Montana game wardens leaving for greener pastures

Brett Logan grew up on an Idaho ranch, and he's always loved hunting and fishing.

On top of that, he was interested in law enforcement.

Today, he's a game warden for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the perfect job for his particular set of interests.

"Early in my senior year I thought, 'Boy, that would be kind of a cool job,'" Logan said on patrol last week, as his pickup truck lurched along a bumpy road northeast of Great Falls toward the Missouri River where he would check fishing licenses for compliance.

If it's not enough that he is doing the job he was born to do, Logan now stars in a reality TV show so popular he is often recognized when he approaches hunters and anglers in the field.

The Outdoor Channel reality show "Wardens" stars Montana game wardens — and Montana. Logan and fellow region 4 wardens Brian Golie, John Lesofski and Kqyn Kuka are among those regularly featured on the show.

Despite the popularity of the show among millions of outdoors enthusiasts nationwide, the reality is FWP is having trouble retaining game wardens like Logan and it is scrambling to fill open positions from Miles City to Great Falls.

As of this winter, 12 of the 75 field game warden positions in the state were vacant, which is three times the number the agency usually has at any given time, said Jim Kropp, FWP's chief of law enforcement.

The department also is trying to fill regional captain, regional investigator, sergeant and assistant chief of law enforcement positions.

Most of the vacancies are the result of retention and job satisfaction issues — not retirements — and it's a big concern for the department, Kropp said, despite the romance of the job.

"When your job is protecting our most precious natural resource in some of the nation's most remote areas, there is rarely a dull moment," a promotion for the show on the Outdoor Channel website says.

Comparatively low pay at home for the wardens with a national following is mostly blamed for the troubling trend, he said.

"They get that this is a pretty cool situation," Kropp said of wardens who get the chance to work in Big Sky Country. "But you also have to pay the bills.'"

A challenging work schedule, in which wardens often work nights and weekends, also is a factor in the high number of vacancies, he said.

So is a trend today of workers changing jobs more frequently than previous generations, Kropp said.

Adding to the problem is that spouses of some wardens have trouble finding work in remote areas of Montana, where wardens often are stationed, Kropp said.

Montana game wardens are peace officers, just like police officers or sheriff's deputies, but their jurisdiction is limited to enforcing fish and wildlife laws.

Starting pay is $19.79 an hour, which is $41,163 annually.

By comparison, Cascade County Sheriff's Office deputies start at $22.02 an hour, or $43,721 annually, which is $2.21 more an hour or $2,558 more annually than FWP game wardens.

Starting pay at the Montana Highway Patrol is $21.63 an hour.

As of May 2014, the mean hourly wage for game wardens nationally was $25.61 an hour, or $53,260 a year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"I think it's obviously a problem that needs fixing," said Jason Snyder. "If you want to attract good applicants, you have to pay them."

Snyder was an FWP game warden for 10 years, including seven in Great Falls. His wife is from Cascade. His children were born in Montana.

In 2009, he left for Spokane where he is now a fish and wildlife officer for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

His first year in Washington, he made around $71,000, including overtime, he said. His last year working in Montana, he said he made around $42,000. In Washington, wildlife officers also enforce traffic and public safety laws, not just wildlife laws, but the work is about the same, he said.

Snyder says the "Big Sky tax" — the idea that people must be willing to work for less in Montana for the opportunity to live here — was too high for him.

"What really hurts is when you have a 10- and 15-year game warden" (who leaves)," Kropp said.

It costs $8,000 to train a warden, with the funding coming largely from license fees. "We're throwing money out the window," Kropp said.

One of the problems is that incremental wage increases for FWP game wardens is less than it is for other law enforcement officers with other agencies, making the hourly pay for veteran FWP game wardens $4 to $5 less, Kropp said.

Each Montana warden is responsible for patrolling 2,000 square miles, almost double the size of the state of Rhode Island. Logan's territory stretches from just south of U.S. Highway 2 near the state's border with Canada as far south as King's Hill on the Cascade-Meagher county line.

Logan estimates he puts 25,000 to 30,000 miles a year on his pickup truck, which essentially is a mobile office complete with a laptop computer. He uses the computer to communicate with dispatch and access motor vehicle and driver's license records.

Six of FWP's seven regions have vacancies with Region 7, based in eastern Montana's Miles City, having the most with four. Two jobs are open in Logan's Region 4.

The vacancies are a problem not only because wardens enforce hunting and fishing violations, Kropp said.

They also ensure that the public has access to private and public lands, which is a priority for the FWP, Kropp said.

Wardens establish working relationships with landowners, he said. That's important because landowners enroll lands in the block management hunting program, and sometimes allow public access to private roads so hunters can reach public land.

