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Mark Sasser Named Wildlife Conservationist of the Year Mark Sasser of Montgomery was recently awarded the Wildlife Conservationist of the Year Award at the 2010 Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards banquet. Sasser is an exceptional wildlife biologist who serves as the Nongame Wildlife Program Coordinator for the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Throughout his career, Sasser has been an effective leader and influence on a variety of fronts in the natural resources community. Sasser works diligently behind the scenes for the cause of non-game wildlife and their habitats. He has promoted recovery of several imperiled species in Alabama through judicious management of available funding. Most notable are his efforts with two species in the longleaf pine ecosystem, the red-cockaded woodpecker (RCW) and the Eastern indigo snake. Sasser was key in the implementation and oversight of Alabama’s RCW Safe Harbor program which has turned out to be a win-win for landowners and the birds. A protected and threatened species, the Eastern indigo disappeared along with the longleaf forests over time. Sasser was a key player in convening a coalition of partners including Auburn University, the U.S. Forest Service, Project Orianne and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in a multi-year project that began this year with the release of 17 young eastern indigos in the Conecuh National Forest. Under Sasser’s oversight, the success of both projects has surpassed all expectations. Over the last several years, despite limited funding and a small staff, Sasser has been the impetus behind the adoption of regulations and laws designed to protect some of our most vulnerable non-game wildlife species, including Alabama’s freshwater turtles and the gopher tortoise. He is passionate about wildlife and is frequently on the front lines preventing the import/export of wildlife species in Alabama. These efforts have lessened the impacts of the pet trade on many of our unique reptiles and prevented widespread destruction of our native species through import of exotic/invasive species. Sasser has also been an active and productive member of AWF’s Alabama Wildlife magazine editorial board, volunteering his time to find qualified authors on a variety of topics, and sometimes writing and delivering quality feature articles to the magazine’s readers. Jon Sims Awarded Conservation Enforcement Officer of the Year Sergeant Jon Sims of Salem was recently awarded the Conservation Enforcement Officer of the Year Award at the 2010 Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards banquet. In his eight years as a conservation enforcement officer, Sims has distinguished himself as one of the most resourceful, intelligent and hardworking investigators in the state. Leading the Special Investigations Unit of the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, Sims and his team have solved baffling cases and tracked down numerous hard to catch violators. When outlaws in south Alabama were suspected of killing black bears, Sims and his team got the call. The team walked the 6,000-acre area where discarded bears were believed to be and discovered the bear carcasses. Within a few days, Sims and his team had confessions from two individuals. A few months later, in a separate incident involving a dead bear dumped along a road side, Sims used his detective skills to track down the person who killed the bear and dumped the carcass – two months after the bear had been found on the roadside. His determination and tireless work led to the suspect and eventually a full confession. Not surprisingly, Sims is an avid outdoorsman even when he’s not at work. He hunts, particularly turkey, and manages several hundred acres of land in Lee County. He also maintains a dove field and stages a free dove hunt each year for conservation officers and their children. www.outdooralabama.com 31
Conservation News Alabama Department of Conservation & Natural Resources BILLY POPE L-R: Doug Huff and Julie Perry from ADCNR’s IT section; and Maj. Bob Huffaker, Division Director John Jenkins, and Lt. Erica Shipman from the Alabama Marine Police Division were instrumental in the development of COORS, which helped to streamline the division’s administrative process. Alabama Marine Police Win National Award for Technological Innovation The Alabama Division of Marine Police (AMP) has recently been honored with an Innovation in Technology award from the National Association of State Boating Law Administrators (NASBLA), a national nonprofit organization that works to develop public policy for recreational boating safety for all 50 states and U.S. territories. AMP Chief Enforcement Officer Maj. Bob Huffaker was presented with the award at NASBLA’s annual conference on September 13, 2010. AMP received the award for its Conservation Officers Operations Reporting System (COORS), which allows officers to document daily activities, vehicle usage, patrol hours, and other division specific information over the Internet. COORS was developed in-house by AMP and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) IT section at no additional cost to taxpayers. Marine Police Lt. Erica Shipman says COORS was created to better utilize AMP’s resources. “With only 60 officers statewide this system allows them to spend more time in the field instead of behind a desk filling out paperwork,” Shipman said. “What used to take an officer an entire day each month and eight to 10 pieces of paper passing through as many hands, now takes a few minutes each day saving countless valuable man-hours, not to mention the cost of the paper forms and money spent on transporting the reports to Montgomery.” Since the COORS system went into effect in September 2009 it has streamlined the division’s administrative process in other ways. Earlier this year, the system was used to create disaster reports related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which freed up officers to be more actively involved in the hands-on aspect of the Alabama’s recovery efforts. Other uses for the system include creating accident and disaster reports to be shared electronically with other state and federal agencies, and posting boating courses to ADCNR’s website, www.outdooralabam.com. The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources promotes wise stewardship, management and enjoyment of Alabama’s natural resources through five divisions: Marine Police, Marine Resources, State Lands, State Parks, and Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries. To learn more about ADCNR, visit www.outdooralabama.com . 32 Outdoor Alabama | OCTOBER 2010
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