Seriously do NOT feed the Birds at Mt Rainier

Crows and ravens (my two favorite birds) walk, not hop. I've always loved the way they walk along, with their little feather pants fluffed out. I can't resist feeding them. So much so that this weekend I got a flipping TICKET at Mt Rainier for feeding the birds.

I went to Mt Rainier on Saturday in one of 8 cars full of teenagers, a day trip to go sledding and have a parking lot hot dog cookout (boiled, not fire). I wore my pedometer and only managed about 3500 steps on the outing because I was really there to cook and coordinate. But seriously- no good deed goes unpunished so when we had a break from sledding my hubby threw some dog food out for the ravens to snack on. We were enjoying watching them when a Ranger car pulled up.

Nice Ranger dutifully shoos kids from the No Sledding Zone

Earlier that day a Ranger had asked a few of our less-obedient kids to stop sledding in a "no sledding zone" and of course we complied. This gal was so nice she posed with a broken no-sledding sign for me (our kids did not break the sign, just for the record).

So, flash back to the parking lot- Ranger pulls up and we assume he's ticked we fed the birds. We're anticipating a warning, maybe he makes us clean up the tiny pile of food.

No such luck. Not only does he CALL FOR BACKUP but he gets out and loudly asks "DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS??!!" and points to the ground as if he's inquiring about a dead baby. My husband immediately admits we fed the birds, and offers to clean it up.

Crabby Ranger proceeds to take his driver's license and go to his car, after telling my husband and I about how they cannot just warn us- this is VERY serious and we'll be getting a ticket. At this point I am in shock- they're wasting TWO cars to ticket someone from a church group for FEEDING A BIRD? I wasn't sneaking marmots out of the park for pete's sake. And there wasn't a flock of birds eating, so don't act like I was drawing attention. There were about 2 ravens max. Oh and the other birds were eating from trash cans and other visitor's cars.

He tells hubby to clean up the food, so I go get a plastic bag and hubby on hands and knees cleans up the dog food. Never mind the raven who insists on walking around the crime scene eating bits right in front of us all, almost sending my daughter and I into fits of laughter.

Then Ranger Crabby proceeds to lecture us about how animals starve after they become dependent on people. Yeah, yeah- nature nature. We know the story. But I am pretty educated when it comes to Corvids and I assure you they're not only smarter than the guy who gave us a ticket they are amazingly self reliant, humans or not. Then he starts telling us foxes are going to come ("foxes?!!where!" I try not to yell) and they are all going to be HIT BY CARS because of us.

I realize feeding animals is probably against the rules. And I can even understand scolding us or lecturing us but calling for backup and giving us a ticket for $125 seemed like overkill... all on a day I gave my time to volunteer with a bunch of teenagers. My mom would say no good deed goes unpunished!

Here's a pic I snapped while we were ticketed....  I guess we'll feed the ravens nevermore.