Law of Political Jungle Snares a Ranger

For more than 30 years, I have had the incredible fortune to serve as a back-country ranger in Yellowstone National Park. Since 1978, I have patrolled the most remote area in the Lower 48 states -- the southeastern corner of Yellowstone known as the Thorofare.

Many old-timers consider this the best job in the Park Service, even though it takes three days on horseback to get to the duty station.

Though all Americans own this magical land, I hesitate to describe this primordial wilderness lest the beauty of discovery become tarnished for others. Here, elk, bison and grizzly bears live lives of self-determination. These environs radiate a harmony unknown to most mortals.

In recent times, however, this enveloping harmony has turned toward discord. I have witnessed Yellowstone’s most elusive and endangered animals drawn to early deaths beyond the borders of their home territory. My success and that of other rangers in catching poachers inside Yellowstone loses relevance when large numbers of animals are lured out of the park by salt baits set illegally by commercial hunting outfitters for their clients.

Salt bait sites concentrate elk so heavily that as many as 300 are killed each fall in the area adjacent to Thorofare’s park boundary. Trophy hunters usually don’t pack all of their elk meat out of this wilderness or gut the animals they kill. Large quantities of rotting meat attract wolves and grizzlies from Yellowstone’s interior, some from more than 20 miles away.

The inevitable conflict between bears and humans results in increasingly frequent maulings; in one recent year, eight grizzlies were killed in Thorofare country as a result of these encounters. Campers near the park boundary face a near-constant threat of death or injury from grizzlies awaiting the meaty rewards they have learned to expect when shots are fired.

Those predators managing to avoid being shot are becoming habituated to the hunters’ abandoned meat at the salt bait sites, no different from the park’s “garbage dump bears” of the 1960s.

To encounter a grizzly with no fear of humans is a bad thing -- doubly so if the bear associates humans with food. Grizzlies habituated at salt baits return to Yellowstone after feasting on elk meat along park boundaries, and habituated bears quickly become dead bears.

As a concerned park ranger, I brought this lax enforcement to the attention of my supervisors. For almost a decade there was little response, even though I wrote reports and warned supervisors of the direct relationship between salt baiting and grizzly mortality. In 1998, a report I wrote was leaked to the press, and the issue has since received wide attention in newspapers, magazines and books.

In response, my supervisors issued a gag order prohibiting me from making any public comments. These types of restrictions are growing increasingly common. As a result, rank-and-file rangers and game wardens are afraid to speak out in defense of resources for fear of stalled careers, blacklisting, bad reviews, loss of employment or transfers to less desirable assignments. They must go along to get along.

This year, Yellowstone National Park informed me that I will not be returning for my final season in the park. I am fighting this decision.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the office of Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley are providing pivotal support. Why do I want my job back? Because I believe that I am the best person to train others to carry on the job of Thorofare ranger, to support government employees afraid to conscientiously perform their duties because of the threat of reprisal and to further the work of those who have supported me in my efforts.

Finally, I want to return because I believe that what makes this country work is our freedom to express what we believe. The government should set the example for upholding these ideals. Transparency in government is healthy. The fact that public servants working in our parks and forests cannot freely speak is a sign of a serious illness that threatens our most treasured national resources.