Last week, Rick Sinnott, the Anchorage area biologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game had two clogged voicemail boxes, one at his desk and one for his cell phone.

Flashlight’s used to that. We suspect a lot of reporters are used to that. Sinnott has been the Anchorage Area Biologist for 17 years. He’s the guy who reporters called to answer questions such as “How many bears live in the Anchorage bowl?” or “Why does that one Canada goose in the flock by the library have orange feet?” (Answers: about 60; and, it’s a hybrid of a lesser Canadian and a snow goose.)

Wednesday, Sinnott’s voicemail box was unclogged. Flashlight heard his familiar voice say he’s retired, “as of June 30”—then the voice politely directed questions about Anchorage wildlife to Jessie Coltrane, the assistant Anchorage area biologist who has worked with Sinnott the past few years. Sinnott’s voicemail box wasn’t perpetually clogged for nearly two decades by queries from Anchorage news reporters (they’re aren’t enough of us to do that), but it was perpetually clogged nonetheless. We suspect he got daily messages from regular Joe Six-pack citizens with questions about hazing moose from apple trees, or wondering how to get rid of a porcupine that’s nesting under their back porch or reporting that a garbage-eating bear has gotten too close for comfort in the neighborhood. In the 1990s, Sinnott once told the Anchorage Daily News that the department gets five or six calls every day from people who report problem bears. Sinnott would tell reporters that people shouldn’t place trash outside over night, should take bird feeders down in summer and shouldn’t leave dog food outside. It’s good advice in bear country—which all of Alaska is—but its repetition would sometimes leave even the best listeners deaf to the message. (Flashlight left trash on a curb north of Wasilla all night Tuesday night, even though we know better.)

Sinnott wasn’t the state’s area biologist in the area with the biggest bears, or the worst-behaved bears, or the most moose, most porcupines or even the largest area to cover. He may have been the busiest though, because Anchorage has more back porches—and more people—than any other place in Alaska.

Reporters sometimes described Sinnott as “outspoken” while on the job. Flashlight doesn’t think so. Reporters tend to generalize about such things. We never heard of Sinnott initiating calls to reporters or whispering “I’ve got a story” into their ear. The word “opinionated” might be a better way to describe Sinnott and his willingness to speak frankly to media. The trouble is that readers and reporters might sometimes have trouble distinguishing a scientific opinion about the behavior of wild animals, with one of Sinnott’s opinions about human beings, and our sometimes bumbling interactions with wildlife. The trouble would get even stickier when people would interpret Sinnott’s opinion—scientific or otherwise—as a policy statement from the Department of Fish and Game.

He was reprimanded for speaking out on one occasion. In 2005 he called some litterbugs “assholes” and was quoted in the Anchorage Daily News doing so. Sinnott told a reporter he wanted to “beat the crap” out of the unknown people who dumped more than 30 fish carcasses in two different locations in Anchorage’s Hillside neighborhood. Sinnott described the dumping as a littering problem. He had called Anchorage police, city maintenance crews and the neighborhood road service coordinators—not one Anchorage official would help clean up the fish guts. Sinnott considered the fish heads and guts a hazardous bear attractant and took on the dirty work himself.

His comments to the newspaper got him gagged for a short period that year. Then-Fish and Game Commissioner McKie Campbell ordered Sinnott not to discuss bears with the media.

Sinnott’s been speaking this summer about a recent bear attack on Rover’s Run Trail in Bicentennial Park. Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan announced that his administration would not close the trail, but post warning signs instead. Sullivan told an Associated Press reporter that Anchorage was “a city first… not a wildlife viewing area. It’s not a sanctuary. It is first and foremost an urban environment,” he said.

We won’t use this space to discuss whether Rover’s Run should be closed or whether it runs through “urban” environs. Sinnott told the AP the mayor’s comments sounded like an ideological argument, as if the mayor were saying, “We're not going to let the bears push us around,” Sinnott said.

Sinnott’s voicemail didn’t leave a forwarding number and Flashlight was not able to get in touch with him by press time. In lieu of a proper interview, on the occasion of his retirement, we’ll offer a few of Sinnott’s past quotes to reporters. You can be the judge of whether he was outspoken or simply willing to speak:

‘‘You wouldn’t expect a big brown bear in Russian Jack Park, but a young one doesn’t know better… It’s dangerous—not as dangerous as a big bear, but it certainly can do you some damage.’’ —to the Daily News in 1998.

“I'd like to catch the assholes who did it and beat the crap out of them,” —to the Daily News in 2005.

“Knobby is fat because he doesn't get involved with that whole thing”—explaining to Press writer Monica Bradbury that a bull moose with deformed and knobby antlers has a “testosterone issue” and doesn’t go into rut.

“It's our biggest concern… it’s just like an elementary school this time of year."—telling the Press last September how diseases might spread among captive moose.

“I'll do anything for credit at Title Wave” — in 2004 telling the Press why he wrote our judges’ favorite haiku about shoveling snow (below).

Shoveling (bend) snow

(heave) from (bend) door/ (heave) to (bend)

gate (heave): creaking hinge

There you have it—Anchorage’s former area biologist distilled into sound bites. If you’re in the woods this week, and you’ve got beer in your backpack, hoist one to Rick Sinnott’s career and wish him well in whatever comes next. Just don’t spill any near the campsite: Bears can smell beer from a mile away.

scott@anchoragepress.com