A Project of Sage Steppe Wild
This is a followup to our earlier story in the Wildlife News. Oregon range rider hired to watch out for wolves, quits. September 17, 2010
Farewell to one of my top five: Wolf range rider. By Cassandra Profita. Ecotrope.
Boss says range rider quit for economic reasons. By Cassandra Profita. Ecotrope.
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
Very interesting that Cunningham is not commenting on the reason he quit. Probably fearful of being shot by accident. I hope he decides to tell his story but I’ll bet we all know what happened.
Here’s a photo essay by the photographer/ contributor to the current “1859” story on Wallowa County wolves. It contains some good sketches of the personalities involved.
http://wallowawolves.wordpress.com/
First, this was a temp job, and apparently the guy wants more job security. And, well, here is one other explanation from the wolf range rider’s supervisor:
++Nash said Cunningham wasn’t spending the minimum four days a week tracking wolves and finding out whether they were eating ranchers’ calves – in part because of all the media attention he was getting.++
Not surprising – 15 minutes of fame- reduced to about two because the guy maybe gets caught up in the celebrity of it all, and forgets why he was hired. Easy temptation to be before a camera, rather than in a hot dry brushy draw looking for smelly dead things.