A look at the exhilarating, exasperating work of WA game wardens      

“MAN SENTENCED TO 60 days home detention in stuffed goat caper,” read the headline of a July 23 story in the Daily Record, of Ellensburg, by staff writer Brian Kelly.

And so began my journey into case files from officers in the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife.

The more I researched, the more I requested one file after another from the agency. Once you get out of the big metro areas, you find lots of different stories.

Soon, dozens of documents had piled up on my desk, and I was immersed in all the ways people treat our wildlife friends with such disregard.

And, oh, the excuses.

One began, “I never said I was smart … “

It is not all dour. Among the images the agency sent me: a moose that took a dip in a Spokane swimming pool, with a game warden coaxing it out, and a bird tangled in baling twine who needed a little untangling. The bird thanked the game warden by biting him.

THERE ARE 176 Fish & Wildlife officers in Washington.

The old-school term is “game warden” for land-based officers, and “fish cop” for water-based ones. Some still use it. It hearkens back to medieval England.

Our modern-day officers make more than 225,000 enforcement contacts a year. That doesn’t mean a quarter-million citations. Big and major offenses add up to citations in only 7% of those contacts.

It turns out most people obey regulations. When their license is checked, all is in order.

For 2020 to 2022, the agency shows more than 4,100 criminal charges, such as unlawful big-game hunting. There were some 12,000 civil infractions, such as fishing with a barbed hook.

In some ways, the job hasn’t changed since the early 1910s, when the state Legislature established a chief game warden and a fish commissioner, merging the two departments in 1994.

From a story in The Seattle Daily Times Nov. 17, 1926: Game Warden Frank Mossman arrested two men “on charges of foul fishing and fishing without a license.” Specifically, for “snagging out spawning salmon with hook-and-line drag devices.” The men forfeited $30 bail each, a hefty amount — $527 in today’s dollars.

Officers still cite individuals for snagging salmon (throwing a line out with grappling hooks and weight, jerking the line, and hoping it pierces the fish anywhere on its body). It’s a technique that works, but it’s not very sporting.

I TALKED TO Sgt. Todd Dielman about a repeat snagger he had dealt with in Pacific County.

In an 18-page report on the case, Dielman said that on the afternoon of Aug. 12, 2023, he saw a Honda Civic stopped on a bridge overlooking a stream that flows into the Naselle River. Dielman wrote that he immediately recognized the car as belonging to David H. Gretzner, 67, of Long Beach. “ … a prolific salmon snagger.”

Dielman’s report went on: “I began watching Gretzner through my binoculars. I observed his fishing technique, and it was indicative of snagging salmon. Gretzner would cast out his line, let it sink, wait a few seconds, then jerk the line violently. He would do this approximately every 15 seconds. Sometimes Gretzner would jerk the line so hard, the lure would fly out of the water and almost hit him.”

When I talked to Dielman, he explained that snagging at that time of year is easy pickings.

“It’s hatchery fish, and they’re coming back to the hatchery. When Chinook salmon show up near the end of August, the river is shallow and they are highly visible. You see hundreds of them congregating in a few deep pockets,” he says.

On Nov. 16, 2023, Gretzner ended up before Pacific County District Court Judge Nancy McAllister and pleaded guilty to salmon snagging violations.

Fish & Wildlife said Gretzner previously had been cited for snagging in 2020, 2021 and 2022, and was awaiting trial for the 2022 violations and still on probation for previous ones.

McAllister sentenced Gretzner to 50 days in jail, fined him $1,500 and suspended his fishing license for five years.

I RECENTLY REACHED Gretzner on his cellphone. He was fishing for salmon off the mouth of the Columbia River on his 21-foot boat named Genesis 1:21 (“So God created the great creatures of the sea … “).

Gretzner says he’s now using an Oregon fishing license, even though that state, along with Washington, is part of an Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact in which a license suspended in one member state is suspended in all. Dielman says he’s contacted Oregon officials numerous times to suspend Gretzner’s license. The matter sits in a bureaucratic hole. “It’s driving me nuts,” Dielman says.

Gretzner sounds cheerful, talking from his boat. He says he and a buddy were catching salmon, but they were wild (not hatchery) fish, and had to be thrown back.

He talks about his court case. Gretzner says he spent only one day in jail, and then the judge said he could spend the other 49 in an alcohol and drug treatment center.

