‘WARDENS’: New Outdoor Channel series profiles work of Montana’s game wardens
By BEN PIERCE Chronicle Outdoors
When Steve Puppe sent a pilot episode of his new series “WARDENS” to the Outdoor Channel, the station had one big question: Wasn’t everyone supposed to get arrested or ticketed?
Puppe, the series producer, had envisioned “WARDENS” – based on the real-life work of Montana’s game wardens – in the vein of Fox’s hit series “Cops.” But when the Outdoor Channel responded to his pilot, Puppe decided to rethink the format.
“When they made that comment about everybody getting arrested or getting a ticket … that is not what wardens do,” Puppe said from his home in Hamilton on Monday. “Wardens don’t write that many tickets throughout the year. Their job is quite diverse. They are helping people more than anything.”
The first season of “WARDENS” runs the gambit of game warden work from enforcement during paddlefish season on the Yellowstone River to traffic control during the elk horn hunt on the Sun River Game Range. Puppe, who spent a year filming Montana game wardens, captured footage from road-side checks to the defensive shooting of a charging bear.
The show’s 13 episodes, the first of which aired Dec. 30, 2010, feature game wardens from across Montana.
Region 3 game warden sergeant Mike Ottman found himself involved in the taping of “WARDENS” when he responded to a TIP-MONT call. The caller reported a poaching incident in Hunting District 215 near McDonald Pass west of Helena.
“I called (warden) Joe Kambic, because that is his district, and he had Steve with him,” Ottman said. “It was an investigation that took old fashioned game warden work. We were wearing gators and had snow up over our knees. We found the elk and pieced the whole crime scene back together.”
After returning from the pass, Kambic and Ottman called suspects into the Helena office for questioning. Puppe hung with them through the entire investigation.
“I thought that was pretty impressive,” Ottman said. “Steve had to hike a long way with that camera and it was brutal.”
Ottman, who watched the first episode of “WARDENS” last Thursday, said he appreciates the show because it profiles the diversity of responsibilities and situations game wardens encounter in the line of duty. He said the show illustrates a game warden’s duties of not only enforcing the law, but educating and interacting with the public.
That’s a trait Puppe said he observed in wardens from Region 1 to Region 7.
“I have been hunting for 20 some years, so I know what a game warden does,” Puppe said. “I wasn’t overwhelmed by what they were doing, but I was amazed at their people skills. They can take a situation that could go badly and a guy ends up walking away with a ticket, a handshake and a smile.”
Puppe said he chose to focus the first season of “WARDENS” on Montana for the diversity of law enforcement activity that takes place across the state. He said Montana’s landscape dictates the type of work wardens do in different regions.
“Montana has such a broad spectrum of outdoor activities,” he said. “You have the mountains in the west and the plains in the east and all that variety in between.”
Puppe said filming the series opened his eyes to parts of Montana he was unfamiliar with. Witnessing the popularity of areas like the Tongue River Reservoir and Sun River Game Range put the scope of game wardens’ work in a new perspective.
And, Puppe said, a warden’s work can change in a heart beat.
“We were out one day and we got a call to a drowning and we are instantly into a rescue situation,” Puppe said. “That is the way it is, you just never know what a game warden is going to do during a day.”
The next 12 episodes of “WARDENS” will air on the Outdoor Channel on Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m.
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