Yellowstone boss to retire

BILLINGS, Mont. — Yellowstone National Park’s superintendent said Friday that he plans to retire next year from a job he called “the best in the National Park Service” and dismissed speculation that the Trump administration pushed him out for political reasons.

Superintendent Dan Wenk told The Associated Press that he decided last fall he would retire in early 2019.

His seven-year tenure leading on the nation’s premier national parks was marked by an explosion in park visitation, tension with neighboring states over wild bison slaughters and wolf hunting, and a sexual harassment scandal involving Yellowstone’s maintenance division that echoed allegations at other national parks.

Wenk, 66, said he had not planned to announce his decision to leave so far in advance but went public following recent news reports that said he faced possible transfer to a job in Washington, D.C.

Wenk confirmed that a transfer had been proposed — a possibility that had stoked concerns among conservation groups that Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke was reassigning senior staff from the park service and other branches of the agency for punitive purposes. But Wenk said he always understood that as a member of the U.S. government’s senior executive service, he could be moved to another job.