This is a tool of wildlife management. To produce a sustained annual crop of wild animals for recreational, use there is need for protection, regulation and law enforcement. The work of protection should be handled by a team of knowledgeable, well trained and disciplined law enforcement staff or personnel, such as game (park) guards, rangers, chief park ranger (chief park warden), whose duties include the following:
a. Patrol of the area to protect it from encroachment.
b. Checking of licenses or permits.
c. Protect the park from illegal hunting and poaching (Anti-poaching patrol).
d. Ensuring that there is no aquatic ecosystem pollution.
e. Checking logging in the park.
f. Involvement in conservation education.
g. Prosecution of arrested offenders in the law court.
A Ranger as a law enforcement staff should be well trained to understand the peculiarities of his work and so know what to do when dealing with three distinct kinds of violators as follows:
1. The accidental violator who has no intent to violate the law and has made a mistake.
2. The opportunist violator who leaves home with no intention to violate the law but “the birds are so abundant in the adjacent closed area” that he is carried away and goes after them.
3. The criminal who leaves the home with full intent to violate the law.
Each of these classes must be handled in a different manner. The officer must ask, “Will my handling of this case aid conservation and stimulate the interest of this individual and his respect for law and the department?” The law enforcement staff must make on the spot decisions such as “will I arrest or warm the man?”
The law enforcement personnel should be knowledgeable about the creed that stresses the human relations of law enforcement – which stipulates thus, to save the unfortunate offenders from unnecessary humiliation, inconvenience and distress; to have no compromise for crime and resolutely seek the violator but with judgement charitable to the minor offenders; never to arrest if a citation will suffice; never to cite if a warning would be better; never to scold or reprimand, but rather to respect and inform.
Read Also: Local Community Participation and Its Effect on Wildlife Management
