Green River Conundrums
THE DAY AFTER Sam Lockwood graduated from University of Wyoming with a degree in wildlife management, he drove seven hours from Laramie to Sunlight Basin—also in Wyoming—crossing nearly the entire state diagonally in order to put his education to use. He started his new job the following morning.
“We had a big party the night before, so when I showed up in Cody I was in bad shape,” Lockwood said, adding that his degraded condition might’ve helped him overcome his first-day jitters. “The guy in charge wasted no time, and pretty soon I was on site where they had trapped an adult grizzly. I had to dart the bear and get to work.”
He describes those post-college days as a young Game and Fish intern as some of his happiest. The crew he worked with specialized in big carnivores, grizzlies especially, and his team often moved around. At one point they lived in a Game and Fish cabin tucked into the Wind River Range and went to
