Refuge for Flora by Deanndra Hall
Introduction
We live within two miles of a national wildlife refuge, and I used to do work with them as a volunteer. I remember going to the office during that time and finding the secretary in quite a state.
It seemed the director of a wildlife refuge in Florida had been out checking around the refuge when he came to the shoreline and saw something on the sand. Walking about, he couldn’t figure out what it was, so he went closer to have a look. That was when shots rang out, and he was hit. He lived. But the items he had seen on the sand there were bricks of cocaine from a boat that had sunk off the shore. Both the drug runners who had lost it and another group of drug runners who wanted the drugs were fighting over them when the refuge director innocently wandered into the middle of the fray. He was lucky to escape with his life, but it underscored for the refuge here the dangers that individuals most civilians don’t even think of as law enforcement are injured or killed every day in the line of duty.
So I decided to find out about deaths within the ranks of conservation officers in Kentucky. The reports I found from the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources were startling.
2003 – The truck of an officer in pursuit of a vehicle is intentionally struck by said vehicle, and the officer is ejected, resulting in his death.
1999 – A warden dies from a heart attack while performing agency training.
1987 – An officer is shot and killed in Christian County after issuing a fishing citation.
1973 – An officer drowns in the Ohio River in Crittenden County while trying to save a ten-year-old child who fell out of a boat.
1947 – While investigating out-of-season squirrel hunting in Warren County, a warden is shot and killed. Both the suspect and his brother are arrested, for murder and accessory to murder, respectively.
1933 – As three game wardens try to serve a warrant for a fishing violation in Carroll County, one of the wardens is shot and killed.
1918 – Two wardens who’d been performing a multi-day investigation in Breathitt County return to Hazard when they’re ambushed by two men who want revenge. The officer whose ire they’d drawn is killed. Ironically, he is almost home when the murder takes place.
Most people think game wardens and federal lands law enforcement officers have an easy job. Far from it. The next time you’re approached by one of these brave officers, be polite, thank them, and pay your fine. This land we’re trying to care for on a planet we’re trying to save? They play an integral part in that effort and deserve our respect.
In other news … On April 1, 2021, Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife officers seized two five-foot-long alligators from a home in McCracken County. Yes, that’s where I am. The 55-year-old man admitted to the officers that he had the two animals, which they relocated to the Kentucky Reptile Zoo in Slade, Kentucky. He was charged with possessing and propagating what the state deems inherently dangerous wildlife. Wondering what that has to do with this book?
Read on.