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BCTA Newsletter Spring 2012 Page 1 of 10 BBrriittiisshh CCoolluummbbiiaa TTrraacckkiinngg AAssssoocciiaattiioonn

SAR NEW INITIATIVES FUNDING APPROVED FOR 2012!

Good News to shake off those winter From the Editor. As you saw on the blues! Following a formal request from front page – the Association was the BCTA in early January, the National recognised by the RCMP with the SAR Secretariat (NSS) in Ottawa, Certificate of Appreciation for the approved an amendment to the New dedication and high standards displayed Initiatives Fund (NIF) Contribution under difficult circumstances by the Agreement (CA) allowing the transfer of Trackers who worked the Sparwood funding and a one-year extension to the search and police investigation. Kudos program. This will permit the BCTA to to all of the GSAR Volunteers and continue promoting tracker training, Trackers who responded to the task! facilitate courses, and provide members and instructors with some In This issue: This issue contains the reimbursement of out-of-pocket summary of the BCTA Board meeting expenses. held on 29 January. As well, now that funding has been approved for 2012, BCTA-sponsored GSAR Tracking there is a review of the reimbursements course announcements for spring, which may be claimed by BCTA summer and fall 2012 will be posted on Member students, instructors and host the website calendar as soon as they can GSAR Group course coordinators. be confirmed. Towards the end of 2011, some 11 GSAR groups in BC had Reminder 2012 Memberships: BCTA expressed interest in hosting tracking membership renewals are due by 1 May courses. Host group Training Officers 2012. and/or course coordinators are reminded to contact the BCTA Regional Directors As some of you may be aware, I as soon as possible in order to initiate snowbird in during the winter planning and set dates for courses at months. Some of my favourite locations their locations. See the website for hiking and practising tracking are in www.bctracking.org the Superstition Mountains and the Saguaro National Parks. But there are With the roll-out of our own BCTA also some places not to hike, as southern Training video and some tweaks to the Arizona is a major back-country courses, we look forward to more and highway for human as well as drug better GSAR Tracker training this year! smugglers between the Mexican border and the major centres of Tucson and Phoenix. Volunteers aren't unpaid because they're worthless, volunteers are unpaid As Trackers, we have all heard of, because they are priceless! and/or read Jack Kearney’s book on tracking. Besides the US Border Patrol and Homeland Security, there is a special group that works for US

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement Board Meeting Summary ICE, a group of Native American Trackers known as the “Shadow January 2012 Wolves”. A/Treasurer’s Report: With the In this newsletter, the Tracker Tales transfer of unspent SAR NIF funds to section features several articles about the new fiscal year, the Association can this group of trackers, that I found very reimburse instructors and interesting, and I expect you will too! students/members some of the cost of Also, I hope our friends in the RCMP, attending courses. Canada Border Services, Parks and Conservation, and First Nations also take There will be new 2012 reimbursement note – and give us a call to see about forms available from course coordinators training in this “dying art” of Tracking! and lead instructors, and on the BCTA www.bctracking.org website members-only link. Correctly completed claims forms may be collected by course coordinators or lead BCTA Executive and Directors 2012 instructors, or otherwise need to be mailed in within 7 days of completion of President: Win Koch the course. Vice President: Bart Bjorkman Secretary: Vacant Training Committee : The following A/Treasurer: Alison Rose courses are announced or in final planning; details are on the BCTA Regional Directors: website www.bctracking.org SE: Jerome Liboiron SW: Vacant – Contact Peter Wilson 23-25 March Naramata/Penticton TKA Central: Kelly Carnochan & Advanced

North: Dwaine Brooke Vancouver Is.: Peter Wilson 27-29 April Kelowna Train The Trainer/ Instructor course Committee Chairs: Membership: Peggy Shelley 11-13 May Princeton UTS TK1 & SC

Training: Bart Bjorkman Communications: Win Koch 25-27 May Salt Spring Island TKA Policy: Dwaine Brooke 25-27 May Kelowna Something new: Contact information at: Dog Handlers and Adv. Trackers. http://www.bctracking.org Tracker Training Video is in final editing and should be ready by March. It will serve two purposes – as a “If everyone is in agreement – promotional tool and as a training video.

then someone is not thinking!” Tracker Callout list is being finalized George Patton and should be sent to PEP by March. The selected individuals will be notified

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via e-mail to confirm their availability All nominees/volunteers must be BCTA on the list. members in good standing and be willing to stand for election at the 2012 Tracker Advisor list of SC and TK2 Annual General Meeting. The with additional GSAR TL, SARM and nominees/volunteers will need to be ICS training is going through final approved and appointed by the Board in vetting. Individuals will be contacted to an Acting capacity. Following the AGM confirm availability and the list will go elections, the term will be for a period of to PEP. up to two years.

