By Reina Hardy
Special to Inside
What is a conservation officer? A policeman who can swim. This is Conservation Officer Robert Austin's stock response to the recurring question about his job. He delivers it with a wink at least once a day, despite his personal discomfort with water.
Officer Austin prefers to work inland. He has, however, no discomfort with snakes, or armed men, or alligators. In fact, he is the state's go-to guy for large reptile issues. Gators are legal under four feet, but they inevitably grow into misdemeanors, and have to be wrestled into custody by Austin, who once dealt with two 28', 250 pounders. When asked about his gator training, he grins and says, "Animal Planet."
As Austin explains, a Conservation Officer, or CPO, is a state policeman with wildlife knowledge, special equipment, and a stylish brown belt. The state maintains about 100 of them. CPOs work alone, covering large areas. Austin, for example, ranges over Cook, DuPage and Kane Counties.
Like most CPOs, Austin comes from southern Illinois, where he learned to shoot, drive all types of vehicles, and ride rodeo bulls. The department has trouble recruiting in urban areas. As he says, "No-one in the greater Chicago-land area knows what the heck we do."
Conservation Officers act as game wardens, protecting wildlife, fish, timber and even plants like wild ginseng. But because they often encounter other kinds of crime, CPOs have full police powers. They pack weapons, a 40-caliber Smith and Weston pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun, pepper spray and an expandable truncheon.
They also have the power to arrest and the power to enforce, and are expected to be familiar with all state criminal laws. (Austin carries a miniature legal library in the back seat of his pick-up truck, along with the shotgun, a throw rope, camouflage gear, a lifejacket, Conservation Officer stickers for kids, and, in the door handle, a few extra bullets.)
One of Austin's primary tasks is checking hunting and fishing licenses, meaning he deals with a lot of armed and slightly nervous men. While on patrol, he wears a bulletproof vest. On finding an unlicensed hunter or fisher, he will either write a ticket or issue a warning. He will also run the delinquent's license through the computer, a practice that nets him a lot of arrests. "If there's a warrant out on you," he says, smiling, "you'd better not go fishing without a license."
On Sept. 8, Officer Austin was driving his official
pickup truck in search of trouble (his other police car is an SUV). He was going to investigate dove poachers in an industrial district. On Lake Shore Drive, he noticed an expired license plate and radioed the number back to his dispatchers, hoping for a stolen car report and a chase.
To his dismay, it came up clean. Officer Austin's enthusiasm for fighting crime has gotten him involved in plenty of exciting cases, everything from tiger-collaring to the torching of marijuana fields. He maintains friendly relations with state and city police, and is often asked to assist, especially when the other policemen need to drive off- road, or handle snakes. He once helped two traffic cops extricate a python from the transmission of a car. Arriving after a two-hour standoff, he pepper-sprayed the engine, and watched its tenant slither out.
The dove poachers were nowhere to be found, but Austin caught several unlicensed fishermen. As he radioed in their names, two men in a rusty Ford arrived, considered their chances, and departed. Austin stepped out of the truck, sighing and shaking his head. "Not a nice guy," he remarked, "but no warrant out on him."
He let the fishermen go with a firm warning, hopped back into his truck, and headed off to Naperville. He had a job to do. Some man had shot a possum in the face with a BB gun. Not the arrest, car-chase or boa constrictor he had been hoping for, but a protected species nonetheless. |
