The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation announced it has begun training new classes of environmental conservation police officers and forest rangers, part of an effort to reinforce the state’s front-line protection of natural resources.
The six-month academies will prepare as many as 50 recruits for careers in the agency’s Divisions of Law Enforcement and Forest Protection, Commissioner Amanda Lefton said.
Training for the 25th Basic School for Uniformed Officers began Feb. 15 at the agency’s law enforcement academy in Pulaski. Forest Ranger recruits are scheduled to begin instruction March 15 at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s Huntington Wildlife Forest in Newcomb, before continuing at the Ranger School in Wanakena and completing additional training at the State Preparedness Training Center in Oriskany.
Environmental conservation police officers, first appointed in 1880 as game protectors, enforce the state’s Environmental Conservation Law, which governs matters ranging from poaching and illegal dumping to mining violations and wildlife trafficking. In 2025, officers and investigators responded to more than 35,500 complaints and issued 15,673 tickets or made arrests. The agency currently employs 279 officers statewide.
Forest rangers, whose origins date to 1885 with the creation of the state’s Forest Preserve, focus on public use of state lands, search-and-rescue operations and wildfire response. Last year, rangers carried out 362 search-and-rescue missions, extinguished 202 wildfires that burned 840 acres and participated in 68 prescribed burns that treated 1,649 acres. They also issued more than 1,100 tickets or made arrests. Forty-one rangers were deployed to assist with fire assignments in 10 states. The state currently has 147 forest rangers.
The incoming class was selected from an eligibility list generated by nearly 10,000 applicants who took the most recent civil service examination in November 2025, the department said, underscoring continued interest in conservation law enforcement careers.
