Veteran Northern California game warden Norman Bettis and his wife, Martha, lived an idyllic life in the small Sacramento Valley farm town of Gridley. On the morning of December 13, 1956, Norman kissed Martha on the forehead and drove off to work. He had no way of knowing he was destined to stumble into a rat’s nest of commercial duck poachers and disappear–patrol car and all.
Retired game warden Steven T. Callan’s love of nature and passion for protecting wildlife took root long before he experienced the adventures described in his memoir, Badges, Bears, and Eagles. In The Game Warden’s Son, he recounts more of his own investigations, along with those of his game warden father and their colleagues. Intertwined with a half century of adventures and investigations is a story of the lifelong relationship between a boy and his father…
Over his thirty-year career as a wildlife protection officer for the California Department of Fish and Game, Steve Callan conducted some of the most fascinating, complex, and highly successful wildlife investigations in California history. He also collected a wealth of true stories—action-packed, suspenseful, and often humorous. In Badges, Bears, and Eagles, Steve provides a vivid first-person account of his adventures. The author and his colleagues outsmart game hogs, thwart fish thieves, and foil outlaws with names like “Squeaky”…