Badlands SAR Conference 2024 

The Badlands Search and Rescue Service held its second annual conference in Watford City and throughout McKenzie County from Aug. 6-9. This year's event included ground, water, and K9 skill venues with attendees coming from Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Wyoming, and South Dakota.

Held in partnership with the McKenzie County Sheriff's Office, the first day started at the law enforcement center before dividing up into those partaking in ground search basics, man-tracking, and sign cutting while those with four-legged partners met with trainers to begin working on their skills of applying a K9 to a scent and then trailing that person through the rugged and challenging outdoors through private ranch property.

Elite SAR Training of Kentucky brought two instructors that started with a classroom portion on basic ground search topics before moving into the skillset of man-tracking, that is, to identify and follow a person's clues left behind in an outdoor setting. Shoe prints, environmental disturbances, discarded items, and other clues were all covered in the training based off of world-renowned tracking expert Fernando Moreira. Students then left the indoors behind and embarked on training in the rugged Badlands of western North Dakota.

Man-tracking is slow and methodical and while it may appear initially as a waste of time when there is the pressure to cover as much ground as possible, being able to accurately identify a direction of travel rather than be searching in every direction for someone can actually speed up a search and increase the likelihood of a rescue versus a recovery.

Time is always of the essence but time scurrying about the land with no confirmation direction of travel can be a wasted use of resources and certainly time. Those present learned that attention to detail and scrutinizing the vegetation or soil can often yield clues that we often otherwise would fail to ever see. Students learned to measure and confirm a subject's gait, pace, left/right print, how to mark and differentiate the two, and what to do if the trail is "lost" and how to best work to reacquire it.

"People don't just vanish. They leave a trail no matter where they go," said lead instructor Brian Tooley. Students in Tooley's class included deputies from two North Dakota sheriff's agencies, Burleigh and McKenzie, and members of Badlands SAR.

Man-tracking is a multi-year process to become certified and more importantly to become accurate and experienced. It isn't simply a two-day course and now that person is a master tracker. This year's conference began the beginner level of what is a very long duration and multi-level skill.

A few miles away over canyons, plateaus, ridgelines, and finally the valley of the Little Missouri River, paws and boots moved about the land across flats, through river bottom wood line, up steep inclines, and back down them all the same as the American Military, Police Work Dog Association (AMPWDA) returned to the region.

Up ahead of the human 20-30 feet a search dog worked their nose, in search of whomever had left their scent here along this invisible trail. At the end of the trail sat, stood, or lay a human hiding or concealed so as to represent a person in need. Silently waiting for the search dog to find them, once dog meets the hidden human they are greeted with loud elation and the reward they are trained to receive for a successful run.

Distances of up to one mile for training and scent trails set of up to 12 hours were seen here and the Badlands in all their glory proved very challenging for both human and hound.

Water too was a focal point of this year's conference with a two-day course provided by Marine Sonic Technology of Virginia. Members of Badlands SAR and Burleigh County Water Rescue were given a day of classroom instruction that covered an array of topics from sonar, frequency, search planning, and investigation to different devices, tactics, abilities, and best practices to apply.

The second day, the boat was put in and headed up the Missouri River where a tow fish system was deployed and demonstrated. Crews then worked with their current sonar systems and with the help of the expert on hand, fine-tuned them and learned how to dial in their devices for whichever water conditions and depths they were working in.

Upon conclusion of the conference on Friday, Aug. 9, those attending left with a wealth of knowledge and information to apply here to any search operation they may encounter in the future as well as became more aware of additional resources that may be available from elsewhere.

The ultimate goal is to swiftly and accurately locate a missing person following established and proven methods or in some instances to recover them. Anytime experts can be brought in to further strengthen knowledge and understanding of the best methods and actions to employ, the more prepared and better our local and regional resources become in order to meet the task at hand and execute proper and thorough searches.

 The conference was completely free except for the canine venue.