For an agency that monitors mislabeled moose meat and carps about koi, having its leader charged with hauling short, illegal lobsters is the definition of irony.

Col. Thomas Santaguida, Maine’s chief game warden, resigned suddenly this week after being charged with possessing nine undersized lobsters by the Marine Patrol, the warden service’s saltwater counterpart. For a veteran lobsterman like Santaguida, with 35 years on the sea, hauling one or two shorts is inexcusable.

Nine is a travesty.

Santaguida did the right thing by resigning, apparently recognizing – as most everyone did – that his credibility as a law enforcement officer was shot. It’s not the way anybody, much less a 20-year veteran of the warden service, would want to punctuate a career.

But his rather weak explanation for the shorts – “This situation was the result of not paying close attention to the task at hand” – left Santaguida with no other choice.

His resignation has created great fodder for those who revel in the warden service’s failings, especially disgruntled sportsmen who feel chafed by its many regulations. Yet the warden service’s odd enforcement decisions, like the koi and moose meat imbroglios, have also given fuel to its critics’ flames.

For many, game wardens are Internal Revenue Service auditors of the outdoors, more interested in prosecuting minor violations than major transgressions. The agency’s decisions to prosecute certain such violations haven’t helped this reputation one bit.

These embarrassing cases also have overshadowed the agency’s good works, such as combating illegal poaching and its educational efforts to make hunting and fishing safer. Santaguida’s ensnarement in the kind of everyday check his agency is notorious for will only make its reputation more cloudy.

Like most police agencies, chief game wardens have historically risen from within its ranks. But the downside of this, or any, institutionalism is an inherent resistance to change.

And if there’s any outfit that could use a shake-up, it’s the warden service. Although sportsmen will always gripe and grumble about regulations and violations, the agency has erred by pursuing seemingly insignificant cases that have turned into high-profile gaffes.

Maine’s next chief game warden could either be someone who maintains the agency’s current course and weathers the inevitable storms from the next inevitable controversy, or, he could steer the warden service into a new direction, away from conditions that have led it to recent pratfalls.

We advocate the latter.