Dan Wenk is being forced out of his job as Yellowstone National Park superintendent/NPS

Editor's note: This updates with additional details of the personnel moves, and adds reaction from park advocates.

Less than a week after announcing his intent to retire in March 2019, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Dan Wenk has been told to either take a transfer to head the National Capital Region of the National Park Service or retire.

P. Dan Smith, the acting director of the National Park Service, wrote Superintendent Wenk this week to tell him he was reassigning him to the National Capital Region.

"Your reassignment to this position is for the efficiency of the service," wrote Mr. Smith in a letter (attached below) obtained by Mountain Journal. "This reassignment is an opportunity for you to provide proven leadership ability to a key position manging a major organizational component of the NPS."

The letter gave the superintendent 60 days to act on the transfer, and was accompanied by a form with four check boxes: 

* I accept the reassignment and waive the 60-day notice period.

* I accept the reassignment and do not waive the 60-day notice period.

* I decline the assignment and will retire from Federal service. I understand that I may be eligible for discontinued service retirement.

* I decline the reassignment. I understand that I will be subject to removal under adverse action procedures.

Although as a member of the Senior Executive Service the superintendent can be transferred at any time, the news still sent shudders through advocates of the National Park System.

"This is just the latest in a line of moves by Secretary (Ryan) Zinke’s Interior Department aimed at undermining the most experienced members of the National Park Service, and I fear there will be similar moves to follow," said Phil Francis, chair of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks and a four-decade veteran of the Park Service. "While the Secretary may have the authority to move senior officials, this administration has not provided any reasoning for these specific moves or the motives behind them. We are wondering why this is happening?

"This and other staff changes Secretary Zinke have made show a lack of respect for the National Park Service and its devoted employees," he added.

The choices facing Superintendent Wenk gained attention Thursday after Wyoming Public Media aired an interview with him. In that interview, the superintendent said P. Dan Smith, the acting director of the National Park Service, this week told him to take the reassignment or leave. But Superintendent Wenk told the Mountain Journal that in a recent phone call with Mr. Smith and Cam Sholly, director of the Park Service's Midwest Region office and the successor to the Yellowstone superintendent, the three came away with a "gentlemen's agreement" that Wenk would remain on the job until March.

“Everyone recognized the importance of making a smooth transition. The three of us forged what I would call a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that I would retire from Yellowstone in March 2019 and Cam would come on board then. Acting Director Smith indicated that he supported it, that he would take it back to Interior and recommend that it be adopted," Superintendent Wenk told the Mountain Journal.

Somewhere along the line the agreement was dropped by Mr. Smith.

In the radio interview, the superintendent said he was blindsided.

"I'm feeling like I devoted 43 years of my life, I think I have a record of achievement with the National Park Service that at the end of the day doesn't matter and that I'm no longer wanted at Yellowstone National Park," Superintendent Wenk said. "Even though I told them I was going to retire that seemed to not make a difference, so extremely disappointed is probably a mild way to explain it."

While Mr. Smith in his letter wrote of the value Superintendent Wenk could bring to the National Capital Region, the superintendent last week told the Traveler that the acting director was never able to tell him exactly why he was needed back there when there was so much that needed to be done in Yellowstone, where he is working on a quarantine program that would allow park bison found free of brucellosis to be transferred to tribal interests or other parks.

"Interestingly enough, no one has told me what the issues are in the National Capital Region," Superintendent Wenk said. "I have tried to have discussions with leadership of the National Park Service to say, 'Can we talk about this?' And they have not told me anything other than my skills are needed in Washington, D.C. They have not said anything negative about my tenure at Yellowstone, nor have they told me about any problems in any particular park areas or any circumstances that they felt I would be especially effective (in Washington).

"... I believe that the issues in Yellowstone National Park are the most important that I can be dealing with."

There was no immediate word from Yellowstone on whether Superintendent Wenk would retire or head back to Washington, where he has worked as a deputy director of the Park Service as well as interim CEO of the National Park Foundation. However, Superintendent Wenk all but told the Traveler last week that he would he would retire rather than take such a transfer. He's 66 years old, and said he doesn't have the energy or desire to commit to a three-to-five year stint at the National Capital Region, and the Mountain Journal article said he would retire.

The superintendent on June 1 announced his plan to retire next March. That announcement came amid rumors of a proposal to reshuffle a number of senior managers in the Park Service, with Mr. Wenk targeted to take the helm of the National Capital Region and being succeeded in Yellowstone by Cam Sholly, currently the head of the agency's Midwest Region.

In the radio interview, Superintendent Wenk said it appears the Trump administration couldn't care less about the four decades he's given to the Park Service.

"I'm feeling like I devoted 43 years of my life, I think I have a record of achievement with the National Park Service that at the end of the day doesn't matter and that I'm no longer wanted at Yellowstone National Park," he said. "Even though I told them I was going to retire that seemed to not make a difference, so extremely disappointed is probably a mild way to explain it."

At the National Parks Conservation Association, President Theresa Pierno said the news was grim.

“With no National Park Service director in place, Dan Wenk has been a strong leader with decades of knowledge and a passion for parks. Whether you agree with Dan or not on an issue, you know where he stands, and he stands for the parks," she said. "To lose Dan Wenk would be a great loss to the National Park System.”

Much has been made of President Trump's desire to shake things up in government with his unorthodox management style, and his position that the federal workforce must be reduced in number and payroll. Too, Secretary Zinke has rattled his vast workforce by claiming that roughly one-third of it is unloyal to him or President Trump.

But will the options facing Superintendent Wenk, who has been well-respected across the Park Service, raise questions as to whether loyalty is a two-way street in the Interior Department? The superintendent himself raised that question in the radio interview.

"I'm not feeling like there's any loyalty to professionals within the National Park Service who have devoted their careers and we don't even warrant a discussion in terms of why we're doing this and what's going on," Superintendent Wenk.

At the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, Mr. Francis said that, "Employees who have devoted their lives to our parks deserve to be respected. With this change, the Service is losing vast institutional memory, decades of experience and it's happening at a time when the Service is facing enormous challenges and reduced budgets. Sadly, this administration’s actions are doing real and lasting damage to the NPS’s ability to recruit and retain the talent needed to manage the national parks for today and future generations.”

At the Midwest Region, Mr. Sholly, whose father was chief ranger at Yellowstone in the 1980s, had no immediate comment on his transfer to Yellowstone and how it materialized.

Other moves said to be in the works include moving Bert Frost, Alaska Regional director since 2014, to Lake Mead National Recreation Area as superintendent; Sue Masica, Intermountain Regional director in Denver since 2013, to the same position at the Midwest Region Office in Omaha, Nebraska; Biscayne National Park Superintendent Margaret Goodro to replace Mr. Frost in Alaska, and; Lake Mead Superintendent Lizette Richardson to regional director for the Intermountain Region.