FWC gets 26 new officers

26 new Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers were sworn in last Friday and at least one of them is coming to work in Franklin County. The FWC recruits became officers after graduating from the Pat Thomas Law Enforcement Academy in Tallahassee. The new officers attended the academy for six months and received a wide array of training, which included accuracy with firearms, vessel operation, defensive tactics, all-terrain vehicle operation and BUI/DUI identification. They will now spend an additional 14 weeks with a field-training officer learning the ropes of protecting and managing more than 575 species of wildlife and more than 700 species of fish. The division also patrols 34 million acres of public and private land across Florida, as well as 8,400 miles of tidal shoreline, 3 million acres of lakes and 12,000 miles of rivers and streams. Franklin County’s new officer is named Benjamin Barnard.