,
duck, alligator and black bear. His training drills are the same exercises that
are used to train narcotics and other detection dogs. He is trained to be an
active alert dog, scratching at the source of the odor he has been trained to
alert on. He also tracks people and is trained to indicate articles that have
been dropped or hidden by a suspect, from guns to fired shell casings –
anything with human scent on it. Baiting or luring animals with food on public
land is illegal, however in order to prove that a hunter is guilty of baiting
the law defines that an officer must show that he or she was actually sitting
over the bait. The task is a tough one, but made much more manageable with the
assistance of dogs like Bubba who are able to sniff out the evidence and prove
that a hunter was there lying in wait over the bait. Courts generally accept
dog handlers’ interpretation of events and detection dogs have proven an
effective deterrent in management areas where people would rather admit
wrongdoing than suffer being sniffed out.
Jeff stresses the importance of keeping Bubba current in his
training, particularly for the approaching season saying, “We train weekly, not
on all substances but in preparation for whatever season is coming up. The
agency gives us one day a week to train locally and we meet with one of our K-9
trainers at least once a month. We also have a quarterly meeting where all our
K-9 teams meet as a unit and train together.” With only a single hunting season
under his belt thus far, Bubba has still managed to crack down on at least a
dozen criminal incidents.
And while their partnership is still a relatively new one,
Gier never ceases to be amazed at his canine counterpart’s abilities. He tells
how, “An officer called me to help him check a piece of property that the land
owner complained was being trespassed on. I deployed Bubba at two gates and he
picked up a track but had trouble following it across an open sandy pasture
because of the terrain and because the scent was around 16-18 hours old. Up
until this time the oldest track that Bubba had run was 8 hours old. I circled
Bubba along the woods line and he cut the track when they left the pasture and
entered the woods. He followed their track and found corn the hunters had
baited with and located three tree stands. At one stand Bubba went to the
climbing stick strapped to the tree and scratched at the nylon strap. The
persons hunting there were later apprehended.”
It is success such as this that keeps Jeff and Bubba scouring
the woods for poaching perpetrators. When asked what he loves most about the
job, Jeff’s passion for what he does is quickly evident: “I love either
catching someone in the act of violating or finding all the little pieces of
evidence, fitting them together and figuring out who or how a violation was
committed. The greatest challenge I face at the moment is how to best apply my
new partner’s abilities at a crime scene or in detecting a violation. Bubba is
an accomplished man-tracker and is very adept at locating evidence dropped by a
perpetrator. He is especially talented at picking up on the odor of venison. At
this point I think his greatest challenge is for him to build experience in his
work environment and for his court credibility.”
And there is always more work to be done. An avid hunter
himself, Jeff has little patience for hunters who cheat. He adamantly states
that, “If you do the work and learn what trees are dropping, where the trail is
or where a buck is bedding, that is skill as a woodsman. You used your brain.
But to do it illegally? Immorally? How does it show skill to shine a light into
a deer’s eyes?” He adds that, “Skilled, determined poachers who show up with
flashlights at 3 a.m. are more or less impossible to catch, but the vast majority
of poachers are just lazy opportunists.” And Bubba and Jeff work hard to ensure
that poachers in Volusia County simply don’t have opportunities.
Jeff grew up around hunting dogs with his grandfather
raising beagles and long before Bubba ever came on the scene Jeff enjoyed the
duck hunting companionship of his personal pet, Bucky, a Black Lab. Now at eight-years-old, Bucky was initially
jealous of Jeff’s new business partnership with Bubba, but he’s now starting to
feel his age and is more okay with the idea that he’s not out with dad
patrolling all day long. Bucky and Bubba also share Jeff with his wife Tonya
and their four girls: Desiree Harmon, Darlene Harmon, Ashley Gier and Kearstin
Harmon at their home in Pierson, Florida.
When not on the job Jeff says that Bubba enjoys, “Fetching
absolutely anything you’ll throw. He is very friendly and a people dog. His
previous owners socialized him very well. He is very confident and fearless and
loves airboat rides.” When asked what about Bubba’s being a Lab makes him so
fantastic for the tough challenges of wildlife poaching detection, Jeff replies
with a resounding answer of: “HIS NOSE! His olfactory system is absolutely
amazing! His temperament is good and his drive to finish the task at hand
allows him to overcome physical barriers. He is very mentally tough and highly
determined.” All of which help provide some of the skills necessary for the
FWC’s officers to accomplish their mission of protecting Florida’s natural
resources and people through law enforcement.
And so our hunting hats are off to FWC Officer Jeff Gier and
our February Lab of the Month, Bubba for their part in the ongoing protection
of our wildlife resources and the people who enjoy them.
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