Outdoors

Proving her worth in the great outdoors

Julie Jones knew she was in trouble.

"We had received several reports of untagged game, especially wild turkeys, coming out of the Big Cypress Swamp," said the state's chief wildlife officer of an incident that occurred 20 years ago. "I saw a large hunting party coming out of the woods, so I decided to check their vehicles."

Jones quickly found herself surrounded by five armed men, when the matriarch of the clan stepped forward and asked an obvious question.

"Why should we listen to you?" the woman said. "We could take you real easy."

Jones rested her hand on her Model 19 Smith & Wesson and said, "This gun has six cylinders and the first one is for you."

The old woman laughed, and Jones checked her swamp buggy.

"I learned then that if you are honest and direct with people, you earn their respect," she said.

Respect is something that Jones, the first woman to lead the law enforcement division of the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, has gotten plenty of.

"She's tough, I have to give her that," said David Meehan, a St. Petersburg resident who sits on the commission's board. "She's got a big job to do, but I think she is up to the challenge."

Ken Haddad, director of the FWC, said he knew that it was something of a gamble putting a woman in charge of enforcing the state's fishery and wildlife laws.

"It is a real good old boy network," Haddad said. "But we wanted to move past that. We know we have to make some changes. I think she is the person to do it."

The division Jones, 45, now heads has come under sharp criticism in recent years from recreational and commercial fishermen.

"It is a big state with an awful lot of water and competing interests," said Roy Crabtree, a former tarpon researcher who now heads the Florida Marine Fisheries Commission, the agency responsible for formulating the state's saltwater fishing regulations. "She is going to have her work cut out for her."

But Jones said she feels comfortable working with recreational and commercial fishing sectors.

"I am an avid fisherman, and I tie my own flies; that is what I do for fun," she said. "But I have also spent enough time in the field to appreciate how (the commercial sector) uses the resource."

Jones, an Army "brat" who spent most of her formative years on Florida's east coast, has a background in biology. She studied plant physiology as an undergraduate at Florida Atlantic University, then went on to receive a master's degree in ecology before joining the old Freshwater Fish and Game Commission as a biologist on the Kissimmee River project.

"I was recruited by the Division of Law Enforcement in 1983," she said. "I guess they just bumped into me crawling out of the swamp just one too many times."

Jones rose through the ranks and found herself in Tallahassee, where she learned about politics and the finer points of wildlife management. She admits her division has taken a lot of heat from recreational anglers upset over the increasing incidences of poaching. "We know it is a big problem," Meehan said. "The poachers are very sophisticated. They have spotters with cell phones on the boat ramps and bridges. They know where our people are. It isn't easy catching these guys."

But Jones said she has ordered five of her captains to put together special undercover units that will work in plain clothes and unmarked cars to combat illegal take and sale by commercial and recreational fishermen. Once the arrest is made, Jones said she plans to follow these cases through the judicial system.

"It is hard on an officer to write a good citation and then see no follow-through in the legal system," she said. "It can be demoralizing."

Jones said wildlife and fishery laws are complicated, and at times extremely technical, and there may be some prosecutors and judges in the state who benefit from her agency's expertise.

"We have attorneys on staff, and we would like to make them available to jurisdictions that need help in prosecuting these cases," she said. The first step is writing a prosecution manual to help educate her comrades about poaching.

"Fifty years ago, we hired the poachers to work as wildlife officers," she said. "Times have changed. Now we recruit people with four-year degrees. We no longer just hire people who hunt and fish. We want good law enforcement officers. We can teach them the rest."

The state, however, has a hard time holding on to wildlife officers. The Florida Highway Patrol has an entry-level pay grade of $2,000 a year more than the FWC. "People go through our academy, work for us for a year, then go to a local police department or sheriff's office and get a $3,000 to $5,000 a year raise," she said.

Jones said she is ready to fight for higher pay and more officers. Her career has been all about earning respect, from the swamps of Big Cypress to the steps of the Florida Legislature.

"People like to test you," she said. "You have to always be ready."

To illustrate the point, she tells a story about a rookie officer and a swamp buggy with a broken axle.

"Back then we had to maintain our own vehicles," she said. "But what they didn't know was that I put myself through college by working at an auto body shop."

So in front of her fellow officers, she pulled the axle, replaced it, repacked the bearings and put the wheel back on.

"They just stood there and stared," she said. "Will you look at that?"

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