Dunn to retire after DNR service
By DAVE PAYNE Sr., dpayne@newsandsentinel.comPARKERSBURG - West Virginia Division of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Lt. Terry Dunn has seen plenty of change in his nearly four decades in DNR law enforcement.
When Dunn, who is officially retiring in January, started his career as a conservation officer in 1972, litter was everywhere, turkeys were virtually nowhere and deer, which are so abundant today, were still scarce.
Dunn, an Air Force veteran who served a year in Vietnam, had a special purpose in mind when he applied.
"I know this will probably seem strange, but the reason I became a conservation officer was because I hated seeing trash piled up. I wanted to do something about that. If you do something you absolutely love, you don't look at it as a job. It's just something you like to do. I always loved the outdoors and wanted to make a difference," he said.
Dunn applied for a position as a conservation officer with a stated preference which he was asked to state for Wood, Jackson and Randolph counties.
He was assigned to Kanawha County instead. While it may not have been his first choice, it was the perfect place to do precisely what he had planned fight littering.
"You could go out any hollow or ridge in those days and it looked like a city dump. People used the creeks as a disposal system; whenever the creek got up, they would dump their trash and then it was somebody else's problem. The turnaround has been unbelievable. If there is one thing that I can look back on as something conservation officers helped make a huge improvement with is getting our streams and roads cleaned up. The officers didn't do it by themselves, but we had a part with enforcement," he said.
When Dunn began his career, poaching and littering were rampant. Deer were scarce at the time, so most poaching was for smaller game.
"In August, the coal miners went on an extended holiday every year; that was the unofficial opening day of squirrel season. There were more people hunting then than on the actual opening day. In fact, you saw more people out there preseason squirrel hunting than you see squirrel hunting today," he said.
While the poached game of yesteryear might be far smaller than the deer poached today, conservation officers did not take it lightly.
"Just like we have deer squads today, back then we had squirrel squads. (Illegal) coon hunters were my forte. I would stay out all night after them. You get into a foot chase a lot of times, but once they were caught, as far as they were concerned, they were caught. When I first started, anytime someone killed an animal illegally, I took it personally. I got mad, gritted my teeth and said 'I'm going to get those son of a guns.' But, I came to learn that most people who violate game laws are good, hard-working, law-abiding people with a bad habit. It took me a lot of years to realize that," he said.
Although Dunn is retiring from law enforcement, he will continue to farm his Christmas trees, which he says is a good source of hard work. The Dunn family planted the trees in 1975 and started selling them in 1982. At that time, there were numerous tree farms competing. Most of those are gone today.
"It's anywhere from five to seven years before you start getting any income coming in. It takes years of work before production, but when you are in production, you are on a roll," he said.
Dunn operates two Christmas-tree farms, one in Pettyville and one in Chesterville, and rears white pine, scotch pine and Norway spruce trees.
Dunn said he is continually amazed by the progress made in restoring the deer and turkey populations in the last 30 years.
"It wasn't just us with law enforcement protecting animals from poaching; it was good, solid wildlife managers and a good management plan. There has been a lot of progress made since 1972. When I started in 1972, there were no turkeys anywhere except in the mountains. The first turkey I ever heard of being killed was a guy who had an oil and gas company in Clendenin and he killed a turkey on Blue Creek. I tell you, that was the talk of the town," he said.
The deer herd has also seen a miraculous recovery. Deer were so rare that Dunn, an avid outdoorsman in his youth, didn't see one until he was 7 years old.
"The first time I saw a deer, I was 7 years old. We were putting hay in and we saw two or three deer. It was the most exciting thing in the world to us. We didn't even see tracks back then. We talked about those deer for weeks," he said.
In the late 1970s, Dunn coordinated hunter-safety programs in much of southern West Virginia.
"Back then, the hunter-education program was based in the schools at the seventh-grade level. That's the place that program needs to be. The argument against it is there is a large untargeted audience, but my argument against that has always been that they may not have a gun in their home, but they may later in their lives or come into contact with firearms in someone else's home. A knowledge of firearms safety is critical for everyone," Dunn said.
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OldSoldier
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12-05-08 8:19 PM
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Congrats Mr. Dunn...and good ridance. Although I never had a run in with you, I know you done your job but went well over the line at times.
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