Chief Conservation Warden Randy Stark

Hi, my name is Randy Stark. As the Chief Warden, I along with my management team and staff are responsible for developing policies and directing the operations of Wisconsin's 208-person warden service and environmental enforcement programs.

By way of introduction, let me take a minute to tell you a little about myself. I was born and raised in Superior, WI, where I lived until becoming a warden in 1984. My wife Sandy and I and our son Ryan live in Oregon, Wisconsin. I enjoy hunting, fishing, wilderness canoe camping, and reading.

During my tenure as a warden with the Department of Natural Resources, I have learned many valuable lessons from others and experienced much from each of the positions I have held. When I reflect on all the things I've learned, the importance of providing good public service and developing positive working relationships stand out the most. Relationships are critical in our efforts in protecting, enhancing and promoting our natural resources.

The world we live in today is complex and interconnected. Seldom is there an easy solution to the problems and situations we face. Competition for financial resources, at least in the near future, will be significant. Consequently, we'll need to use a variety of approaches and tools to protect, enhance and promote our natural resources for future generations.

There are some significant trends in society that influence the nature of the challenges we are confronted with today. These trends cause me to believe the warden service's success in protecting and enhancing our natural resources depends on four important areas: community wardening, coalition building, education, and enforcement.

Wardens will need to work collaboratively with local communities in five important areas. These include resolving user conflicts, recruitment of youth into outdoor activities, initiating habitat protection projects, developing solutions to local problems, and communities acting as guardians of the resources by being the eyes and ears for the warden service. By pursuing these types of initiatives, we will protect and enhance our resources today while at the same time instilling a conservation ethic that will be transferred to future generations.

We'll need to build coalitions and partnerships with groups and organizations to be successful. There are many contending ambitions in today's society. It's important that there is a strong voice representing grass roots support for conservation and environmental protection. This approach allows everyone to be involved, be heard, and take ownership in key issues. Ownership and commitment come hand in hand.

People are the key to protecting our natural resources. Our future success depends on working side by side with a public that is informed and educated on the issues impacting our natural resources and the environment. As a result, we'll need to work to keep the public educated so they can make informed decisions.

We'll need to ensure the warden service develops the skills, knowledge and abilities to conduct successful investigations in the future. In addition to the duties traditionally associated with conservation wardens such as checking licenses and apprehending poachers, today we are confronted with complex investigations that require state of the art technology, training and equipment to solve. Our current investigation into Chronic Wasting Disease in both the captive and wild deer herds is a prime example. In this case, the threat to the deer herd is not the traditional deer poacher, but a much more elusive and destructive disease with no known cure. As we have worked to trace out the origin of infected deer, we generated hundreds of leads in many states requiring electronic management, utilized DNA testing, computer forensics, and other sophisticated investigative techniques. In the future, we'll be dealing with other complex cases of a commercial or disease related nature. To meet these challenges, it's important we keep our warden service on the cutting edge of law enforcement capability.

As you know, many of the environmental and natural resources problems we face in Wisconsin are complex and people feel deeply and passionately about them. Solutions require the Department of Natural Resources, working collaboratively with the citizens of the State of Wisconsin, to make the right decisions in an increasingly complex world.

Please feel free to contact me at 608-266-1115 or by email (Randall.Stark@dnr.state.wi.us). I'd like to hear from you.

Randy J. Stark, Chief Warden

Bureau of Law Enforcement