{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/fish-and-game-wardens/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Fish and Game Wardens",
    "soc_code": "33-3031",
    "category": "Protective Service",
    "us_employment": 5770,
    "median_annual_wage": 74060
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 74,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 14,
    "trust_premium": 11,
    "judgment_accountability": 15
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Reading a hunter's tag against a field-dressed carcass, judging whether a boat's live well is over limit, and taking a physical custody arrest are tasks no software completes — the parts that do fall (incident report drafting, camera-trap triage, license database queries) are real but sit around the edges of the encounter, which is why this is 15 and not 18.",
    "embodiment": "A warden works alone in waders, on ATVs and patrol boats, in snow and dark, tracking blood trails and hauling drowning victims out of water — there is no controlled site anywhere in the job description, and 19 rather than 20 only reflects the desk hours spent on case files and court prep.",
    "liability_shield": "You hold a state peace-officer commission under your fish-and-wildlife code with POST or equivalent academy certification, and your name goes on the citation, the seizure inventory and the probable-cause affidavit; it sits at 14 rather than 18 because the badge and arrest authority are delegated by the agency, which indemnifies and can revoke, unlike a portable professional licence.",
    "trust_premium": "Landowner permissions, informant tips on poaching rings and the goodwill that keeps a hunting camp cooperative during a check all depend on being the known warden in that district for years — but most contacts are one-off roadside or dockside stops with strangers, which caps this at 11.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide alone, out of radio range, whether a trespass shooting is a warning or a felony charge, whether to draw on an armed subject in the woods, and when to call off a search — 15 reflects that discretion running against statutory bag limits and charging standards rather than open-ended policy authorship."
  },
  "rationale": "Wardens spend their days patrolling backcountry, waterways and hunting grounds by truck, boat, ATV and on foot — checking licenses and bag limits, seizing gear, making arrests, and running search-and-rescue in bad weather. AI and drones will absorb the surveillance and paperwork layers (camera-trap review, poaching pattern analysis, report drafting), but a sworn officer with arrest powers must still be physically present to detain a person, handle a firearm, and testify. The real constraint on this occupation is state agency budgets and headcount, not automation.",
  "outlook": "Employment stays roughly flat and budget-bound through the 2030s; AI shifts wardens from paperwork toward more field hours and tech-assisted investigation.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State evidence and court rules that make AI/drone-derived detections inadmissible without a sworn warden's independent corroboration and testimony — the mechanism is already visible in state constitutional rulings against warrantless wildlife-agency surveillance of private land (e.g. the Tennessee open-fields litigation against TWRA over camera traps, and similar Institute for Justice suits in Pennsylvania and Virginia). If courts or legislatures require a warrant plus a named officer affiant for camera-trap and drone evidence, the sworn signature becomes structurally unavoidable rather than customary.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State POST (peace officer standards and training) commissions extending certification and personal-liability rules to cover AI-assisted enforcement decisions — e.g. a rule that a citation or seizure initiated by an analytics flag must be reviewed and signed by a commissioned warden who is individually named in any wrongful-seizure claim, mirroring how body-camera and use-of-force review policies were folded into POST standards after 2020.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Formal expansion of warden discretion into codified charging-decision authority — some states already have warden-issued civil restitution assessments for illegally taken game and administrative license-revocation hearings where the warden is the charging party. If more states shift wildlife violations from court prosecution to agency administrative adjudication, the warden owns more consequential, contestable calls personally.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift as the surveillance and paperwork tier is absorbed: this occupation genuinely has two tiers, and the residual is felony poaching investigation, undercover commercial-trafficking work (Lacey Act cases), interstate case coordination, and courtroom testimony. If camera-trap review and report drafting go, the remaining day is disproportionately the judgment tier — no new law required.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Already near ceiling at 19; the only route is formal designation of wardens as primary wilderness search-and-rescue and swiftwater/ice-rescue responders in state emergency-management plans, which some states do and others assign to sheriffs. Such designation hardens the physical-presence requirement but adds little to an already maxed score.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium is omitted deliberately: there is no buyer. Enforcement is a state monopoly funded by license fees and Pittman-Robertson excise revenue, and no hunter or angler chooses a human warden over an alternative. The binding threat to this occupation is not automation but appropriations — a state legislature cutting warden FTEs and justifying it with drone and analytics coverage reduces headcount without any dimension score moving. Watch agency budget lines and vacancy rates, not capability benchmarks."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 6020,
        "wage": 56410
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 6040,
        "wage": 57710
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 6800,
        "wage": 57500
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 7230,
        "wage": 58040
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 6730,
        "wage": 60730
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 6530,
        "wage": 59500
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 6290,
        "wage": 60380
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 6420,
        "wage": 68180
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 5770,
        "wage": 74060
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -4.2,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}