Colorado Parks And Wildlife K-9s Play Different Roles In Department
DENVER (CBS4) - Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers have three K-9s on the force and they all have specific roles including keeping wildlife away from humans and helping with investigations. Officers showed off the skills of K-9s "Sci", "Cash" and "Samson" Tuesday at the Hunter Education Building in Denver.
"Cash is the happiest employee we have in the state," said Wildlife Officer Brock McArdle.
The dogs are trained to protect and help officers. They can locate animals, evidence, suspects and chase wildlife -- like bears -- back into the wild. The K-9s are also used for education to teach groups like Boy Scouts more about the work they do.
District Wildlife Manager Phil Gurule started the CPW K-9 pilot program four years ago. "I wanted a K-9 that was able to assist me in my job," said Gurule. He had to look at a past policy to make it happen. "We did have a K-9 policy from 1984" Gurule explained, "so I was able to piggy back on that."
The three dogs belong to three different handlers. "Sci" is a Dutch Shepherd, trained in handler protection, suspect apprehension and odor detection allowing him to sniff out wild game. "If somebody is trying to hide and animal in their trailer or in their vehicle, we can run our dogs around that and they can indicate on that order," said Gurule.
"Cash" is a black Labrador with three different job duties every working day, including wildlife law enforcement, wildlife and odor detection and education. He helps his handler, Wildlife Officer Brock McArdle capture bad guys poaching or doing other illegal activities.
"Maybe I'm looking for evidence at the scene of a potential crime where somebody shot a deer or an elk illegally. I can use Cash to help locate a knife maybe a shell casing from a bullet," says McArdle. "I can use Cash to locate the presence of the illegal wildlife itself. Maybe it's on a vehicle maybe somebody has something hidden on the back of a trailer that they're pulling behind, could be part of a moose, he could tell me through his nose he can alert to the presence of 'Hey dad there's something there' or there's not."
"Samson" a Belgian Malinois, is a certified law enforcement K-9 with Officer Ian Petkash. A $12,000 grant from the Ben Roethlisberger Foundation at The Giving Back Fund allowed CPW to add him to the team. "Samsom" is trained in law enforcement detection, odor detection work as well being used as an experiment on hard-releases for bears. "Say a bear breaks into a shed to get to horse feed. I set a trap at that shed and then we actually do the release at the site of conflict," said Petkash. "So another positive is that bear gets to stay within it's predetermined home range. What we do is provide a negative stimulus during that release, so that bear begins to associate that site of conflict with a negative experience, specifically Samson chasing off the bear from that location."
Since this program is in the pilot phase, the department relies on donations to help with the cost of training and support of the dogs. CPW will take a look at the statistics and the uses of the K-9 pilot program with hopes of getting the program financially supported by CPW in the future.
