Wildlife Ambassador, Blackrock District
“I love wilderness and wildlife,” says Dave Weldon, who grew up backpacking, fishing, dirt biking, and skiing in Mammoth Lakes, California, in the Sierra Mountains, and joined Friends of the Bridger-Teton as an Ambassador for the first time in summer 2025. He’s back in summer 2026 because, “The job is fun and the wilderness is amazing. It’s so different than the city. I have interacted with the public for many years and tourists visiting the BTNF are generally happy people on vacation, which makes the job easier. They do some things around bears and other wildlife without thinking sometimes but 99% of them are cooperative. I also enjoyed working with other employees of the Bridger-Teton Forest and the command. And I really enjoy working alongside Game and Fish, a good learning experience.”
Friends with, and a former co-worker of, longtime Blackrock Wildlife Ambassador Gene Palos (Dave and Gene were both helicopter pilots with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department before retiring), Dave said he was interested in volunteering on the Bridger-Teton National Forest since the first time Gene told him about it. It was just in 2025 though that his son, a talented baseball player, had graduated from high school and Gene had the time for it. Previously, Dave, who was a canine handler for the SDSO for 10 years, volunteered by doing canine demonstrations for San Diego-area civic groups.
As a Wildlife Ambassador, Dave (and Gene) helps keep humans and wildlife on the BTNF safe, particularly in the Togwotee Scenic Corridor, where grizzly bears frequent meadows and can attract large crowds. Dave provides education to prevent potentially dangerous human/bear encounters due to people getting too close to grizzly bears and bear cubs; promotes food storage; shares responsible wildlife-viewing best practices; and inventories and maintains/repairs existing bear boxes among other duties.
Fun Facts: 1. Dave worked two different dogs, Rocky and Nero, both German Shepherds, during his 10 years on canine patrol. He was a court expert for dog training and helped establish canine testing standards for the state of California. 2. Dave was a fire fighting helicopter pilot. “It’s one thing to fly a helicopter and another thing to fly at a low level and drop water in poor visibility,” he says. In 2003, he was the deputy who spotted and arrested the hunter who had lit a signal fire that, fueled by Santa Ana winds, started the Cedar Fire, which killed 15 people and burned 2,200 homes in San Diego County.