Training Schedule and Descriptions

Hunting Related Shooting Reconstruction

Pennsylvania Wildlife Conservation Officer, Michael J. Doherty, has received over four hundred hours of training in criminalistics, has served as a Forensics Instructor for initial and in-service training, and has provided training to other agencies as well, including local and regional police. His training session will cover recognition, recovery and investigation of firearms evidence by the field officers, utilizing case studies and various techniques and equipment, with an emphasis on "hunting accident" investigation.

Interview/Interrogation

During his 26-year career, Illinois Conservation Police Officer, Jeff Baile, has studied, adapted and customized scientifically proven communication methods for the game warden's specialized duties and venues. One study he conducted revealed anglers who returned a wave could be categorized as being legal over 76% of the time. His three-day course "Forensic Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques for Conservation Officers" is the sole interview and interrogation curriculum in the U.S. and Canada expressly tailored to game warden work. Officer Baile's engaging and motivational teaching style, experiences, and his characteristic way of intertwining these proven forensic methods with practical game warden application, permit easy digestion of the methods for immediate field use.

Waterfowl Enforcement

The enforcement of waterfowl hunting regulation is one of the biggest challenges facing the wildlife conservation officer. Complex regulations, lack of training, and increasingly sophisticated methods used by violators all work together to discourage many officers from confidently and aggressively enforcing the waterfowl hunting laws and regulations. Pennsylvania Wildlife Conservation Officers, Jason DeCoskey and Chad Eyler, will outline various law enforcement techniques as well as identification methods to enhance any conservation officer's abilities.

International Marine Investigators

International Association of Marine Investigators operate as a non-profit organization and offer the training and knowledge from investigators working in the marine environment to other professionals associated with that field. The International Association of Marine Investigators will provide the training needed for Wildlife Conservation Officers to be able to combat marine theft, arson, fraud and other criminal activity in the marine environment.

Verbal Judo

George J. Thompson Ph.D., has applied his diverse experience, including ten years as an English Professor and five years as a Police Officer, to create an internationally recognized training program in tactical communication. This training program will highlight the principles and tactics that are used to calm difficult people that may be under severe emotional distress or other influences, redirect the behavior of hostile people, defuse potentially dangerous situations, and perform professionally under all conditions and achieve the desired outcome in each encounter.

Fish and Wildlife Forensics

The Forensics Unit of the Northeast Wildlife DNA Laboratory focuses on the use of DNA analysis for the examination of evidence for a variety of legal issues involving wild animals. This training session will provide information on what can be determined by different types of analytical methods applied to wildlife DNA and what bio materials can be used for analysis. The process that contribute to difficulty of DNA recovery and how DNA can typically be recovered even from the most degraded samples will be covered as well. Learn about the arsenal of molecular tools the Wildlife Forensics Unit has to deal with almost any situation and how they continue to seek, develop, and utilize new technology as it becomes available.

Pennsylvania Venomous Reptile Training

Pennsylvania Waterway Conservation Officers, Robert Dunbar and Tom Nunamacher's training session with venomous reptiles will cover the role of an officer, natural history and identification, regulations on reptiles and amphibians, and venomous snake handling. Learn critical knowledge of handling, measurement, and pit tagging of venomous snakes. This vigorous hands-on training session will ensure officer safety during the dangerous handling of venomous creatures.

Man Tracking

Pennsylvania Waterways Conservation Officer, Bill Crisp, will share his expansive knowledge of man tracking in an informative and captivating training session. On routine patrol activities, Wildlife Conservation Officers may often find the need to use different tracking techniques and philosophies for different situations. This course is geared to help officers determine what techniques to use and combine in order to address any situation they may find themselves in. This critical training session will progress from identifying signs at the initial site of investigation on how to present tracking testimony in court. Some topics that will be covered include, the proper use of tools for sign interpretation, how to track at night, proper use of map and terrain during tracking, when to use visual trackers vs. scent trackers (dogs) and counter tracking to avoid possible ambush.

Pennsylvania Elk

Pennsylvania Wildlife Conservation Officer, Doty A. McDowell has been active in Elk County since 1998. He will be bringing you up to date with the history of elk in Pennsylvania as well as the ongoing research pertaining to this large cervid. He will also highlight various law enforcement cases that have occurred in the past few years. McDowell will also bring to light some of the unique social issues that elk bring to the people of Elk County.

*Additional training sessions will be presented covering topics such as covert undercover, critical officer support, aquatics and computers in law enforcement. Descriptions will be available soon.