Wenk Addresses Forced Retirement

The departing Yellowstone National Park superintendent says park service officials told him he wasn’t being forced out of his job over a disagreement with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke over bison management.
Dan Wenk told reporters yesterday that while he still feels he is being punished for unknown reasons by being ordered to transfer to Washington, D.C., instead of being allowed to retire next year as he’d planned, he thought that he and Zinke had worked through their difference of opinion.

After Wenk declined the transfer to Washington, he was told he would be gone from Yellowstone by August. He and the park service settled on a Sept. 29 departure date.
The 66-year-old Wenk spoke to reporters in a farewell news conference that lasted nearly two hours as he fielded questions on wildlife management, the exploding number of park visitors and his own relationship with Interior Department leaders.