Texas Game Warden Chronicles

Mike Bradshaw spent thirty-five years as a Texas State Game Warden with the Parks and Wildlife Department, retiring May 31, 2008. Born in Crystal City, Texas, in 1947, he has resided in the southwestern part of the Lone Star State for most of his life.

As a boy in northern Dimmit County near the community of Winter Haven, he lived with his parents, two sisters and a brother on a farm and ranch outfit until his early teens. The family relocated to nearby Carrizo Springs where he graduated high school. After a brief stint at Southwest Texas Junior College in Uvalde, Bradshaw worked in the oil fields and at various ranch and agricultural jobs in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Wyoming and Montana.

He entered law enforcement in 1970 as a deputy game warden and later accepted a job as a deputy sheriff. Following basic training at the Bexar County Sheriff’s Academy in 1971, he served first in Dimmit County and later in Concho County as a deputy sheriff.

In May 1973, he swore his oath as a full-fledged State Game Warden following graduation from the Game Warden Academy at Texas A&M University and was assigned to Dimmit County where he remained for his entire career.

In addition to holding a Master Peace Officer’s License, Bradshaw is certified as a law enforcement instructor. A specialist in wildlife crime scene investigations, Bradshaw has lectured on such forensic disciplines as interpretation and analysis of geometric bloodstain patterns, bullet wound identification, various tests to estimate time of death in white-tailed deer and the art of tracking and sign cutting.

Author in 2004 uses dental plaster
to record impression of tire print
in soil.

His audiences have included city police, county sheriffs, Federal Park Rangers, U. S. Border Patrol Agents as well as game wardens from across the nation. Presentations include training classes in Texas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Tennessee and at Central Missouri State University’s National Hunting Incident Investigation Academy. In 1995, wildlife conservation organization Shikar Safari International honored Bradshaw as Texas Game Warden of the Year.

Author Mike Bradshaw is married to the former Deborah Ann Griffin of Coleman County, Texas. Their daughter Leslie is married to Todd Phillips and they have a son Matthew and twin daughters Victoria and Peyton. Mike and Debbie’s son Jake and his wife Inga have a daughter Kailey and a son Eli.

Author Mike Bradshaw passed away January 19, 2009.