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When Erryl Wolgemuth was about 16 years old, a neighbor who was a pilot for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife took him up in a plane when the Division was looking for poachers shooting deer at night. Wolgemuth was “fascinated.” Today he works with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Office of Law Enforcement and has won the 2025 Guy Bradley Award.
While at Ohio University, he met renowned conservationist Dr. Richard Leakey of Kenya. Wolgemuth says, “I still remember to this day him telling stories of the poaching in Africa and the stuff that they dealt with.”
These experiences, along with his dad introducing him to hunting and fishing when he was young, led him to become a state wildlife officer in Ohio. But he “knew the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was an elite agency in conservation law enforcement, I knew that back then and, of course, that still stands to this day.”
He fulfilled a lifelong dream by joining the Service in 2001.
Wolgemuth was drawn to the Service by more than just its elite nature. “I came to the Fish and Wildlife Service because they have a professional focus on undercover work and that's what I wanted to do.”
And that’s what he has done – first working as an undercover agent, then moving through a range of supervisory positions, before taking on his current role as the Special Agent in Charge of the Bilateral Investigations Unit.
The Service became even more elite when it developed and professionalized its undercover school for the training.
The school helped his wife, too, and she isn’t even an agent.
After the intense training, the attendees gather for a social to relax, and one year Wolgemuth invited his wife to it. After hanging out with 25 undercover agents, she told him: “Erryl, you've given me the best present ever, because now I feel like I understand you more after meeting your friends. I understand your wiring now.”
Col. Kevin Jordan, Chief of Law Enforcement with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, also won the 2025 Guy Bradley Award.
The Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation bestow the award, named after the first wildlife law enforcement agent killed in the line of duty, on one state and one federal wildlife law enforcement officer annually. The winners’ “dedication and public service to protecting the nation's natural resources demonstrates outstanding leadership, excellence in implementation, knowledge, and actions that have advanced the cause of wildlife conservation.”
Wolgemuth is quick to point out that the award isn’t really his. “It's a reflection of all the great people I worked with in the field. It's not me.”
Beyond the Service special agents, he says that “most of the time when we do largescale investigations, our strongest law enforcement counterparts are the state agencies, state conservation agencies. We are always willing to work hand in hand with each other and that also makes it very successful.”
The award recognizes Wolgemuth for those types of “impactful investigations targeting illegal trafficking and resource exploitation.”
Among the more memorable investigations were several targeting the illegal trafficking of paddlefish and sturgeon and its caviar. Paddlefish and several sturgeon species are protected under Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and trade is strictly regulated. Some sturgeon species are also protected under the Endangered Species Act.
One time, he and his partner posed as fishing guides for a group of Russians. Wolgemuth says, “We had hung out with them for so long and had befriended them. They invited us to the Sochi Olympics,” the last Olympics in Russia. (They didn’t go, of course.)
Another time he started an undercover catering business to stop trafficking in paddlefish.
As a result of the cases, several pleaded guilty, went to federal prison, and paid heavy fines.
Wolgemuth was also recognized for his collaboration, and besides the states, he mentions working with U.S. Attorney's offices and the Environmental Crimes Section of the Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resource Division. He also worked with other federal agencies, including EPA, FBI, HSI, and NOAA.
But the Service’s undercover special agents are, well, special. We “truly have the best undercover agents in the world and they're very good at what they do, and they deeply believe in what they do.”
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