“I’ve been sober for 4½ months. It’s the best thing that’s happened to me. Because of alcohol, I was making a lot of bad decisions about drinking and fishing,” he says.

THE STUFFED GOAT case shows one modern way that game wardens catch lawbreakers these days. (And most of them are men, Dielman says; it’s the odds. “If you go down the river and do a census of the people fishing, better than 9 out of 10 are men,” he says.)

Back on land, officers peruse social media, where potential misdeeds are posted for everyone to see. Sometimes, people on these sites warn that, hey, Fish & Wildlife is also looking here. The posts still appear.

In February 2023, Fish & Wildlife Officer Corey Peterson, based in Ellensburg, wrote in a report that he had received an email from one of two undercover detectives at the agency. The Spokane-based detective had noticed an ad on Facebook Marketplace for a full-size, taxidermized mountain goat. It even had been attached to a fake mountain made from a mold.

The asking price was $3,000. The man selling it was Eric J. Sebade, 58, of Ronald, an unincorporated community 5 miles northwest of Cle Elum.

The state estimates there are 2,800 to 3,000 mountain goats in the Cascades, “generally doing poorly.” It’s illegal to sell “inedible parts” of a mountain goat — including a stuffed one — without a permit.

That same day, Peterson and another officer showed up at Sebade’s home. They explained that in this state, a special permit is required to hunt one: “a once-in-a-lifetime tag.”

The conversation went back and forth, back and forth, according to the report.

Sebade asked why Facebook would let him sell a mountain goat if it were illegal. He said a taxidermist told him it wasn’t illegal. He said a friend harvested the goat legally 20 years ago in the Canadian Rockies, then gave it to Sebade a couple of years ago, and now he wanted the goat out of his house.

The officers left Sebade with a warning that it was a felony to sell the goat without a permit, and told him to take down the Facebook post. But two days later, Sebade sold the goat to the undercover detective.

The report said the detective messaged Sebade, who came down in price to $2,500. The detective asked whether there were permits for the goat, “stating his neighbor works for WDFW, and he didn’t ‘want her giving me a hard time when she sees it.’ ”

The report said that Sebade responded “that he didn’t think you needed any paperwork, and he didn’t have any anyway, ‘LOL.’ ”

They agreed to meet for the transaction at the Vantage Boat Launch by the Columbia River. After Sebade pocketed the $2,500 in an envelope, he was arrested.

The detective tells me that people sometimes “don’t understand the law. But when one of the officers knocks on your door and says, ‘Don’t do it,’ and then you do it, then all bets are off.”

It wasn’t until July that the case reached Kittitas Superior Court, a plea agreement having been made. The original charge was felony unlawful trafficking of wildlife without a permit. Sebade pleaded guilty to providing false information. He was sentenced to 60 days’ home detention and ordered to pay restitution of $5,300 to account for law enforcement’s time and surveillance.

Sebade was credited $2,300 for turning over the goat to the state and ended up owing $3,000.

The state still has the goat in storage. It and the fake mountain are stored separately, as together they’re too unwieldy to move.

I called a phone number listed for Sebade, left a message and sent a text message. There was no reply.

FOR THE NEXT CASE, I talk to Officer Patrick Murray. His investigation began with Instagram postings and resulted in a 113-page report referred for prosecution of Jason L. Smith, 29, of North Bend.

In a statement, the Department of Fish & Wildlife said, “Smith posted photos of his exploits on social media and told friends about his tracking and killing prowess, suggesting he should be featured on extreme outdoor TV shows. In reality, much of the wildlife he poached was baited into his yard or poached on his neighbor’s property.”

Murray tells me about the time he invested in the case. “I spent several hundred hours, for sure.”

Over those hundreds of hours, and with search warrants, Murray accumulated evidence. In an affidavit for probable cause, the state alleged that Smith took a video at his North Bend home of two cubs and a female bear feeding on about 50 gallons of apples.

Said the affidavit, “The apples had been placed in a substantial pile next to Mr. Smith’s driveway, just steps from his front porch. Within 20 minutes of taking the video, Mr. Smith took another photo of a bloodied leaf, and his GPS tracking application indicated that he had begun tracking an animal. Shortly after, Mr. Smith took photos and a video of bear cubs up in trees. The videos depict the bear cubs calling out in distress.”

