The deadline to apply for the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) game warden academy at Butte College near Chico is Nov. 7. Applicants will be considered for the proposed January 2010 academy.

“Game wardens ensure the future of wildlife resources for the people of California through responsible enforcement of laws, regulations and rules,” said Lt. John Lawson, DFG academy coordinator. “They ensure public safety, keep the homeland secure, respond during natural disasters, investigate illegal commercialization of wildlife, protect the state from pollution and enforce habitat protection laws.”

A typical day for a California game warden is as diverse as the state’s fish and wildlife. Wardens have the opportunity to patrol ocean, desert, mountain and valley environments, as well as California’s urban areas and frequently work independently conducting full scale investigations. Wardens employ everything from ATVs to jetskis to snowmobiles while on patrol, and spend much of their day making contact with Californians in the great outdoors. DFG has a dive team and recently added a K-9 patrol as well. Environmental crimes and pollution incidents also fall under game warden duties. Annually, wardens make contact with more than 295,000 people and issue more than 15,000 citations.

Successful academy applicants will enter a 30-week program, followed by three, one-month training assignments where they will work with a seasoned field training officer.

DFG’s Butte College academy is Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)-certified. This new partnership ensures that cadets are provided with DFG-specific peace officer training. Butte College has a 39-year history of police recruit training and has trained more than 5,000 students through its law enforcement academy. The 928-acre campus, the largest in California, includes a wildlife refuge.

In California, with 159,000 square miles of area that offers habitat and wildlife diversity unequaled by any other state, the average warden has a patrol district of more than 600 square miles. The state has more than 1,100 miles of coastline, 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, 4,800 lakes and reservoirs, three desert habitat areas and scores of high mountain peaks.

More information and applications are available at www.dfg.ca.gov/enforcement. Applications must be post dated by Nov. 7. To see more about what game wardens do, please visit www.dfg.ca.gov/enforcement/career to view DFG’s new video.