Landowners are more inclined to allow access if they know wardens are enforcing the laws, such as trespassing, he said.

"It's important that we remain fully staffed, and that we maintain visibility out there on the ground," he said.

A videographer tags along with the wardens documenting their work in "day-in-the-life" fashion for the "Wardens" show. Nothing is staged, Logan says.

"It's fun to see afterward," he said.

He views the program as an opportunity to educate the public on the job duties of game wardens, which he says isn't about writing tickets.

The job mostly involves field patrols and being visible to the public, but there's never a typical day, which Logan appreciates.

"We may start checking fishermen down here and then be called up to the Little Belts (Mountains) for a bear complaint," he said.

Wardens also assist investigators in larger cases, such as hunter residency and wildlife commercialization investigations.

"Wardens" also gives FWP free advertising of Montana's great hunting and fishing opportunities, Kropp added.

The potential benefit for the state, he said, is increased sales of out-of-state hunting licenses, which help fund the department, Kropp said.

"We have many people who would like to be on the show," said Mitch Petrie of Minnesota-based Muddy Boot Productions, the executive producer of "Wardens. "For the right reason they want to be on it — for following the rules."

The current season, which runs through June, is expected to reach 10 million viewers, and it's one of the most popular TV shows on the Outdoor Channel, he said.

Viewers are passionate about the outdoors, and the show gives them a front-row seat to Montana's grand landscape and the unpredictable routines of game wardens, said Petrie, explaining its popularity.

Sometimes residents of other states who have watched the program call FWP to learn more about game warden job opportunities in Montana.

"The bottom line is they do call and they ask, 'What's your pay structure?' Kropp said. "And when they find out, they just kind of laugh and we don't hear from them again.'"

One day last week, Logan left the Great Falls headquarters of FWP Region 4 and headed toward the Missouri River, where he would check fishing license and fishing limit compliance.

Logan earned a bachelor's degree at Carroll College, where he majored in environmental studies, and also completed a 12-week program at the Montana Law Enforcement Academy.

FWP Wardens must have a college degree, and graduate from the academy.

At 6-feet, 5-inches tall, Logan, 29, is imposing, but friendly.

On this patrol, he ended up doing more chatting than ticket writing. In the summer, fishing without a valid licenses and littering are the most common violations. Hunting without landowner permission is the most common in the fall.

"We really have to be on the top of our game when it comes to communication," Logan said.

Wardens work in locations far from backup, making it critically important, if a ticket is issued, to clearly explain why, he said.

Logan says he always enters each contact with the public assuming no violations are occurring, unless he sees otherwise.

At Morony Dam on the Missouri, Logan approached Jay Meeks, who had a line in the water in hopes of catching walleye. Meeks produced his license, and the two men chatted, with Meeks explaining that his son wanted to become a game warden.

It was an example of a typical contact with the public, Logan said afterward.

"People out enjoying their day fishing and want to chat for a while," he said.

Logan considers being a game warden more of a lifestyle than a job, and has no plans to leave FWP.

He got the bug to be a warden in high school when a game warden attended a job fair. Besides his love for the outdoors, growing up on a ranch taught him to appreciate how landowners feel about trespassing.

While he was a junior in college, Logan started working for FWP in maintenance and doing interpretive programs at First Peoples Buffalo Jump at Ulm outside of Great Falls. The next summer, he was rehired to do maintenance and cleaning at public access sites, including spraying poop off of bathroom walls.

Not exactly the stuff of exciting outdoors programs, but Logan said he wanted to prove to FWP how serious he was about eventually becoming a game warden.

"It's a little different than most people think," Logan said.

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Karl Puckett at 406-791-1471. Twitter: @GFTrib_KPuckett.

For info about 'Wardens'

www.facebook.com/wardenstv

Join the ranks

For more information about become a Montana FWP warden, go fwp.mt.gov/enforcement/wardens/

Game warden pay better than it used to be

Pay for wardens has improved recently.

In 2014-15, all state employees, including Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens, received 3 percent pay increases the first year and 5 percent in the second year.

Last legislative session, Gov. Steve Bullock vetoed a bill approved by lawmakers to increase warden pay because it came outside of the usual union bargaining process. No bill has been introduced this session to increase the pay.

FWP sought an additional $190,944 a year for the enforcement operations budget from lawmakers this session.

The funding is needed for a $1,000 per warden increase for equipment and operations, and to cover higher-than-usual training costs resulting from the warden retention problem, Kropp said.

On Wednesday, the Senate Finance and Claims Committee approved half of the $190,944 funding request, or about $95,000 over two years.

—Karl Puckett