Instructor ID cards are being produced 2012 Reimbursements and will be mailed out soon.

The BC Tracking Association is very Membership Renewals are due 1 May grateful to the National Search and 2012. Application forms are available Rescue Secretariat (NSS) for the transfer on the BCTA website. We presently of SAR New Initiatives Fund (NIF) to have 43 members who have 3-yr 2012 and the one-year extension to the memberships to 2013. We also have an project. The agreement is “To additional 23 new members rolled-over establish, maintain and oversee to 2012 from the courses in late fall. proven and consistent human tracking Welcome to the Association! training standards in the province of BC with the primary goal to have Help Wanted every certified ground SAR volunteer BCTAS Regional Directors in BC trained to a minimum of Track Aware.” The BC Tracking Association Society requires volunteers to fill the positions of This extension to the agreement will Regional Directors throughout the enable the Association to provide Province of BC. The duties include: certified tracking instructor training and liaising with PEP Regional Managers, In-House GSAR tracker training in BC SARA Regional Directors, GSAR British Columbia at considerably training officers and trackers within the reduced costs to Association members. region, providing tracking training materials and advice, facilitating What this means to BCTA Members is tracking training, assisting other that they will be subsidized and/or may Regional Directors and providing claim reimbursement for some training reports, as required. Directors are voting costs based on the agreement criteria, as members of the Executive Board of summarized below. Directors and play a great role in furthering Tracker Training in BC. Association members wishing to attend a

BCTA sponsored tracking course will For further information or to nominate have to pre-pay all the associated tuition a suitable volunteer for any of the above and fees up-front when they register for positions, please contact a course. However, following the [email protected] successful completion of the course, they can submit a reimbursement claim to the

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BCTA, which may include the taxes for two people, or campsite fees, following: etc. with receipts. Meal packages during the course may also be reimbursed. In In-House Novice/ Track Aware/ return, the BCTA will expect certified Advanced Up to 10 BCTA sponsored instructors to sign a letter of support, In-House classes could be offered in hours-in-kind, to volunteer to instruct at 2012. BCTA Members will pay a tuition In-House courses. fee of $50 per In-House course, which is not claimable. Members may be entitled BCTA Certified Instructors assigned to claim reimbursement for by the Training Committee as designated transportation if they live more than 40 instructors on BCTA sponsored courses km one-way from the training location, may be reimbursed for out-of-pocket up to a maximum of 500 km for one expenses, including travel, meals and round trip at the rate of 50 cents/km. accommodation, within prescribed Car-pooling is encouraged. Only the limits. Instructors will volunteer their driver may claim the mileage. time for travel and instruction, and will Accommodation and meals are at the not be compensated for their hours. student’s expense and are not This is how the Association can offer the reimbursed. lowest possible tuition rates to In-House students. Tracker 1, 2 and Sign Cutters Members may be offered BCTA Course Coordinators of GSAR groups sponsored advanced Universal Tracking hosting BCTA sponsored courses may Services (UTS) courses and may be able be reimbursed for training manuals, hall to claim reimbursement for the UTS rentals and other costs associated with tuition of $175 (Cdn), plus transportation organizing and running a course. Details if they live more than 40 km one-way will be provided by the BCTA Regional from the training location, up to a Director when a sponsored course is maximum of 500 km for one round trip requested. at the rate of 50 cents/km. Accommodation and meals are at the student’s expense and are not Claims Forms for reimbursement will reimbursed. be available on the BCTA website at: www.bctracking.org - sign in to Train the Trainers Qualified and Members Only and open Files. selected Members may be offered a BCTA sponsored TTT/ Instructor How to Host a Course 2012 is now course in 2012 for up to 15 students. available on the website. Groups BCTA Members may be able to claim wishing to host a tracking course should reimbursement for the tuition, plus contact their BCTA Regional Directors transportation if they live more than 40 or the Training Committee. km one-way from the training location, up to a maximum of 500 km round trip at the rate of 50 cents/km. Shared “Settling scores is a waste of energy commercial accommodation may be better spent achieving the goals that are reimbursed up to $125 per night plus the ultimate revenge.” Craig Oliver

