Number of Jersey vs MD game wardens

platoonDaddy · Jan 3, 2018

Received the following email from son-in-law who is a retired Jersey Conservation Officer.

I just wanted to drop you a line because one of our retired officers was goose hunting in Md. yesterday with one of your Maryland Conservation Officers.

Today he quizzed me on how many Conservation Officers there are in Maryland. I was shocked to hear 500, we have 50!!!

Who pays them? Sportsman’s and Anglers fund or General Treasury?

pbharvey · Jan 3, 2018

I’d be interested to know how many are assigned to the bay vs. land patrol.
I think the MD DNR police have some homeland security function on the bay waters. It wouldn’t surprise me if they receive federal funding for this.

joppaj · Jan 3, 2018

I want to know what he is calling a "conservation officer". If he means DNR police than he has bad information. Last I saw they were under 300.

pbharvey · Jan 3, 2018

joppaj said:
I want to know what he is calling a "conservation officer". If he means DNR police than he has bad information. Last I saw they were under 300.

DNR website says 262 sworn officers

platoonDaddy · Jan 3, 2018

joppaj said:
I want to know what he is calling a "conservation officer". If he means DNR police than he has bad information. Last I saw they were under 300.

Jersey Game Wardens are Conservation officers vs MD Game Wardens (DNR)

pbharvey said:
DNR website says 262 sworn officers

Guess the MD officer was wrong

Mack C-85 · Jan 3, 2018

joppaj said:
I want to know what he is calling a "conservation officer". If he means DNR police than he has bad information. Last I saw they were under 300.

Exactly, "DNR POLICE" includes Park Rangers, Forest Service, and a couple of other Agency's that were combined under the Department of Natural Resources. I have a buddy who was a Park Ranger who now is a DNR Police Sgt.

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pbharvey · Jan 3, 2018

Mack C-85 said:
Exactly, "DNR POLICE" includes Park Rangers, Forest Service, and a couple of other Agency's that were combined under the Department of Natural Resources. I have a buddy who was a Park Ranger who now is a DNR Police Sgt.

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Park Rangers have police power?

Mack C-85 · Jan 3, 2018

pbharvey said:
Park Rangers have police power?

The were some that were LE, they are now DNR Police. This is what happened to my friend Mike.

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whistlersmother · Jan 3, 2018

Well, how ever many there are, tell 'em they ain't doin' a very good job with them hoodlums... They play chicken with my car, destroy my shrubs, and one year, one even was snortin' at me. Wife was gonna go all vigilante on them hoodlums last summer 'cause they done ate all her flowers... Get on the ball, DNR, and make them four-legged hoodlums understand who's boss around these parts...

Oh, and move that d*mn crossin' sign somewhere else. Those hoodlums are acrossin' right in a turn - whose big idea was it anyway to have 'em cross right there?

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traveller · Jan 3, 2018

New Jersey State Park Police is a separate agency with general LE functions in the state parks and wildlife areas. For an apples to apples comparison you need to count them along with the 55 conservation officers. There is also a marine division of the state police that does water based enforcement which would overlap with what NRP does in MD. So it's a bit more complicated than a straight comparison of NRP and conservation officers.

John from MD · Jan 3, 2018

I touched on this before so I won't go into detail. The last manning authorization that I saw was for 270 officers. DNR is the parent organization of NRP. The police force portion is consolidated under NRP. Any other DNR officers with police powers, i.e. Park Rangers, are grandfathered in their organization until they retire. After that, the only police organization will be NRP.

NRP does the same job as other states "Game Wardens" except that they are more Police Officers first. Many States "Game Wardens" are Wildlife Biologists, Fish and Wildlife Managers, Ecologists, Environmental Scientists etc that are also sworn Law Enforcement Officers.

In my opinion, NRP Officers are more like cops who like animals. :lol:

protegeV · Jan 3, 2018

Any way you slice it, MD does have a lot of officers assigned to DNR.

I took my son to a youth outdoor event and they had 2 Game Wardens (as they call them here) doing a presentation. I was shocked to discover there are only around 500 of them, or roughly 2 per county.
So you've gotta be doing doing something pretty stupid for an extended period of time to get in trouble with that kind of sparse coverage.

Melnic · Jan 3, 2018

The guys in the boats on the bay and in Ocean city. Are they not NRP?
On the VA/MD border, the water is territory of the DNR right? I think MD has way more water to police than Jersey. Jersey shore police may be a separate authority than what this guy was talking about?

John from MD · Jan 3, 2018

NRP patrols the Chesapeake Bay down to the VA line and the inland waterways in the State. New Jersey State Police has police boats located throughout the State. Some local municipalities also have police boats. To the best of my knowledge, NJ does not have an organization that patrols similar to the NRP.

Mack C-85 · Jan 3, 2018

Melnic said:
The guys in the boats on the bay and in Ocean city. Are they not NRP?
On the VA/MD border, the water is territory of the DNR right? I think MD has way more water to police than Jersey. Jersey shore police may be a separate authority than what this guy was talking about?

Mostly, some local PDs have Marine Units, the Coast Guard, and a bunch of Fire Dept. Boats.

Yes, the MD/VA border is the high water mark on the VA side, the Potomac belongs to MD.

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K31 · Jan 3, 2018

What's a game warden in Jersey going to do anyway?

Cite you for snagging DBs dumped by the mob?

Look in your cooler to see if you've got any medical waste that's over the limit?

mward · Jan 3, 2018

pbharvey said:
Park Rangers have police power?

I didn't think they are sworn officers because they don't carry a gun...usually the tell-tale sign.

platoonDaddy · Jan 3, 2018

K31 said:
What's a game warden in Jersey going to do anyway?

Cite you for snagging DBs dumped by the mob?

Look in your cooler to see if you've got any medical waste that's over the limit?

Over his years service, he certainly was involved in many meth lab take-downs. Standard issue: handgun, shotgun & long gun.

Gave him the link to this thread and his reply:

Ok, It looks like Md. did what NJ wanted to do a couple of governors ago. They combined all of the officers that were “other than” regular police (park rangers and any others that patrol the woods and fields).

That may be where the difference between 262 and 500 officers came from. Although there are only about 45 CO’s here in NJ, there are many more Park Police officers in our state (unknown number). NJ resisted this merger because the requirements for Conservation Officers were significantly different (college degree) than that of the other job titles.

We argued that it was necessary to have biological education if officers were expected to enforce biology-based regulations. It was decided that laws which rest on science such as, environmental carrying capacity, hunter success rate, seasonal population variations need to be understood by those enforcing them. Plus, we were paid significantly more than the Park Police and we argued that our education was the reason for that. PP positions do not have any college requirements.

Park ranger · Jan 3, 2018

Back around 2004 most law enforcement park rangers were absorbed in to NRP. Management and upper management LEO stayed as Park Rangers.

Today's park rangers are not sworn officers, except a very few.

John from MD · Jan 3, 2018

Park ranger said:
Back around 2004 most law enforcement park rangers were absorbed in to NRP. Management and upper management LEO stayed as Park Rangers.

Today's park rangers are not sworn officers, except a very few.

And their LEO positions go away once they retire or leave.

Number of Jersey vs MD game wardens

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