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usaf-vet

(6,094 posts)
Sun Mar 29, 2020, 11:10 AM Mar 2020

New (Wisconsin) warden uses old-school skills in desperate search

The rookie Department of Natural Resources warden had just popped the lid of his salad container when the radio squawked: a 13-year-old boy, missing.

The boy had run away from Edgerton Middle School after a dispute with his teachers — he swore at them before he ducked out of the school and headed into the swamp across the street. Principal Clark Bretthauser tried to follow, but lost him in the mucky underbrush.

The boy was clad only in a T-shirt and sweatpants. The temperature was 39 degrees Fahrenheit (3.89 degrees Celsius) and falling as the sun dipped toward the horizon; forecasts called for a snowstorm at nightfall.

Schumacher is 25. Growing up in southern Wisconsin, he fly fished and hunted “pretty much everything” — including deer with a musket. Inspired by an uncle who worked as a police officer, he majored in criminal justice at Madison’s Edgewood College. A post-graduation ride-along with a DNR warden showed him the way to a job that would combine police work with his love for the outdoors.

He spent two months training in the backwoods of northern Wisconsin, learning to track people in the wilderness without the aid of technology.

The most important lesson: Humans are lazy creatures. Animals will crawl under or go around obstacles. People will push them aside or plow through them. Everything in nature is vertical as it tries to reach the sun; if you see something horizontal, like a branch on the ground, chances are humans were there.

https://apnews.com/4b8d64d2a24d7aaf4691f5e05e58c060

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New (Wisconsin) warden uses old-school skills in desperate search (Original Post) usaf-vet Mar 2020 OP
Entire article linked is interesting and inspiring. Thanks for posting bobbieinok Mar 2020 #1
Happy to read a good news story today. Thanks for that. nt crickets Mar 2020 #2
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