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The Shadow Wolves work for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. To join the special unit, each officer must be at least one-quarter American Indian and belong to a federally recognized tribe. The trackers spend their days traversing the most isolated parts of the reservation, an 11,000-square-mile parcel of land in Tracker Tales southern Arizona that shares a 73-mile border with Mexico. The nation, as it is Indian 'Shadow Wolves' stalk called here, is the size of Connecticut and smugglers on Arizona reservation populated by more than 13,000 tribe members — slightly more than one per They work for the federal government — square mile. and also to protect sacred lands of the Tohono O'odham Nation along the border There are no street signs and few paved with Mexico. roads. On the state highway, it takes three hours to drive from end to end. November 21, 2011 By Brian Bennett, Los Angeles Times. The Shadow Wolves walk ridgelines, ride ATVs and roll high-powered pickups over Reporting from the Tohono O’odham mounds of shale and through rutted Nation, — Kevin Carlos hates how the washes. They've trained their eyes to read drug runners tramp through the ancient the desert's tells: cemeteries and holy places he holds dear. Fresh tire tracks shimmer in sunlight. That peak up there, he says, speeding Old footprints are crisscrossed with toward the reservation's border with insect trails. Marijuana bales leave Mexico. That's where the creator lives. His burlap fibers on mesquite thorns. name is I'itoi, the elder brother. He created the tribe out of wet clay after a When the U.S. Border Patrol clamped summer rain. Tribe members still bring down on crossings in an area east of the him offerings — shell bracelets, beargrass reservation five years ago, smuggling baskets and family photos — and leave rings moved their routes to the forbidding them in his cave scooped out of the peak. 60-mile backcountry corridor that crosses Tohono O'odham lands. Two billion But the drug smugglers don't know that. dollars-worth of marijuana, cocaine and On their way to supply America's drug heroin has moved through the reservation markets, they use these sacred hilltops as since then, according to ICE estimates. lookouts, water holes as toilets and the desert as a trash can. The Shadow Wolves use GPS locaters, high-powered radios and other modern So Carlos hunts them. tools, but it is their tracking skills and their feel for the hidden box canyons, caves Carlos is a member of the Shadow and seasonal watering holes that make Wolves, a team of eight American Indian them formidable counter-narcotics agents. trackers who stalk drug smugglers though the desolate canyons and arroyos of the "It takes patience. These guys think they Tohono O'odham Nation reservation. are out in the middle of nowhere, scot- free," Carlos says. "Then we find them." "I like to think I am protecting not only the U.S. but my area as well, my home," he The morning sun is inching off the horizon says. when Carlos starts looking for fresh tracks. His pickup is in low gear, going

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barely 2 mph. He is on a dirt trail that runs along the Mexican border. Anyone moving north had to cross this path. With the window down, he studies the ground. The truck bears low, horizontal scratch marks from days on end of Carlos driving through thorny brush. Those, he says, are his "Arizona pinstripes." Carlos stops, gets out and tracks a few scrapes in the sand. Smugglers had tied carpet to their shoes to hide their prints, but Carlos recognizes the marks. "They came through late yesterday," he says. Overnight, a wood rat's tail left a groove across one print. They could be far away already. For $500, a young man at the southern edge of the tribe's traditional lands in Mexico will strap a 40-pound bale of marijuana on his back and hike for five days through the badlands to Interstate 8 in Arizona. A footprint from smugglers. Rick Scibelli Jr. for The New York Times Bandits sometimes lay in wait to steal the drugs, or to stick up illegal migrants for They point to drug smugglers, 10 or 11, cash. Some thieves carry Beretta pistols. crossing from Mexico. The deep A few prefer machine guns. impressions and spacing are a giveaway to the heavy loads on their "It's getting worse," says Carlos, as he backs. With no insect tracks or paw weaves through the mesquite. That night, prints of nocturnal creatures marking a report comes in about a gunfight at the the steps, Mr. Thompson determines northern edge of the reservation. Five the smugglers probably crossed a few bandits with rifles had ambushed a group hours ago. of 15 marijuana smugglers on foot. “These guys are not far ahead; we’ll get them,” said Mr. Thompson, 50, a strapping who follows the trail like a bloodhound. In Arizona Desert, Indian At a time when all manner of high technology is arriving to help beef up Trackers vs. Smugglers security at the Mexican border — infrared cameras, sensors, unmanned drones — By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD there is a growing appreciation among Published: March 7, 2007 The New York the federal authorities for the American Times Indian art of tracking, honed over generations by ancestors hunting TOHONO O’ODHAM NATION, Ariz. — A animals. fresh footprint in the dirt, fibers in the mesquite. Harold Thompson reads the Mr. Thompson belongs to the Shadow signs like a map. Wolves, a federal law enforcement unit of Indian officers that has operated since the

