New warden uses old-school skills in desperate search

EDGERTON, Wis. (AP) — Austin Schumacher parked his unmarked squad truck and watched pheasant hunters work their way into the woods under the overcast, late-fall sky. The rookie Department of Natural Resources warden had just popped the lid of his salad container when the radio squawked: a 13-year-old boy, missing.

The boy had run away from Edgerton Middle School after a dispute with his teachers — he swore at them before he ducked out of the school and headed into the swamp across the street. Principal Clark Bretthauser tried to follow, but lost him in the mucky underbrush.

The boy was clad only in a T-shirt and sweatpants. The temperature was 39 degrees Fahrenheit (3.89 degrees Celsius) and falling as the sun dipped toward the horizon; forecasts called for a snowstorm at nightfall.

Schumacher put down his salad, flipped on his lights and sirens and headed for Edgerton.

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Schumacher is 25. Growing up in southern Wisconsin, he fly fished and hunted “pretty much everything” — including deer with a musket. Inspired by an uncle who worked as a police officer, he majored in criminal justice at Madison’s Edgewood College. A post-graduation ride-along with a DNR warden showed him the way to a job that would combine police work with his love for the outdoors.

He spent two months training in the backwoods of northern Wisconsin, learning to track people in the wilderness without the aid of technology.

The most important lesson: Humans are lazy creatures. Animals will crawl under or go around obstacles. People will push them aside or plow through them. Everything in nature is vertical as it tries to reach the sun; if you see something horizontal, like a branch on the ground, chances are humans were there.

It was a lesson much on Schumacher’s mind a little after...