Personnel from the California State Parks air patrol highlighted their role in search and rescue missions as well as reconnaissance over California’s 280 state parks.

Pilot and State Park Peace Officer Maci Villegas spoke at the July meeting of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Aero Squadron at Sacramento Executive Airport (SAC), highlighting how the agency uses aviation to aid law enforcement. Villegas flies the agency’s Cessna T206H Stationair, a single-engine aircraft fitted with cameras and surveillance equipment to patrol the state’s beaches and remote parks.

Called Air Patrol One, the Stationair is the agency’s second and most recent aircraft, replacing an Aviat Husky A-1 that State Parks initially used, Villegas said. The agency modified the Stationair to include camera equipment on the aircraft’s exterior and mapping systems technology inside the cockpit.

California State Parks initially developed an aerial patrol unit in the 1980s to cover areas such as Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, according to the presentation. At over 640,000 acres, Anza-Borrego is the largest park in the state’s network of about 1.65 million acres of park land.

“It’s a really large area, and they didn’t have enough rangers,” Villegas said. “Depending on where the car was, a park ranger can take 2 to 3 hours just to get there. So they thought hey, maybe an airplane would help us out.”

Rangers used the Husky to patrol Anza-Borrego and other areas for more than 20 years, Villegas said. Today, the program employs several pilots along with plans for additional aircraft and personnel such as tactical flight officers, she said.

State Park Peace Officer Christopher Gazzolo joined Villegas in the presentation, saying one of the main missions for the air patrol is cannabis enforcement. Gazzolo emphasized the importance of the reconnaissance flights, saying illegal growers cause a number of problems for the agency from diverting water to using banned chemicals that pollute the environment.

“There’s still a huge demand for the illegal market,” Gazzolo said, noting that illegal growers not only avoid taxes, but also harm the environment, use forced labor from undocumented immigrants, and often have ties to organized crime networks. “With a lot of these grows, we don’t just see the illegal cannabis that’s being cultivated, it’s a lot of other things that are wrapped into that.

Using the Cessna’s surveillance equipment allows authorities to map these grows more precisely and coordinate with other agencies on the ground to conduct operations, Gazzolo said.

Funds for the air patrol come exclusively from the cannabis tax, according to Gazzolo. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Department of Cannabis Control are also funded by the tax, he said.

The Cessna T206 is based in the Sacramento area, Villegas said, although the agency also bases the aircraft in Southern California for part of the year.