Conservation Law Enforcement Corner – April 2025

The Conservation LE Corner is designed to highlight the efforts of Georgia DNR Law Enforcement Division (LED) officers who, among their many duties, protect Georgia’s wildlife, sportsmen and natural resources from game-law violators. 

Camden County: On Dec. 1, 2023, Game Warden Matt Tsiklistas responded to Crooked River State Park in reference to a burglary. An unknown person kicked in the back door of one of the cabins and was smoking marijuana inside. Campers were attempting to check in when they found the subject in the cabin. The subject fled the cabin and park before DNR Law Enforcement arrived, but he was arrested later walking on the public road that runs parallel to the park. Several Game Wardens responded to the scene, as well as the Camden County Sheriff’s Office deputies.

Southeast Georgia: On Jan. 15, 2024, Cpl. Colte Shaske was patrolling local deer-dogging clubs around Camden, Brantley and Glynn counties. Bordering a deer-dog club, Cpl. Shaske witnessed multiple trucks lined up on a dirt road waiting to catch their dogs before they crossed the road. While watching the trucks, Cpl. Shaske was able to locate two individuals in separate vehicles standing on top of their dog boxes with guns in their hands on the dirt road. Both subjects were cited for Hunting from a Public Road.

McIntosh County: On May 2, 2024, while working a trawling complaint offshore Sapelo Island, Game Warden Lucas Barnard and Cpl. Jay Bright spotted a shrimp trawler that was actively dragging in closed waters. The trawler was approximately 2.46 miles off Sapelo Island. GW Barnard and Cpl. Bright stopped the trawler and made them bring their nets up. The officers followed the trawler into Doboy Sound, where they boarded the trawler. A total of 553 pounds of shrimp was seized, and crew members were issued citations for using power-drawn nets in closed waters.

McIntosh County: On Sunday, Nov. 24, 2023, Game Warden Matthew Thompson, was checking shrimp cast netting near the mouth of the Julienton River and Sapelo River when he stopped an inbound vessel from offshore. The vessel was a larger Scout with multiple fishing poles in the rod holders. The captain said they fished Gray’s Reef that day. Thompson asked them if they had any luck, and they said they did. When Thompson opened their cooler, all he could see were red snapper. Thompson took everything from the cooler, there was a total of 13 red snapper and a few legal sized black sea bass. Thompson asked them if they knew the season for red snapper was closed, they replied yes, but that was all that they could catch. 

A Federal Referral packet was documented and turned over to NOAA Fisheries.

Game Warden Ben Hawkins, who is assigned to Laurens County in central Georgia, announced at a work section meeting that his goal for the year was to be more vigilant in the enforcement of boating laws in order to make the waterways safer for boaters. He acknowledged the specific challenges of becoming efficient at detecting and deterring impaired boat operators and was eager to make a difference in his community. True to his word, Hawkins had a phenomenal year of boating enforcement, especially considering his area of assignment has no major lakes or coastal waters to draw large boating crowds. As a result, just 14 months later, he has been named Georgia DNR Law Enforcement’s 2024 Boating Safety Game Warden of the Year.  Primarily working on the Oconee and Altamaha rivers, and three lakes on Public Fishing Areas in his seven-county work section, Hawkins logged 181 hours to boating safety enforcement, utilizing both water patrols and land patrols. There were 13 BUIs made in the 27-county Metter region in 2024, and Hawkins was either the arresting officer or assisted with 12 of them.