Wildlife Managers: Boundary Workers Between the Human Community and the Wilderness

This research focuses on wildlife managers, such as game wardens and land management supervisors, who as government agents,manage the boundary between humans and the wilderness while at the same time holding a personal stake in controlling the wilderness areas of the United States. Looking through the eyes of these managers, the paper examines their childhood socialization and education to the belief that as wilderness stewards they should govern from a perspective that maximizes their own personal enjoyment of the wilderness, including the tradition of hunting. Other hunters and animal-rights advocates contest methods of control exercised by wildlife managers. This paper examines wildlife managers' solidarity amid conflict, their motivations for choosing their work and the important role they play in the central struggle over the interpretation of wilderness and life-and-death environmental issues, such as the regulation of animal population levels. It demonstrates how their solidarity as a work group mitigates the conflicts they face at the price of marrowing their perspective on non-human animals