When it’s time for me to do my annual writeup in a month or so, I will have to mention the Black Swan event that was game warden-oriented books suddenly exploding onto the scene, bursting out of nowhere like a covey of quail. It’s largely been an absurd number of novels, but I can now included two game-warden memoirs in the list. Wildlife Wars is the memoir of Terry Grosz, who appears to have begun service in 1966, where he was part of the new wave of ‘professional’ wardens who had formal educations. This did not endear him to the old guard, who regarded themselves as lawmen rather than scientists, but Grosz’ skiful reading of the land, creativity, and sometimes sheer brazenness combined to make him an effective warden, eventually moving him from California to overseeing a massive district in the upper west. The stories cover quite the range, as he recollects everything from being a boarding agent on the coast (hopping onto boats to inspect permits & hauls) to sneaking through mountain forests to get the drop on antelope poachers. I found all of them enjoyable, and they are action heavy, even the undercover case he was involved in as a newbie.

Grosz proves himself someone who makes clever and studious use of his environment, though I imagine that’s a practice all wardens have to develop. His submersion in a rice field to monitor duck hunters must have been as uncomfortable as Bob Lee hiding in a woodpile for hours on end to ambush some fish poachers. There is danger aplenty here, both from the animals Grosz is protecting and from those hunting them: at one point, he was shot in the back end multiple times with a shotgun—thankfully loaded with birdshot. The sheriff provided the first and only aid, as the lawmen didn’t want area poachers knowing the warden was injured or suspecting he might be off the job for a few days. A few months later, a quarrelsome hunter cheekily informed Grosz that he understood the warden had had “his ass sprayed”—and Grosz instantly knew the man was his assailant, as only three men knew of the incident, and two of them (Grosz and the sheriff) hadn’t said a thing, not even to Grosz’s wife. Another time, Grosz recounts, he was in the rifle sights of a man he’d busted for poaching, and only the wife — who remembered Grosz’s kindness by supplying them with seized meat — stopped the man from taking the shot.

The most memorable story, though, is the rookie undercover assignment he was given right out of the gate by a captain who despised wardens with university degrees. Because Grosz was unknown to the area’s hunters, he was able to walk into a tackle shop and purchase equipment for “snagging” sturgeon—and thereby earn the trust of the shopkeeper, who just happened to be connected to a group of poachers illegally snagging fish and smuggling them to Native American communities to be smoked and sold at a tidy profit. Grosz was almost immediately invited into the conspiracy after they learned he had a pickup truck that could transport the goods—and the end of this story is even more incredible. Grosz is a memorable warden: physically imposing, clever as a fox, and a stickler for principle: in one story he arrests a couple of deputies who are poaching fish, and then stands up to a judge who reprimands him for arresting his nephew and threatens him with throwing the warden’s future cases out until he learns the importance of “professional courtesy”. (Grosz leaked the story to the press, according to his narrative, and the judge backed down.)

This was a fun surprise, especially considering how often Grosz was operating on his own: this not only heightens the stakes, but forces him to get creative. Fortunately for him, his height and preference for surprises worked to his advantage. Interestingly, Grosz has written some fiction, which I may check out last year.

Related:
Backwoods Lawman, a game warden memoir set in Florida