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Duck, Duck, Shoot

Petite and badass, she keeps hunters in her sights

By Deirdra Funcheon 

"Does the thought of seeing a dead duck make you queasy?" Lindsay Bruening asks.

It's not an academic question. Bruening, a 25-year-old law enforcement officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, encounters plenty of defunct waterfowl. It's fair to assume she doesn't get queasy: Ducks are beautiful when they're alive, she says, but she's happy to see them in her Crock-Pot too.

Bruening is petite — about five-foot-four and 120 pounds — with a baby face, a long blond braid, and a syrupy Southern accent. Add a bulletproof vest and a Glock 9mm tucked in her belt and you've got a combination that mesmerizes men. They throw up their arms as if they're surrendering when she passes and beg, "Arrest me!"

But out on the edge of the Everglades, guys with guns take Bruening seriously. On December 8, she was patrolling at the outset of duck-hunting season, covering a swampy area off U.S. 27, about three miles north of the border of Broward and Palm Beach counties. This parcel — technically, it's Stormwater Treatment Area Number Two (STA2) — had formerly been closed to hunting. Now, Bruen­ing was seeing the pent-up demand.

Even hardcore Floridians might be surprised at the creatures that are hunted in the southern part of the state — frogs, sure, and fish and ducks, but also deer, doves, and turkey. For some time now, state hunters and fishers have been at odds with environmentalist groups as well as some government agencies. But lately, sportsmen are at least a little happier with the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, at the bureaucratic level as well as in their dealings with someone like Bruening, who seems to grasp their passion and pastime.

The commission has a dual role. Its officers enforce laws, as Bruening does, with the same powers as a sheriff's deputy but with statewide jurisdiction. And the commission makes policy. This month, for example, it had to determine whether manatees should keep their "endangered" status or be downgraded to merely "threatened" (the commission left the placid sea beasts on the "endangered" list) and consider whether to reduce commercial trapping of spiny lobsters (no, at least until 2009). Meanwhile, it was also Fish and Wildlife workers who found hundreds of pounds of pot stashed in a boat at Haulover Marina a few weeks ago. That dicier part of the commission's work was also evident in October, when FWCC officer Michelle Lawless died in a nighttime ATV crash, apparently while she was chasing poachers (the incident is still under FWCC investigation).

Bruening's government-issued Ford F-150 contains a Dell laptop and a wireless transmitter; a printer, for issuing citations; and a CB radio as well as binoculars. A crate of rulebooks and field guides occupies the back seat. She nabbed a red-light runner the other day — "This truck lights up like a Christmas tree when I pull someone over!" she said — and at the same time, she's expected to know the difference between a 12-gauge and a 20-gauge shotgun and how to catch an alligator with her hands.

Bruening was one of 47 recruits and just three women the year she started with the commission, she says, drawn from 700 applicants. Aspiring officers must pass two written tests as well as a grueling test of physical fitness and undergo multiple interviews. As part of that process, Bruen­ing says, the commission even interviewed her friends and neighbors. Part of the reward for those who pass is a base salary of just $32,000 a year, well below even Broward Sheriff's Office deputies, who start at an annual salary of $40,947.

Bruening was at STA2 to keep an eye on the duck hunters, who each had to register for one of 28 spots. They began their day around 4 a.m., clad in camouflage, as they lugged coolers and canoes. They set their decoys and covered themselves in palm fronds and then waited; they're not allowed to shoot until a half-hour before sunrise. And then, when that moment comes, "it's like a fireworks grand finale," Bruening says. She listens to hunters as they try to mimic a mallard's honk and laughs. About 9 a.m., she flags down two hunters who are done for the day, Julian Prieto and Ron Ferguson, both of Miami. She does to them what she will do 20 more times that day: asks to inspect their truck. She checks to see that they have hunting licenses and federal duck stamps. She makes sure their rifles are plugged, allowing only three shells in the chambers. Using a magnet, she ensures that the shot they're using is steel, not lead, which is an environmental toxin. Then she opens their cooler and counts heads. The hunters are allowed to take six ducks each. She pets the dead ducks' feathers admiringly.

Is that blood dripping from a drake's beak?

"No, no," Prieto says, laughing. "He was drinking cherry Kool-Aid!"

Like other hunters here, Prieto and Ferguson plan to eat what they've killed. Prieto is particularly keen on barbecued duck wrapped in bacon and garlic. Duck hunting, he says, is his therapeutic obsession, which he rates as "better than sitting in an office making $150 an hour."

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