The affidavit said Smith posted on Instagram that he “had an opportunity at a great black bear” and said he used his bow at a “great shot that hit hard and penetrated deep.” Smith wrote that he tracked the blood trail for hours but could not find the bear.

Based on that report, the state Attorney General’s Office filed 32 criminal charges, including two felonies in the first degree, against Smith for illegally hunting 13 animals over two seasons beginning in 2021. There were four elk, four black bears and five black-tailed deer. One of the bears allegedly was a mother with cubs, said the state.

Smith could have faced a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each of the two felony counts. The state had asked for the midpoint in the standard sentencing range: five months in jail (not prison) and a $10,000 fine.

On June 7, King County Superior Court Judge Wyman Yip granted Smith a first-time offender waiver.

The plea agreement: 80 hours of community service and an $8,500 fine, with a year’s jail time and $5,000 in additional penalties suspended upon successful completion of a year’s probation.

Murray says he is disappointed in the outcome.

He tells me, “It was worth it, even if it’s not the outcome we would have liked. It’s important we do our due diligence. The public expects us to.”

Smith answers a text I sent him with, “You’re welcome to email me your questions and I may get to them.” He never responded to my questions, which boil down to, “Why?”

I ask Murray what conclusions he has reached about Smith after those several hundred hours. It’s hard to forget an image of baiting bears with a pile of apples, and of scared cubs.

“I wish I could understand that better myself,” Murray says.

But at least his case reached a conclusion. Officers say they’re used to having cases amended to lesser charges or not recommended for prosecution.

Says Capt. Jennifer Maurstad, in charge of the North Puget Sound region, “Prosecutors’ offices are understaffed and overworked. They tend to charge violent crimes and DUIs. Natural resources crimes do take a back seat. They’re super-complex. Everybody knows it’s illegal to rob a bank. Not everybody knows it’s illegal to harvest an endangered Chinook.”

A CONSIDERABLY MORE upbeat experience was going out of Anacortes in a 30-foot North River patrol boat with twin 300-horsepower engines. If needed, it could go 50 miles an hour. We went lots slower.

Officers Ralph Downes and Stephanie Tank were the guides for photographer Karen Ducey and me. Downes has been with the agency 33 years. Tank is going on her fifth year; her previous jobs include working in a wildlife sanctuary.

Downes says it’s not unusual to log 100 to 125 miles on such outings.

It is a sunny day, with calm waters and the San Juans at their picturesque best, the boat gliding past cliffs rising straight out of the water and evergreen trees managing to find a growing spot, even if it is sideways.

“We’ll do the usual stuff. Routine checks. License. Gear. Their catch,” says Downes.

He explains why going out on the boat had to be bumped forward by a few days. He was on Gov. Jay Inslee watch. The Washington State Patrol has an Executive Protection Unit with a governor’s detachment. Inslee likes to sail in the San Juans and went there for several days. It was Downes’ job to use his boat, have a State Patrol officer on board and keep an eye on Inslee.

Sometimes he stayed back 1½ miles, using binoculars; sometimes he tied up right next to Inslee if his boat docked. Nothing happened those days. “He had a great vacation.”

On this afternoon, for several hours, Downes pulls up to recreational boaters, always beginning with a friendly greeting. “How’s it going? Any luck?”

He says, “We often refer to us as the ‘fun police.’ ” And why not? “The majority are engaged in recreational activity and having fun,” says Downes.

He knows his mandate is different than a regular cop’s. No need to press it.

He says, “Our authority allows us to inspect an individual without a reasonable suspicion I have a violation.”

On this afternoon, nobody is trying to hide undersized crabs (less than 6¼ inches across the inside of the two “points” on the back of the crab) or female ones that have to be thrown back. As required, the boaters have marked their buoys above their crab pots with their names and addresses.

A few have not immediately written down on a catch record card when they hauled up a crab. That’s needed to estimate how the population is faring, and the agency knows that the longer you wait to record it, the more likely it is you won’t do it. A failure to record can draw a penalty of $60.

Downes doesn’t issue any citations, just a verbal reminder. “The goal is to educate,” he says.

One of the boaters getting that verbal warning promises that, of course, no problem, will do that from now on. I would promise that, too. Whew.

Then it’s back to the marina in Anacortes.

I ask Downes what he thinks about after an afternoon like this on the water.

“I often get asked about my job,” he says. “To tell the truth, I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I’ll do this until I figure it out.”