America’s conservation police: agencies in transition

Examines the history of US conservation police agencies and notes how changes in social values and recreational activities have increased the demands for the protection of wildlife and other natural resources. This has led to the creation of departments of natural resources (DNRs). DNRs have placed an increasingly heavier burden on conservation police departments and have demanded a wider range of tasks and responsibilities of them. These more general policing tasks have, in turn, cast the formerly law enforcement‐oriented conservation police into a more generalist police‐like posture.