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early 1970s on this vast Indian nation The Tohono land, which is the size of straddling the Mexican border. Connecticut and the third-largest reservation in area in the country, has Tracking skills are in such demand that long vexed law enforcement. Scores of the Departments of State and Defense people die crossing here every year in the have arranged for the Shadow Wolves to searing, dry heat of summer or the frigid train border guards in other countries, cold of winter. And its 76-mile-long border including some central to the fight against with Mexico, marked in most places with a terrorism. Several officers are going to three- or four-strand barbed-wire fence train border police in Tajikistan and that is easy to breach, is a major , which border Afghanistan, transshipment point for marijuana, and in several other countries. Mexico’s largest illicit crop. In the renewed push to secure the border with Mexico, the curbing of narcotics trafficking often gets less public attention than the capturing of illegal immigrants. But the 15-member Shadow Wolves unit, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is recruiting members to reach the congressionally authorized complement of 21. And the immigration agency is considering forming a sister unit to patrol part of the Canadian border at the Blackfeet reservation in , where concern about drug trafficking is growing. “Detecting is one thing, and apprehending is something entirely different,” said Rodney Irby, a special agent in Tucson for the immigration agency who helps supervise the Shadow Wolves. “I applaud Adding to the challenge is that drug the technology; it will only make the smugglers have enlisted tribal members or border more secure. But there are still forced them into cooperation, sometimes going to be groups of people who stashing their loads in the ramshackle penetrate the most modern technology, houses dotting the landscape or paying and we need a cadre of agents and the young to act as guides. Several tribal officers to apprehend them.” members live on the Mexican side, and those on the American side have long The Shadow Wolves have seized nearly freely crossed the border, which they 30,000 pounds of illegal drugs since usually do through a few informal entry October, putting them on pace to meet or points that drug traffickers, too, have exceed previous annual seizure amounts. picked up on. They routinely seize some 100,000 pounds of illegal drugs a year, Mr. Irby How much the Shadow Wolves disrupt the said. criminal organizations is debated. Officials said they believed the group’s work at They home in on drug smugglers, who least complicated drug smuggling use less-traveled cattle tracks, old wagon- operations — the Shadow Wolves have wheel trails and barely formed footpaths to received death threats over the years — ferry their loads to roads and highways but they said they could not estimate the about 40 miles from the border. amount of drugs making it through.

