Children get hands-on experience as game wardens
EAST BUTLER — Pennsylvania State Game Wardens serve an important role, enforcing the law and protecting Pennsylvania’s wildlife.
On Saturday, June 27, children from across Western Pennsylvania experienced some of what game wardens do every day at the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Junior Game Warden camp at the Butler City Hunting & Fishing Club in East Butler.
Some of the game warden tasks campers tried included wildlife capture, woodland tracking and wildlife forensics.
Lieutenant Dan Schmidt said the goal of the junior game warden camps is to inform children about what game wardens do and show them there are careers in conservation available.
“We do the junior game warden camps because we want to let the youth of today know that there’s an opportunity for them in wildlife management and wildlife law enforcement when they reach the age of 21,” Schmidt said.
The camp began with a demonstration of wildlife capture techniques, during which the game wardens showed off the rocket-powered net they use to capture turkeys for research.
After the demonstration, the campers moved on to learn about woodland tracking from the game commission’s tracking team.
The station began with the tracking team showing off some of the gear they use to track down missing people in the woods and criminals on the run. The gear included everything from flashlights to ghillie suits, which help trackers hide in the forest.
The tracking team then demonstrated how they use footprints to track people and draw inferences about their condition and what they were doing.
During the exercise, the campers turned around while a game warden walked through a patch of wet sand, leaving several footprints. After the member walked through, the campers examined each footprint carefully and drew inferences about what was happening.
Some of the inferences the campers drew from the footprints included the direction the game warden was going, whether they were hurrying for some reason, whether they were injured, and whether they had a walking stick or not.
After learning the basics of tracking, the campers got to test their skills with a hide and seek exercise. In the exercise, a group of campers hid in the woods while the other group had to find them.
Before searching for the group, the campers talked with a game warden and learned about the group’s characteristics, such as how many people were in it and where the group was last seen.
The search then began with the group looking for footprints and other evidence of tracking, such as flattened grass. After finding several pieces of evidence, the young trackers found the group of “lost” campers.
After the tracking station was complete, the campers ate lunch and took an animal recognition test. Then, campers moved to the wildlife forensics station, which, according to Schmidt, gave the campers “a general view of some of the things officers use to help them solve cases.”
The final station of the day was wilderness survival, during which the campers learned how to make a shelter and start a fire in an emergency.
Schmidt said his favorite part of the junior game warden camps was seeing the camper’s reactions to what game wardens do and how they do it.
“I just like seeing the intrigue in their eyes. They didn’t even know we did that type of stuff,” Schmidt said.
Junior Game Warden Camp was something truly special for Rommel Warner, a camper from Franklin, Venango County.
“Today (June 27) is my birthday, and my grandpa told me I could go,” he said.
Rommel, who loves to play hide and seek and to hunt, said his favorite part of the camp was seeing how game wardens capture wildlife, and seeing the rocket-powered turkey net.
For Schmidt, those special moments are why he keeps doing junior game warden camps.
“It’s always neat just to see and hear the kids say they enjoyed the day,” Schmidt said.
