In the Wild, a Big Threat to Rangers: Humans

Todd Schmidt, a game warden in Colorado, finds a bulletproof vest a vital tool where “everybody I confront has a gun.”
By KIRK JOHNSON
NYT

GOLDEN, Colo. — As a game warden for the state of Colorado, Todd Schmidt has a workplace that office drudges the world over might fantasize about: the staggering beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

But underneath his shirt, day in and day out, he also wears a reminder of the dangers: a bulletproof vest.

“Keeps you warm, too,” Mr. Schmidt said, patting his chest on a recent cold morning at Golden Gate Canyon State Park, about an hour west of Denver, as the snowcapped peaks of the Continental Divide shimmered in the distance.

Two recent shootings of wildlife officers — one killed in Pennsylvania while confronting an illegal hunter, the other seriously wounded after a traffic stop in southern Utah — have highlighted what rangers and wildlife managers say is an increasingly unavoidable fact. As more and more people live in proximity to forests, parks and other wild-land playgrounds, the human animal, not the wild variety, is the one to watch out for.

(More here.)