108 CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 



WARDENS AND WARDEN WORK.* 



By T. S. Palmek, 

 Assistant in Charge Game Preservation, United States Department of Agriculture. 



It is a pleasure to me to meet the wardens. While it is some years 

 since I have been in Vermont, I feel that I am not entirely a stranger 

 to this state, or its conditions. 



During- the past three months I have had an opportunity to meet 

 and compare something like 500 wardens, or would-be wardens in 

 diiferent parts of the Ihiited States, and I l)elieve that I have examined 

 orally not less than 200 men who were already in state service, or who 

 as})ired to such positions. It occurred to me that it might interest you 

 to know what is required of wardens in different parts of the country, 

 and also what is being done to raise the standard of warden work, in 

 the various parts of the United States. 



So far as I am aware there are no foreign countries, with possibly a 

 few exceptions, that have any officers like our wardens. Canada has 

 officers usually known as game guardians or game protectors, whose 

 duties are somewhat similar; Australia has officers known as rangers, 

 wlio look after her game; and in some British colonies of South Africa 

 there are officers whose duties correspond somewhat with those of war- 

 dens in the various states. Neither in England, nor in Scotland, so far 

 as I can learn, are there any such officers, and the work of looking after 

 the game falls largely on the employees of private estates, the game- 

 keepers. In Germany the work devolves very largely upon forestry 

 oiBcers, who besides being wardens are required to do regular forestry 

 work. Somewhat the same conditions prevail in Hungary and in 

 Austria. 



The warden service in the United States is very largely an institution 

 peculiar to this country, and it behooves us not only to know what is 

 being done, but to keep in touch with the advances made in this work. 

 Not long ago, in one of the examinations, in the middle west, I asked 

 one of the candidates what was his idea of a warden. (This man was 

 not yet in the service, but hoped to be.) lie replied, "I know what a 

 warden is. He's a man that wears diamonds in his shirt front and 

 draws his salary!" In some sections of the country this has probably 

 been true of wardens. In some states a warden's position has been 

 looked upon as a last resort. A man who was out of a job, or was 

 unable to get work, or who had failed in difi^ereut callings, could always 

 get an appointment as a warden. Naturally the pa}^ for such work was 

 not always satisfactory, to the state, to the people, or, in manj' cases, to 

 the wardens themselves. 



In order that we may meet on common ground, let me say that I dis- 

 tinguish very carefully between warden work as a job and warden 

 work as a profession. If you are serving the state of Vermont merely 

 for the pay, and have no other motive, you had better quit at once, 

 both for your own sakes and for the sake of the state. But if you are 

 in the service of the state to protect its game, to assist in the manage- 

 ment of the great natural resources of the state for the benefit of the 



*Address deUvered at the Second Annual Convention of the Sportsmen of Vermont, 

 March 4 and 5, 1914. 



