Doug McKenna Oral History Transcript

Doug was born in 1958 in Dover, New Hampshire, but grew up in a rural area on the Montana-Idaho border. As a young boy, living in an area surrounded by the Lolo National Forest forged his love of the outdoors. A chance meeting in high school with a local game warden named Ed Kelly set in motion the events that would lead to a fascinating and eventful career in wildlife law enforcement for McKenna. Doug’s career with USFWS began in 1987, when he was assigned to Region 6 (Denver) as his training station. He was later moved to his first duty station in Salt Lake City, Utah. Doug describes the plethora of investigations and cases to be made in Utah including contaminants, eagle poisonings, waterfowl, mountain lion, Utah prairie dog, desert tortoise and trophy deer Lacey Act cases. He went on to operate undercover on two extensive cases in Wyoming and Utah. Doug recounts the difficulty of transitioning back to being a law enforcement officer, after being embedded in two prolonged undercover operations. He later transferred to El Paso, Texas where he was key to uncovering a complex smuggling operation involving the Tony Lama Boot Company culminating in a multi-million-dollar seizure. In 2001, he became the Senior Resident Agent in Phoenix, Arizona. During that time, he worked with many of the Indian nations, including the Navajo and Hopis, learning a great deal about their cultures. In 2008, he moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico when the districts of Arizona and New Mexico were combined. After retiring in 2012, he did contract work with the FBI training game rangers in both Indonesia and Africa. He also worked with the US Marshals Service as a District Security Officer and did contract work for the Secret Service conducting background checks on new applicants. Today he works for the Department of Natural Resources, Pueblo of Santa Ana, teaching Native Americans about wildlife conservation.