Document text
Fish and wildlife cop Belcher to step down By MARK FREEMAN When Larry Belcher first donned the blue baseball cap of the Oregon State Police's Fish and Wildlife Division, the cops in those caps were the traditional "game wardens" of old -- they policed the hunters and anglers. But Oregon's changing face in the late 1980s and '90s brought change in trooper duties. Hunting cops became more like "conservation officers," protecting the rivers and woods as well as the humans and critters at odds within them. "People don't like it, but the demographics of Oregon are becoming more complex," says Belcher, a lieutenant overseeing the OSP's fish and wildlife enforcement in Southwest Oregon. "As that happens, our role in environmental issues will become greater. "As we move forward, we'll still do fish and game work, but have more and more other responsibilities -- like natural-resource law, water law, forest protection and pollution -- placed upon us." But beginning Friday, the "us" pronoun Belcher uses for the OSP will become "they." Belcher, 52, retires effective Friday, walking away from the department he has served working Oregon's roads, rivers and woods for more than 25 years. Sgt. Steve Ross, who formerly worked out of Medford but most recently has been stationed in Coos Bay, takes over Belcher's command on an interim basis. The permanent replacement will begin in July. The job Belcher leaves bears only some resemblance to the job he began in fish and wildlife enforcement. But he has long supported this shift within the OSP ranks as rural Oregon becomes more urbanized and the issues involving fish, wildlife and habitat get more complex. "With the demographic complexities and urbanization," Belcher says, "I've always been a believer that this will be a natural progression for the division. "We have to be problem-solvers, and that might not mean traditional police functions." Traditional wildlife policing was the standard when Belcher joined the OSP in 1973. The U.S. Army Airborne platoon sergeant in Vietnam with a new college degree joined the OSP patrol office in Cottage Grove. In 1976, he joined the Fish and Wildlife Division and landed one of the highly coveted posts in Bend. In 1985, he moved to Medford as a district sergeant, and was promoted to lieutenant in 1989 when Mike Dougherty retired. As Oregon transformed in the late '80s, the OSP's job began to transform from one executed primarily with ticket books and handcuffs. Now, officers like Belcher and his field troops get involved in local watershed councils, enforcing logging and stream- protection rules, water law, environmental pollution and even Oregon's statewide plan to recover threatened species, like wild coho salmon. Instead of just catching salmon snaggers or deer spotlighters, OSP game officers began focusing time and energy on protecting and enhancing the environment and habitat used by salmon and deer. "The job has become more technical," Belcher says. "It's not just checking fishing and hunting licenses." And new "problem-solving" approaches have emerged, a move Belcher also has supported. Scruffy, the decoy deer, is used now to catch would-be poachers without having a real deer killed to make a case. Another example is Operation Fishhook, a project begun last year by Trooper Brad Bennett of Grants Pass. Officers now distribute legal fishing hooks to anglers found fishing with illegal hooks on rivers like the Rogue and Applegate. By giving away free hooks, officers get the anglers into compliance regardless of whether they issue a citation or a warning. Also, the cop gets to talk to the anglers about the fishing rules and why they matter, without sending the angler home angry that his fishing day ended with a visit from the OSP. "That's the kind of thinking we're encouraging our officers to come up with," Belcher says. "Ultimately, you want the resource protected." These new emphases also come as the division steps up its fish and wildlife policing in such high-profile cases as recent indictments and convictions of Medford hunting guides involved in poaching operations. Wildlife has become more valuable, Belcher says, and with that value comes a need to do long-term investigations of those abusing wildlife resources. New state and federal laws that once applied only to mobsters and drug traffickers now encompass poachers, and the OSP has shown in its Medford cases that officers will use them. "We will never abandon that," Belcher says. "We are police officers." But come Friday, the "we" will become "they." And Belcher is comfortable with stepping aside. "You reach a point where it's time for someone else to step in and get some fresh ideas going," he says. "It's an exciting time." But he will watch that excitement from the other side of the badge and use his free time to pursue, as a sportsman, the fish and wildlife he has helped protect as a cop. "I won't have to come back from fly-fishing in the Rockies to work deer season," Belcher says. "Now, just the snow will push me home." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. He can be reached at 776-4470.) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA