#132 - Cartels, Gunfights, Grows & Poisoned Wildlife: The Hidden War Nobody Sees w/John Nores
October 5, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThe Hidden War on America's Public Lands
On a rainy December night in California's Henry Coe State Park, a soaking-wet college student stumbled into a conversation that would change his life. A game warden appeared out of the darkness, and when the student asked what a game warden actually did, the answer—patrolling remote backcountry, working alone, knowing every rancher and locked gate—hit him like a revelation. "I'm doing the wrong thing," John Nores told himself. He switched majors from engineering to criminal justice the next day. That chance encounter launched a nearly three-decade career that would take him from writing deer-baiting tickets to leading the nation's first tactical unit dedicated to fighting drug cartels on public lands, surviving a firefight where his partner took an AK round through both legs.
The Game Warden's Unique Role
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Navigation Outline
- 2 (00:00) **Opening: An Officer Down** - A cartel grow raid turns into a firefight; host introduces retired Lieutenant John Nores, a California game warden who spent 30 years chasing cartels in the backcountry.
- 3 (04:18) **Origin Story: From Silicon Valley to Game Warden** - Nores describes his upbringing in rural Silicon Valley, his grandfather's influence, and the family ethos that "the woods are my church."
- 4 (10:20) **The Hunter's Ethic vs. The Anti-Hunter** - Nores and Ben discuss the emotional divide between hunters and anti-hunters, arguing that conservation requires ethical harvest and that suffering in nature is far worse than a clean kill.
- 5 (14:52) **Predator Control and the Tule Elk Crisis** - Nores details his work protecting California's endemic tule elk from coyote predation and the public backlash he receives for killing "fuzzy" predators.
- 6 (21:47) **The COVID Wake-Up Call** - Nores describes how the pandemic drove a 30-40% increase in hunter safety licenses as urbanites realized they needed self-reliance.
- 7 (26:35) **The Accidental Career: Meeting a Game Warden Changes Everything** - Nores recounts the chance encounter on a freezing backpacking trip that made him abandon engineering and pursue the impossible dream of becoming a game warden.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
"As a game warden, what's the closest you've ever been to dying in the woods?"
Episode 132 of The Wild Chaos Podcast is streaming NOW on YouTube and all major podcast platforms! Watch the full episode in studio here: https://youtu.be/MMl49aceTLI
Retired California game warden Lieutenant John Nores spent nearly three decades protecting wildlife and public lands, but his career eventually pulled him into a fight he never expected. What began with traditional game-warden work led John into illegal marijuana grows hidden deep inside California's mountains. John describes sophisticated water diversions, armed growers, toxic chemicals, poisoned wildlife, hidden camps, cartel-linked operations and raids that eventually turned into gunfights.
During one operation, John's young partner was struck by a rifle round that passed through both legs. With the mountainside still unsecured, John and his team fought to keep him alive for hours while waiting for an extraction. John says another armed grower was positioned only feet away and potentially seconds from shooting him before John's teammates engaged the threat.
John later helped build California Fish and Wildlife's Marijuana Enforcement Team, bringing together game wardens, tactical capabilities, K9s and other resources to target illegal grows while documenting their impact on wildlife, waterways and public lands.
John also takes Bam inside the world of game wardens: how much authority they actually have, the Open Fields Doctrine, where that authority can be abused, poaching investigations, undercover surveillance, hunting ethics and why some of the best wildlife officers are hunters themselves.
This conversation goes far beyond illegal marijuana. It's about the hidden dangers inside America's wilderness, the people protecting it and a war most Americans never realize is happening.
To follow John and learn more about his mission, visit: https://www.johnnores.com/hidden-war.html or purchase his best selling book here: Hidden War, 2nd edition: How Special Operations Game Wardens are Reclaiming America's Wildlands from the Drug Cartels
Please visit our website to get more information: https://wildchaosshow.com/
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