Shame On DFG

October 30, 2007

The California Department of Fish and Game, using tactics akin to a John LeCarre spy novel, at one point assigned a warden to shadow Mammoth "Bear Man" Steve Searles, hoping that the department could somehow bust him and get him out of their hair.

In a report in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times, Al Zamudio, a former Fish and Game warden, said his supervisors assigned him to watch Searles.

"I spent a lot of nights following Steve," Zamudio said. "My lieutenant told me to keep an eye on him. If I caught him doing anything illegal, he said he'd buy me a steak dinner."

This ain't right. It's not right in Mammoth, it's not right for our sense of right and wrong, and it's not right for our town's policy of cohabitation with wildlife.

This stinks.

In the Times article, veteran reporter John M. Glionna pressed the issue.

"Asked about the surveillance, Fish and Game spokesman Steve Martarano would say only: 'If there's suspicion of a crime, we'll use it. It's how we catch poachers in the wild.'"

This is preposterous stuff. Steve Searles a poacher? Holy Moses. Is DFG crazy?

Finally, the spy game ended -- we think.

"Zamudio reported that Searles was actually saving the agency work. 'They waved me off. To them, Steve was a wacko who didn't know what he was doing,' he said."

I know Steve Searles and he's no more wacko than anybody else up here. You want wacko? It's the DFG, out to bring him down as a matter of policy. If I were Steve, I'd sue. Using government employees to tail an honest citizen -- one who is doing public service, no less -- in the hopes of entrapping him, is just so appalling that I don't even have words for it.

It makes me want to throw up.

Who are these guys, anyway?

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