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Marvin Eleando, a Tohono who retired On a recent day, Mr. Thompson picked from the unit in 2004, said he believed the up the track around 3 a.m. and, with Mr. Shadow Wolves got just a small fraction of Ortega, stayed on it for nearly 12 hours the drugs moving through the Tohono through thorny thickets and wide-open lands. Mr. Eleando estimated it would take desert. As the terrain grew craggy, Mr. about 100 Shadow Wolves to truly foil the Thompson kept a brisk pace, with Mr. smugglers, who employ spotters on Ortega and other officers leapfrogging mountaintops who watch for officers and ahead to help find the trail. then shift routes accordingly. “Every chase is just a little different,” Mr. Still, he said, the unit must keep up the Ortega said, barely pausing as he effort because the drugs, and the gun followed the prints in the sand. violence often associated with trafficking, imperil tribal members. It grew easier as the sun rose and the smugglers kept bumping into thorny “The kids get mixed up in this and then bushes and stopping to rest, leaving don’t want to work anymore,” Mr. Eleando their food wrappers behind and coat said. fibers in the cat-claw brush. By midafternoon, Mr. Ortega and Mr. The Shadow Wolves track smugglers on Thompson were tiring, too. But the scent the Tohono reservation. of the men’s burlap sacks perked up Mr. The Shadow Wolves, established with a Ortega, and he quickened his pace, finally handful of officers in 1972 as part of what catching sight of the smugglers and was then the United States Customs prompting them to bolt from their resting Service, were the first federal law spot. enforcement officers allowed on Tohono Left behind were 10 bales of marijuana, land. 630 pounds in total, a fairly typical bust, The federal government agreed to the with a street value of more than $315,000. Tohono O’odham Nation’s demand that With the weight off their backs, the the officers have American Indian smugglers showed new speed dashing to ancestry, a requirement still in place. hiding places and easily outmatched their Members are at least one-quarter Indian, pursuers. Other Shadow Wolves drove out and the current group represents seven to pick up the load, finding their tribes, including the Tohono. colleagues resting on the bales and While other law enforcement agencies, grinning in satisfaction. including the Border Patrol, use tracking, “When we get the dope or the guys,” Mr. the Shadow Wolves believe that their Thompson said, “that’s when it ends.” experience and their Indian ancestry give them an edge, particularly here. “I speak the language, so when we are dealing with elderly members in particular I can make them more comfortable,” said Gary Ortega, a Tohono who has been in the Shadow Wolves for nine years. “They are willing to tell us things they know or see that they may not tell another federal agent or officer.” There is also, of course, the thrill of the hunt.

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Fact Sheet: ICE Shadow Wolves The Shadow Wolves are the Department of Homeland Security’s only Native June 2007 Overview American tracking unit. The Shadow Wolves comprise a U. S. The Tohono O’odham Nation, patrolled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement the Shadow Wolves, covers 2.8 million (ICE) tactical patrol unit based on the acres and is comprised mainly of small, Native American Tohono O’odham Nation scattered villages. in southern Arizona. Shadow Wolf officers are known for their ability to track alien The Shadow Wolves have traveled to and drug smugglers as they attempt to , Uzbekistan, Latvia, smuggle their illegal commodities across and to teach ancient tracking skills the border. The unit boasts an esteemed to customs officials, border guards, and history of tracking passed down from national police in those countries in order generation to generation. The name to detect and follow the tracks of people "Shadow Wolves" refers to the way the who may be transporting components of unit hunts, like a wolf pack. When one wolf weapons of mass destruction. finds prey, it calls in the rest of the wolf The Shadow Wolves employ traditional pack. tracking skills combined with modern law Despite possession of high-tech enforcement technology to enforce equipment, the unit relies mainly on immigration and customs laws on the 76- traditional methods of tracking, primarily mile stretch of land the Tohono O’odham a technique called "cutting for sign." Nation shares with Mexico. "Cutting" is searching for and analyzing "sign," which includes any kind of The unit was transferred back to ICE from physical evidence (footprints, tire tracks, CBP’s Border Patrol in October 2006 and thread, clothing, etc). Officers may spend is being utilized to enhance ICE hours or days tracking in the field investigations and operations on the following a "sign" until arrests and Tohono O’odham Nation. seizures are made, or it has been determined that the contraband has been Since transferring back to ICE in October loaded into a vehicle and transported from 2006, the 15-member unit is responsible the area. for the seizure of over 31,000 pounds of marijuana, over 43 criminal arrests of Key Facts smugglers and the seizure of 16 vehicles. The Shadow Wolves methodical approach Officers estimate in recent years they has enabled them to track and apprehend have seized an average of 60,000 pounds smugglers in parts of the Southwestern of illegal drugs a year. U.S. across arduous desert terrain and rugged mountainous areas where tracks left by smugglers may be no more than an overturned pebble or an almost indistinguishable impression in the sand. An experienced Shadow Wolf can spot small items snagged on branches, twigs bent or broken, or even a single fiber of cloth or burlap from a sack or bag that could be filled with drugs. They can read faint footprints in the dust and determine when they were made, where they came from and whether or not traffickers are Future issues of the BCTA Newsletter carrying additional weight such as will featurte more articles on the backpacks filled with drugs. “Shadow Wolves” of Arizona.

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