Profile: Sheldon Jordan

Profile of a wildlife enforcement officer

Sheldon Jordan  learns something new every day in his job by being around officers who stop crime against endangered species and the environment.

Enforcing federal conservation law

Sheldon Jordan is the Director of Environment Canada’s Wildlife Enforcement Division in Quebec City. According to him, “it’s not a job, but a vocation.”

His division is responsible for a large range of activities enforcing federal conservation law. The enforcement officers control migratory bird hunting, and stop illegal imports and exports of wildlife, especially endangered species. They also patrol national wildlife areas and migratory bird sanctuaries, as well as protect species at risk within the country. Officers are constantly up against smugglers, poachers and other criminals.

“It is important to communicate what we do for Canadians. Managers usually work in an office, but a couple times a year I put on my uniform and go out to do some patrols in order to keep my boots dirty,” said Sheldon. “This keeps me in contact with front line officers and gives me the opportunity to meet the public we serve. As well, when a big bust happens, I answer a lot of media requests.  Frankly, it is incredibly easy to brag about the good work our officers and other staff do.” 

As a regional director, Sheldon is involved in regional and national management teams, so the perspective must be bigger than his unit. Sometimes it means getting up early and going to bed late. “But it is a job where I can make a difference,” declares Sheldon.

He says that one of the best parts of the job is how it contributes to his personal life. His family loves the fact that he is helping protect the environment for future generations.

Involvement with the community

Sheldon uses skills he developed as a manager in his outside-work involvement in regional school governance. As well, a few times a year, he volunteers to visit classrooms to talk about endangered species. As a fluently bilingual public servant, he arranges to do English presentations in French schools so that kids can learn about the environment and use their second language too.

Sheldon has been a public servant for 15 years. In that time, he has worked as a customs inspector, an intelligence analyst, an officer and a front line supervisor. He has been a middle manager for the past three years. 

Having an exciting job every day

 “Imagine your day starting with a phone call that your officers have just confiscated a truck full of endangered species’ meat, or with a newspaper headline that a poacher’s bullet killed a legitimate hunter by mistake, or with a message from Environmental Emergencies saying a valve broke in a factory, sending thousands of litres of oil into a river, and migratory birds are dying, or learning from field biologists that someone decided to illegally cut down trees and excavate in a national wildlife area. All of these situations have to be investigated.”

Sheldon thinks this is a very exciting time to be a young Public Service manager. “We have the highest educated workforce in history. The new Public Service we are building is multicultural and is more at ease with working in two or more languages.”

The best part of his job, says Sheldon, is that he learns something new every day. He is around officers who stop crime against endangered species and the environment, and is surrounded by cutting edge forensics, highly trained biologists and chemists, as well as non-governmental organizations that work on preserving the planet.

“When I reflect on my career in the Public Service, the thing that I want most to have accomplished is to have broken down walls and got people working together across professions, organizations, languages and cultures, so that we are more effective.”

• Next: Brian Kilpatrick’s office is 9,000 hectares of closely watched woodland in south-central New Brunswick, the largest federal research forest in Canada.
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