The need for game warderns in metropolitan areas is greatly underestimated. Demographics are used to show comparisons between tasks performed by wardens in metro vs. rural areas. This is demonstrated by tabulating the activity from wildlife agency reports. Results from Oklahoma hunter participation surveys are used to calculate regional hunting pressure and illustrate the violume of investigations. Wildlife revenue data from 3 county-based license categories are used as relative indices to show sportsmen density. This paper will show the great disproportion of sportsmen density to wardens deployed. Much of the information presented in this paper is based on 20 years of practical field experience as a game warden in the 2 major metropolitan counties in Oklahoma.
