Photo Felidae Conservation Fund
Eric York a biologist for the National Park Service contracted pulmonic plague after doing a necropsy on a mountain lion that died from the same disease inside of Grand Canyon National Park.
More times then not it’s Law Enforcement Park Rangers who get killed while working for us and we don’t often think about the other jobs within the National Parks and the dangers those individuals face. Eric grew up in my home state of Massachusetts and it appears that he was doing the job of his dreams. He worked at Grand Canyon National Park studying mountain lions.
When Eric passed away he was currently a biologist for the National Park Service studying mountain lions at Grand Canyon National Park. In addition to his own research Eric consulted on several carnivore studies in the western United States.
He had a B.S. in Wildlife Biology from University of Maine and a M.S. in Wildlife Conservation from University of Massachusetts.
Eric specialized in research capture methods and techniques. He had captured and tagged 23 different species of carnivores (six of these being felids) for research. Over the last 15 years he has worked throughout the United States, in Chile, Nepal, and Pakistan.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this difficult time. If your like me and never knew Eric take a moment and read some of the articles about the work he was doing. I think you’ll come to same conclusion that I have that this was a bright dedicated man that was taken too soon and the wildlife conservation community lost a rising star.
