He has five wardens, two of whom work full time on stream bed alterations. It means that your wildlife has no protection. A lot of people don't care, but I have to feel somewhere down the line that someone cares what's going on out there. But at the heart of the recruitment problems is money. The jobs are not incompatible.
Wardens enforce the fish and game code, as well as the state penal code.
While Buelna, for example, cites fishermen for not having licenses, he also has backed up police officers being shot at during bank robberies, intervened in a kidnapping and arrested suspects on drug violations. The state pays for CHP officers' retirement but not that of the wardens. CHP officers get paid lunch, while wardens don't. In California, only state hospital police and park rangers are as poorly paid as game wardens, says Sam McCall, chief legal counsel for the collective bargaining unit that represents a wide array of law enforcement agencies. The Highway Patrol is considered the standard for law enforcement salaries in the state, because California law requires CHP officers to be paid an average of the salaries at the state's five largest agencies.