Q & A with a conservation officer

The Sea-to-Sky highway, from a lookout on the Chief hiking trail in Squamish B.C.

Whether confronting a Hells Angel in the back country or dealing with a bear in the city, Sgt. Peter Busink loves his job as a conservation officer in the Sea to Sky region of B.C.

Alexandra Hawley: I hear conservation officer and think park ranger. Is that accurate?

Sgt. Peter Busink: If you had to boil it down, we’re essentially environmental police. We deal with classic game-warden style work, which is doing compliance and enforcement for anglers and hunters. We’re the primary agency that deals with human/wildlife conflict and generally that deals with things like bears or if there’s injured animals. We also deal with any environmental legislation like illegal dumping or spills.

AH: What are your most useful skills?

PB: Communication skills come first. Whether you’re dealing with stakeholder groups or clients in the field, you have to have communication skills. You need problem-solving skills to think on your feet because you’re always going to encounter unique and different situations that you’re going to have to figure out the best solution for.

AH: It’s interesting that the top skill is communication.

PB: Well, you can be dealing with a Hells Angel and an automatic weapon way out in the back country somewhere, your ability to communicate properly and get the information you need without escalating a situation, something that could create an officer safety issue, is obviously going to be very important. We’ve got lots of stakeholder groups, we talk to the public all the time and communication is key to make sure that everyone is getting the information they need in a timely and professional manner.

AH: What do you like about the job?

PB: I like all aspects of the job. In terms of my reasoning for wanting to get into it, I wanted to help protect our resources and the environment. It’s a job that has a fair amount of field work and allows autonomy in the way you do your job. The job has a lot of variety and a lot of challenges. Every single day that you go to work, you know that you’re going to learn something new and have a challenge that you’ll need to work through.

AH: What do you generally end up doing?

PB: The human/wildlife conflict issue is big for us, from about May through to the end of October. We typically have a lot of bear problems. Then we do a fair amount of enforcement for fisheries. We had a big run of fishery that was open this year and people require a B.C. freshwater angling license. So we deal with that aspect of things, along with whatever else we find that may come under the federal fishery act or some other act. Then, of course, we respond to what we call ERSs or enforcement routing sheets, which is basically reports from the public that come into our call centre. They let us know about offenses that may potentially have happened or are happening and we’ll respond to those.

AH: What do you consider the best part of your job?

PB: The reasons why I got into it. You know there’s a huge variety of work that continues to be challenging every single day. You can have a plan in your mind for what your day is going to look like and before you even leave the house it might have completely changed, because something that’s a higher priority may have come up and now you’re going to deal with that instead of what your plan was. There’s so much variety and it’s never boring, that’s for sure.

AH: Could you tell me a story that really stuck with you, that you really felt proud of?

PB: Anytime that you’ve got an investigation, where there are challenges that you need to overcome in order to be able to prove the elements of the offense. You need to lay charges and have them stick. I had one where I was working in the West Kootenays,  a person shot a world-class deer on private property and the investigation required a lot of different elements: Gathering DNA evidence from the crime scene, seizing the antlers from the deer and getting DNA, matching them up. Doing ballistics, you’ve got shell casings and you match them up to firearms. Then you write your report to Crown counsel, where you get charge approval and eventually it goes through to court and you get a conviction. That’s satisfactory. It’s a whole process, it’s enjoyable and it’s nice when things come together and you can actually get the bad guy.