NORTH DAKOTA OUTDOORS MAGAZINE

A Different View

Ron Wilson

Big game in North Dakota were surveyed from the air for the first time nearly 85 years ago, and that process of getting an aerial count on mule deer, white-tailed deer, pronghorn and other large mammals remains a vital management tool decades later.

The North Dakota Game and Fish Department’s aerial approach doesn’t end with helping to manage the state’s natural resources either but extends to safeguarding the recreating public and enforcing game and fish laws.

“With a small number of game wardens in North Dakota, having a warden pilot available, having eyes in the sky, is a huge benefit in protecting our resources in the state,” said Scott Winkelman, enforcement division chief, in reference to Mike Linden, Department game warden pilot. “The plane and the pilot are also extremely beneficial in search and rescue operations and in other law enforcement matters.”

While Linden, who worked in law enforcement in Colorado for 31 years and has been flying longer than that, must spend some of his time on the ground enforcing game and fish laws, he leans hardest to his time in the air if given a choice.

“During hunting season, for example, I fly a lot to assist wardens on the ground by identifying the location of hunters across the landscape,” Linden said. “It’s helpful to them because from the air I can see so much more, a lot wider area than somebody on the ground might see from any single vantage point.

“One of the things that I’ll see because of my vantage point is off-trail use, ATVs traveling off-trail during the deer season,” he added. “Another thing that I see at night is folks shining or spotlighting, which is something a game warden on the ground wouldn’t see unless they were in the right place at the right time.”

Pilot pulling plane out of hanger

Jeff Faught has been flying for the Department’s wildlife division for nearly a quarter century. From whitetail deer surveys in winter to the pronghorn survey in western North Dakota in summer, Faught is the one behind the controls, with a biologist buckled in behind him.

“Our aerial wildlife surveys are essential to the Game and Fish Department’s survey program,” said Bill Haase, Department assistant wildlife division chief. “Oftentimes, it’s the only effective way to survey these species.”

“During the spring and fall mule deer surveys, for instance, we have survey study areas… most of them have been done since the 1950s and we fly the same patterns every year,” Faught said. “The biologist gets in with me early in the morning while the deer are out, and we fly every square inch of these areas, mostly around in circles, up and down the drainages, and we count what we see. In the spring, we count total numbers. In the fall, we count bucks, does and fawns.”

Faught flies an American Champion Scout, a 2019 model built in Wisconsin, that’s built for off airport, slow flight operations. The tandem seating, the biologist behind the pilot as mentioned before, allows Faught and his passenger to both see out the left and right sides of the plane.

Pilot flying - taken from inside the aircraft

Jeff Faught flies over the Missouri River south of town.

“Being able to do an aerial survey gives you a perspective of what’s happening on the ground that you just cannot get from the ground,” Faught said. “For instance, doing the deer surveys from the ground is nearly impossible. From what I understand, in the early 1950s, Game and Fish personnel did it by horseback, and I can’t imagine how difficult that would have been to even get real numbers, much less having to deal with the physical part of doing the job.”

While Linden has the room in his airplane, he generally flies without an observer on board, but he keeps in touch with those on the ground through the plane’s radio.

“Flying is something I’ve always enjoyed doing, and if you like the outdoors and like visiting remote areas and some of the beautiful parts of North Dakota that I think a lot of people don’t know about, what more could I ask for?” Linden said. “I wouldn’t say it’s really all that dangerous. In North Dakota, there are a million places to land, but at night, that worries me a little bit especially if you’re out west over the badlands and you lose an engine, you have very limited options. And those options, if you don’t see them, you don’t know they’re there.”

Faught is also essential in helping researchers track collared animals — from wild turkeys in the river drainages in central North Dakota to elk in the badlands — to learn, among other things, the comings, goings and habitat use of the marked critters.

“The antennas on the plane are for tracking those animals with transmitters,” Faught said. “There’s a left antenna and a right antenna, so when I dial in that frequency, I can listen and when I hear it, then I can switch to separate left from right and locate exactly where that animal is at.”

Faught calls the aircraft his office. It’s where he’s most comfortable.

Mike Linden, Department game warden pilot, worked in law enforcement in Colorado for 31 years and has been flying for about 40 years.

“And I got the best view in the Department from my office. The perspective from my office is pretty incredible to see what’s going on and I’ve seen some pretty interesting things,” he said. “People think that this is a cushy job and it’s just all fun, but any career job has challenges. Aviation is something I’ve always enjoyed and loved to do, so I’m dedicated to it … is very important to me.”

Whether he’s flying a creel survey for the Department’s fisheries division over the Missouri River System or directing game wardens on the ground to suspicious goings on, Linden believes he has a dream job.

“I think you can talk to just about any of the law enforcement folks and they’ll tell you the variety, the not knowing what the day will bring next, is one of the things they like about the job,” he said. “Every day is a new day, and you have no idea what you’re going to be encountering next.”

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