Wardens Struggle to Protect Living Resources Against Poaching : Wildlife: In California, a state dedicated to ecology and blessed by staggering natural beauty, the slaughter goes on and on.

Lt. Mike Castleton knows full well that in the grand scheme of things, his efforts to protect California’s treasured wildlife are roughly equivalent to emptying the ocean with a teaspoon.

California’s 260 Department of Fish and Game wardens are charged with guarding more than 1,100 miles of coastline, 3,600 lakes, 1,200 reservoirs, 80 major rivers and 159,000 square miles of land.

Overworked, underpaid and outmanned, Castleton and his fellow wardens are engaged in a battle they can never hope to win. Their opponents carry a sophisticated arsenal that includes assault weapons, illegal fishing lines and police radio scanners.

On land, poachers gun down deer and bears, sometimes just for sport, sometimes for high-priced items such as bear claws and gallbladders. At sea, they illegally harvest delicacies such as abalone, which sell by the dozen for as much as $120.

In a state obsessed with ecological correctness and blessed by staggering natural beauty, such slaughter can occur with impunity.

“We’re lucky to catch 1% of what goes on out here,” Castleton said. “That’s why the resource is running out. Look how big an area this is. And there are only three of us.”

“Resource” is the department’s all-purpose name for each and every state-regulated species of fish, fowl, reptile and mammal. Castleton’s marine patrol area begins at the Mexican border and stretches north to the Orange County seaside enclave of Dana Point. In between are roughly 720 square miles of ocean and coastline.

Castleton and two young wardens, Tim Olivas and Sal Amato, are responsible for all of it. Their jobs are not easy and neither are their working conditions.

The state’s ongoing fiscal crisis has brought cutbacks in personnel and a ban on overtime. Meanwhile, hard economic times have brought an increase in illegal fishing and hunting.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Castleton’s boss, regional patrol chief Gordon Cribbs. “I’ve said often that we’re like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike.”

Another hole in that dike, according to Cribbs, is inexperienced employees.

“Sixty percent of this region’s wardens have less than three years’ experience,” he said.

And it takes at least three to four years, said Castleton, “for a guy to be of any use to us.”

On this fog-shrouded morning, Castleton and his crew are heading out to sea in their state-owned patrol boat named Tuna. Heading north from San Diego’s Point Loma, the men are searching for commercial fishing violations--illegal net lines, undersized lobster catches, unmarked trap buoys.

State Fish and Game wardens carry guns and are dually deputized as federal agents. On the water, they are not bound by search and seizure prohibitions and may board boats and search them without warrants.

Thirty minutes out, Castleton pulls up to a tiny lobster boat overburdened with traps.

Olivas goes aboard, chatting all the while, and looks over the fisherman’s paperwork, his traps and his catch.

Satisfied that all is in order, Olivas climbs back on the Tuna, waves to the smaller boat and ducks inside to talk with Castleton.

Lobster fishing can be a rich business, with restaurants paying $6.50 to $7 a pound. A good day’s haul can net 300 to 400 lobsters.

“Some of these guys make good money,” said Castleton. “They work alone. There’s no overhead.”

For commercial lobster fishing, there is no catch limit. The season runs from October to March. Department regulations make it illegal to take lobsters measuring less than 3 1/4 inches from eye socket to rear shell edge.

Behind the wheel of the 46-by-14-foot Tuna, Castleton admits to the overwhelming pressures of budget and personnel cutbacks. When California was reduced last fall to issuing IOUs for its debts, many local vendors stopped providing services to Castleton and his crew.

The next time that the Tuna--or its array of radar, underwater fish scanners and radios--needs repairing, Castleton will be in dire straits.

“I’ve got vendors who haven’t been paid since last September,” he said. “They’ve cut us off. I’ve done business with them for 12 years and they don’t want us anymore.”

Still, the 45-year-old Castleton--who served in Vietnam and spent 10 years with the California Youth Authority before joining Fish and Game--is adamant about his job. He likes it.

And so do his wardens, although they are younger and more gung-ho than Castleton.

This amuses the lieutenant. “They’re good guys,” he said, watching them blaze off in a high-powered skiff used to maneuver between fishing boats. “In these close quarters, you have to think alike. You’ve all got to be on the same team.”

Despite being unable to catch 99% of “the bad guys,” as Castleton calls poachers, he keeps at it.

“I have to care,” he said, looking out to sea. “I think too much of myself not to care. And so do these guys.”

Besides, he added with a sarcastic grin, “it beats sitting in an office.”