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Marmot over fine signs
Tens of millions of people visit America’s national parks each year, and the rangers who are tasked with overseeing them certainly have their hands full. However, an influencer took issue with the manner in which one of them handled things after he was filmed petting a marmot that crawled up his leg during a trip to Mount Rainier.
“National park ranger” is nowhere near the top of the list of professions you want to pursue if you want to be rich. There’s certainly something to be said for a job where you’re immersed in some of America’s stunning scenery, but being “paid in sunsets” doesn’t make up for the relatively low salary (starting at around $36,000 and averaging out at approximately $64K) you receive for a job that is anything but a walk in the park.
Those rangers serve as custodians for the parks where they work, and while a good chunk of their day is devoted to educating tourists, they also have their hands full when it comes to keeping them in line.
There are plenty of rules visitors are required to abide by within the confines of national parks in the United States, and some rangers are technically classified as federal law enforcement officials who are vested with the power to dole out discipline when they see fit.
However, one man who recently visited Mount Rainier felt one of them went a bit too far over what he chalked up to an innocent mistake.
A national park ranger called the parents of an influencer who was fined for petting a marmot at Mount Rainier National Park
Mount Rainier National Park covers 370 square miles in the southwestern region of Washington state (with the 14,140-foot mountain that ranks the fifth highest in the contiguous United States somewhat obviously serving as the main attraction).
It also boasts 65 unique species of mammals, with elk, moose, bears, and mountain lions serving as some of the most eye-catching (and topping the list of the ones you don’t want to cross paths with). As is the case with every national park, visitors are prohibited from feeding or interacting with any animal, but enforcing those policies is easier said than done.
That’s especially true when the animal in question is of the “cute” variety, which is certainly the case with the many hoary marmots that roam the subalpine regions of Mount Rainier.
According to SFGATE, one of the rodents was very eager to greet Jared Shult, a 23-year-old influencer and self-described “lover of the gym, the outdoors, and side quests” from Texas. He made the trek to Mt. Rainier toward the beginning of August, and it was hard to blame him for petting the marmot that crawled up his leg while seemingly begging for food.
Shult posted a video of the interaction to his Instagram account, and it soon came to the attention of someone who is seemingly a ranger at the park and slid into the comments to let him know he would soon be contacted “not only for your misdemeanor but your insistence on posting for likes.”
That threat stemmed from a violation of a federal statute regarding the “feeding, touching, teasing, frightening or intentional disturbing of wildlife” in America’s national parks. It carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a fine up to $5,000, and Shult violated it by actively petting the marmot.
It appears the person who posted the comment was a park ranger identified only as “Alexander,” who Shult said called him (and, for some reason, his parents) to inform him of the decision to levy a $230 fine.
Shult acknowledged he made a mistake while speaking with the outlet, saying:
“I apologized — I totally get it. They were upset that I posted a video about it for so many people to see. I wasn’t in the right mindset at the time. I saw other people with animals and didn’t stop to think about it.”
However, he also took issue with the way the ranger decided to handle the matter, and the man who criticized him for trying to rack up likes also seems a bit preoccupied with clout himself when you consider he decided to upload a picture of the ticket he wrote online in a post that exudes some serious Middle School Hall Monitor Energy.
That decision could come back to bite him, as a spokesperson for the park acknowledged “concerns raised regarding the outreach methods,” adding, “This type of communication is not standard procedure for the park, and we are currently looking into the matter internally and working directly with the individual ranger involved.”