Gulf Coast Wetlands, Texas Wildlife

By EUGENE LINDEN

It's always a tense moment when Rick Leach breaks the news to a suspect that he is not a buddy but rather an undercover federal agent. The people whom the dark-haired, soft-spoken cop arrests are usually armed, and some take the news badly: at different times, men have tried to choke or shoot the agent. And so Leach is cautious as he pulls his rented Taurus into the driveway of the Friermood hunting lodge in the midst of Texas' vast Gulf Coast wetlands one clear morning this winter. Only two weeks earlier, Leach went duck hunting with a guide from the Friermood lodge, trading lies, and now he is returning as part of a 100-agent task force that will arrest 23 hunting guides and lodge owners scattered along the Texas coast for violation of federal wildlife statutes.

Leach is one of nine full-time undercover wildlife cops working for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Special Operations branch. At any given time, an undercover agent might simultaneously maintain three identities in efforts to deter the illegal killing or trafficking in wildlife. While the $130 million illegal-wildlife market pales in comparison with the billions Americans spend on drugs, undercover wildlife cops find themselves in equally exotic situations. Undercover stings have infiltrated a smuggling ring that exported falcons to Saudi royalty; a backwoods guide service that killed black bears for their gall bladders, which were then exported to Japan as aphrodisiacs; and a renegade group of Native Americans who illegally trafficked in eagle feathers. This winter's major bust, called "the Texas Waterfowl Operation," & climaxed a three-year investigation that exposed rampant disregard for laws governing the hunting of ducks and geese.

Special Ops, directed by John Gavitt, a former field agent, was set up ten years ago in response to increasing illegal hunting and trafficking in wildlife. Leach, who headed the covert branch for four years before going back into the field, came to wildlife enforcement after a stint as an undercover narcotics agent. An environmentalist, he says, "I didn't want to spend the rest of my life doing drug buys." While wildlife work might seem more tranquil than the murderous world of drugs, Leach says wildlife cops often find themselves in the backcountry on their own, while during undercover drug buys, "you generally have lots of backup if things go wrong."

Agents follow common-sense rules. They choose covers as close to the truth as possible. In one case, Leach assumed the role of a dealer in deer and other exotic meats. When he and fellow agents busted his principal supplier, the man grabbed his pistol, and Leach found himself wrestling the gun away from his head.

Special Ops took on the Texas operation because waterfowl numbers have been plummeting in the face of droughts, habitat loss and illegal hunting and because a preliminary investigation uncovered widespread flouting of the wildlife laws. Leach and other investigators simply masqueraded as duck hunters. Of the 42 hunting clubs visited, an astonishing 41 violated basic waterfowl-protection laws. In the course of the operation, agents regularly documented egregious violations. At one posh club, for instance, an undercover agent was asked by unsuspecting guides to videotape a hunt during which 13 hunters slaughtered 204 birds (139 over the limit for that group). When a guide yelled to spook hundreds of geese clumped together in a pond, hunters fired blindly into the rising cloud of birds. After the fusillade, the water was littered with dead and wounded snow geese.

At the Friermood lodge, the critical moment comes when federal agents converge on a confused Blaien Friermood as he turns his truck into the driveway. While one agent tells the lodge owner that he is to be arrested, another casually positions herself between Friermood and the hunters so that no one gets the idea of handing him a weapon. Before being led away, Friermood explains to the hunters that one of his guides has been caught violating the law by an undercover agent. One hunter remarks nervously, "If I were Blaien, I'd get after the guide that got him in trouble." Hearing this, Leach tells them, "Blaien's got his own problems," and notes that this is only part of a big federal bust. Ray Brite, a U.S. deputy marshal, eases the tension by telling awful jokes.

With Friermood safely packed off to Houston for arraignment on misdemeanor and felony charges, Leach heads down the road to check on another bust before returning to Houston to face the mountain of paperwork that accompanies an operation of this magnitude. Leach, Gavitt and the other agents gravitate to their jobs because of the sense of accomplishment they get from protecting America's vanishing wildlife. "I used to feel uncomfortable about making friends with people and busting them, but I'm not out to cause people trouble; I'm here to protect wildlife," says Leach. Gavitt notes that many people doing the most damage to wildlife use sophisticated scams, not easily investigated by overt means. In these cases, says Gavitt, "covert operations not only bring such violators to justice but have a ripple effect. Commercial duck-hunting guides, for instance, will now think twice before breaking the law."