Our Favorite Yellowstone Ranger

Ranger John is one of our favorite rangers on the scene at Yellowstone.  He's always at the major bear jams, which are the penultimate traffic jams in Yellowstone.

He's also the author of such witicisms as:

Please all stay together as it's easier for me to keep track of you and easier for the bear to eat you!  

This is when the crowd spreads out too far for a ranger to manage and for a ranger to make sure that the visitors are always safe.   Of course he's joking, but it always gets a great laugh and immediately endears him to the crowd.

Another Ranger John witicisms:

Please make sure your car is off the white line and that you are on the side of the white.  A really mean ranger is getting ready to come on duty and he will write tickets like crazy so I just wanted to warn you before he gets here.  

And of course another round of laughter.

But Ranger John is best when he is talking about what's going on.  Lately he was explaining that this was a Black Bear sow with a black cub and a cinnamon cub which is more common than you think.  Another example of Ranger John's explanations was the time (last year) he explained while a Black Bear boar was scaring away some yearling cubs and mating with their mother, while school kids were present and some were expressing that this was cruel, Ranger John was very sensitive in explaining that this is nature's way and very normal for bears but not for humans!!!!

Basically the magic of Ranger John is that he is almost the perfect balance of discipline and education that is not patrician or condescending sprinkled with wonderful pieces of information that are not generally known.

This short video is just a small sample of Ranger John's great character.  When you see him, be sure and thank him for his service, and that makes you even more willing to obey all the rules, staying off the road, parking off the road and not getting sassy with the rangers.