Anchorage wildlife biologist and sometimes celebrity Rick Sinnott told colleagues at the Alaska Department of Alaska Fish and Game that he was planning to retire about a month ago. And then the guy known for his outspokenness walked away from his job without a word to the public that had come to depend upon him.

Phone calls since the end of last month, when Sinnott left Fish and Game, have been answered with a message saying: "Hi, this is Rick. I retired as as of June 30th."

The message goes on to refer wildlife questions -- "How do I make this porcupine stop eating my shed?" -- to a colleague. She was not answering the phone on Thursday, but others who've worked with Sinnott for years at Fish and Game said they know of no special circumstances precipitating his June 30 departure -- other than that he wanted to enjoy an Alaska summer.

For almost two decades, Sinnott spent big chunks of his summers -- day and night -- chasing problem wildlife, primarily moose and bears, around Anchorage. He shot dozens of problem bears, which angered some Anchorage residents; and he refused to shoot dozens of bears he judged no problem, which angered more Anchorage residents.

He was temporarily muzzled by at least one Fish and Game commissioner after publicly threatening to "beat the crap" out of some thoughtless fishermen who dumped bear-attracting salmon carcasses on the Hillside.

He was vilified by Anchorage wildlife lovers for endorsing Hillside hunts for moose, and then blasted by trappers and hunters for pushing for restrictions on the killing of wolverines. He got in an argument with the city over whether Rover's Run Trail in the Far North Bicentennial Park should be closed to people in favor of bears. He took heat from hunters after he won permits in a state drawing for sheep hunts. He angered a state sport fisheries biologist by pointing out that the significant numbers of salmon allowed into upper Campbell Creek were what attracted bears into the city.

In fact, if there was a hot-button wildlife issue of any sort in Anchorage over the past 17 years, Sinnott seemed to be involved somehow, and no matter what he did to try and stay in the middle he was, in the end, invariably blamed with favoring one side or the other. There were even a few occasions when opposing sides each accused Sinnott of with siding with the other.

After all of that -- not to mention taking a stray bullet when caught in gangland drive-by shooting in Anchorage -- it's probably not much wonder a guy of 60 might want to find something else to do once he qualified for state retirement. Sinnott was not available for comment Thursday. About a year ago, he got rid of his cell phone after the state told Fish and Game employees that they would have to record every call they made on their work phones or use their personal cell phones for work.

Sinnott couldn't see wasting time filling out forms whenever he used his state phone, which was often. And given that most of his phone use was for work -- sometimes at very strange hours -- he didn't like the idea of subsidizing state wildlife management by using his personal phone. It was enough he put in thousands of hours of overtime doing sometimes hard, cold dangerous work for which he got no overtime.

Assistant area wildlife biologist Jessy Coltrane, Sinnott's sidekick for the past several years, has reportedly applied for her former boss's job, though why anyone would really want the job isn't exactly clear.

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com.

Editor's Note: For a personal farewell from one of the many people Sinnott helped in his years of service, read Alaska Dispatch's own Maia Nolan's remembrance, "Saying goodbye to the magpie man," here.