Page 4 of A Sweet Chat for the Cowboy

Wynona May Ghost Bearsat outside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director’s office in Lakewood, Colorado, wondering why she’d been asked to come in on a Saturday. Every few minutes she took a break from that to wonder why she was being called in at all. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in trouble, which didn’t make sense. Her job was her whole life. She never caused problems, and on the rare occasion when she had made a mistake, she’d worked tirelessly to correct it.

The door opened, and Regional Director Sarah Jutting appeared with a smile that suggested Wynona was not in trouble. “Thank you for making the trip. Come on in, Wynona.”

Wynona stepped into the tidy office and sat in the offered chair.

“Can I get you a coffee? Water?”

“No, thank you, Director.”

“Please, call me Sarah. I’ll get right to it. I’m sure you’ve heard about the western Blake toad situation.”

She had.

“Great. I’m sending in a team to gather data, and I would like you to head it up.”

That didn’t make sense. Wynona was a fish specialist. Wouldn’t they want an amphibian expert? And Wynona was assigned to the Nebraska office. Surely South Dakota had its own biologist?

Sarah read some of her thoughts. “Public relations warns me that this effort could cause a political dust-up. We are hoping that because you are from the area, the locals will be less likely to resist.”

Oh. It was because she was Lakota.

Sarah kept talking as Wynona analyzed the situation. She didn’t think her Lakota heritage would be much help. People were still going to be annoyed if federal biologists interrupted the Black Hills hunting seasons. But was it worth fighting about? She would love to do this job ... But she had so much going on at her home office. But she would love to do this job ...

“Are you all right?” Sarah asked.

“Yes,” she said readily. “I was just thinking about all the stuff I have going on in Nebraska.”

“They will cover for you. I’ve already spoken to your director.”

Okay then.

“Are you willing to head up this team?”

Wynona nodded. “How long do we have?”

“That’s up to the toads.” Sarah laughed at her own joke and then cleared her throat and shuffled some papers on her desk.

“The archery seasons start soon, and then the rifle seasons ... if we don’t find the toad before opening day, will opening day happen?”

“I don’t know yet. We are going to take this one day at a time.” She narrowed her eyes a little. “Are you opposed to us modifying hunting season dates if we need to?”

Wynona considered her words carefully. “I’m most concerned about a species that might be critically endangered, but I am also concerned about the people of South Dakota. For most of them, hunting is a big part of their lives.” Wynona had grown up in a hunting family, in a hunting community, on a hunting reservation. She loved animals more than she loved anything, but hunting was a part of who these people were. Her people. South Dakota people. West River people. Lakota people.

“Definitely notmostpeople,” Sarah corrected.

Wynona let it go.

“If we find evidence of the western Blake toad, we’ll want to study them as much as they can before they go underground, and then we’ll want to protect their hibernation area.”

“And if wedon’tfind evidence?” Wynona asked.

“Then we keep looking.”

“So either way, we’re going to interfere with hunting in the Black Hills.”

She shook her head emphatically. “I said no such thing. I said we need to collect data, analyze data, and make data-driven decisions.”

Wynona sighed. So then the only answer that would make everyone happy would be to find alotof western Blake toads soon. Oh sure, no problem. It had only been a century since someone had spotted one.

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