The MNROA is honoured to recognize Natural Resource Officer Ken Ulrich as the Shikar-Safari Club International Manitoba Wildlife Officer of the Year.

Ken started his career in June of 1973 and for the past 35 years has demonstrated the highest level of competency and leadership in all aspects of his duties. His earlier years were spent developing his enforcement skills in Clandeboye, Whitemouth, Hadashville and Portage La Prairie Districts. These Districts were some of the busiest wildlife enforcement areas in the Province. From this he gained an uncanny ability to apprehend violators.

As he moved north to Snow Lake, those abilities led many officers to seek Ken’s guidance and knowledge with enforcement situations, Wildland fire suppression and field smarts.

Ken’s time in Snow Lake coincided with 3 of the worst Wildland fire years experienced in Manitoba. He represented the Department’s involvement on several very large fire incidents; culminating in the evacuation of Snow Lake residents in the immense fire of 1989.

As the Snow Lake District Supervisor, he also managed the Wekusko Falls Initial Attack Base. Wekusko Falls is the elite level operational and logistical Initial Attack base that it is because of Ken’s attention to detail.

His organizational skills resulted in Ken being hand picked by the Department to take on the challenges of supervising the operations of the Falcon Lake area of the Whiteshell Provincial Park. In his capacity as District Supervisor, he gained the respect of the whole community; at work and outside of work. He and his family became valuable members in the community with ties that exist to this day.

During his tenure at Falcon Lake, Ken took a lead role in developing major enforcement strategies such as the Provincial Liquor Ban. This policy has greatly improved the May Long Weekend camping experience in every Manitoba Provincial Park. Many of the current policies that positively affect officer safety were initiated as a result of Ken’s dedication.

A move to the Lac du Bonnet District held many more challenges that Ken eagerly accepted. Wildlife enforcement was a major role in this district with numerous cases being initiated and conducted under Ken’s guidance. The “tree stand removal policy” is one of his initiatives.

He was instrumental in the development of a new “Peat Burning Policy” along with crop burning guidelines due to the high occurrences in the LDB District.

LDB has seen some of the busiest black bear occurrence years during Ken’s term. Consequently, his insight contributed to a detailed reporting system which aided Wildlife Branch in developing the Bear District Occurrence Reports, the development of bear policies and programs.

For approximately 10 years, he has been one of only two Incident Commanders for Manitoba Conservation’s Incident Management Teams. He’s led his teams at several large Wildland fire and tornado type incidents. His ability to cope with the pressures of evacuations, containing the situation, directing staff, and dealing with the media all with great poise and professionalism have given him the respect he well deserves.

Due to his high standards and capabilities, the Department appropriately assigned him acting Chief NRO status, not once but several times. It was always Ken’s decision to not pursue a Chief position full time as he preferred the field work and public contact of the District NRO.

He has been an active member in the Manitoba Natural Resource Officers’ Association and spent many hours at booths, trade shows and community career events promoting the role of the Natural Resource Officer.

Ken’s ability to organize and manage has always been his greatest asset! This time his peers hand picked him to sit on the organizational committee of the 2004 North American Wildlife Enforcement Officers’ Association annual conference held in Winnipeg. His positive and respectful nature made him the natural choice to serve as liaison between the MNROA and the Department over a two year period.

Congratulations to the Ulrichs on Ken’s selection as Manitoba’s 2009 Wildlife Officer of the Year!

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Seizures related to nightlighting incident in the Hartney area. Also seized and forfeited were the accused's pick up truck. The accused is a young offender therefore to protect his identity, his name and photographs of the truck have not been released.

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8 of 12 Honor Guard with the Deputy Minister of Conservation and the Assistant Regional Director of Operations.

Manitoba Conservation Operations Division is proud to acknowledge the Natural Resource Officer Provincial Honor Guard. The Honor Guard consists of 12 Natural Resource Officers who at anytime can be called into action. The Honor Guard attends various ceremonies such as the Police/Peace Officer Memorial held each year on the last Sunday of September at the Manitoba Legislature. This ceremony is held in concert with the national event that takes place each year on the same date in Ottawa. Police and Peace Officers are honored for the ultimate sacrifice at this event and is open for all the public to attend.

The Honor Guard also attends fallen Resource Officer funerals or officer sudden deaths at the request of families. The Guard will act as pallbearers or simply be present in full dress uniform. The Natural Resource Officer Honor Guard has attended out of province fallen officer deaths as a sign of respect and solidarity.

The Natural Resource Officer Honor Guard is a representative of the Minister of Conservation.

If anyone would like to contact the Honor Guard feel free to send an email to the Commander Robert Belanger at Rob.Belanger@gov.mb.ca .

"FOLLOW THE TIDE"... to NAWEOA 2009
July 12th to 19th
Moncton, New Brunswick
CANADA

For more information, please visit NAWEOA at www.naweoa.org/.