The Worst Wilderness Vandals Ever

Three drunk men recently killed endangered fish in Death Valley.They trampled the fish.they trampled on a pupfish habitat in Death Valley National Park. Pupfish are an endangered desert fish species; their population stood at only about 100 then. Video shows one intruder wading in to skinny-dip and step on pupfish eggs. A dead pupfish was found after the men left. The men also shot a gun, threw away beer cans, and vomited inside the protected area.

Casey Nocket vandalized about a dozen sites at national parks.These acts happened at national parks.She used acrylic paint to put her signature on rocks in the parks. She then took pictures and posted them to social media using the name Creepytings. A hiker and journalist eventually exposed her.

The Racetrack Playa is a dry lake in Death Valley's northwestern corner. The area isThe area is home to famous sailing rocks.These rocks move across the Racetrack, leaving tire tracks behind them, which is why it gets the name.

Nature photographer Kurt Lawson posted photos of car tire tracks on September 18, 2016.Kurt Lawson posted photos of car tire tracks.He posted photos of car tire tracks all over the racetrack. This area is protected, with signs clearly stating vehicles and pets are off limits. Photos suggest several vehicles used the Racetrack; one drove across the playa, another did donuts around a rock structure in the center. Lawson also found the initials "DK" carved into sailing stones.

In December 2002, someoneSomeone destroyed pictographs with fire.One person destroyed three Native American pictographs with fire and defaced others with charred stick ends in Dry Canyon, Oregon. Restoration cost $7,000, but the project could not fully fix all lost landmarks. The vandal remains unidentified.

Two Boy Scout leaders posted a video of themselves.They destroyed ancient rock formations.an ancient rock formation in Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. They claimed the rock posed a safety risk because it balanced too poorly, but the public disagreed, and the Boy Scouts demoted them.

During the night of December 2015, someone chopped down a juniper tree hundreds of years old in the Oregon Badlands Wilderness. Junipers are key parts of the ecosystem; some reach 1,000 years old.

In 2015, Charles Enger bulldozed a trailhead in Colorado.Someone hijacked a trailhead.He hijacked three construction pieces of equipment and ruined a hiking trailhead at Emerald Mountain under improvement. He damaged new bathrooms, wiped out a bush the construction team saved, and flipped a construction vehicle. Total damage reached over $80,000.

In the late 90s, a nineteen-year-old named Michael Caruso carved a swastika into a rock.Native American rock art panel.He became the first wilderness vandal to serve time in federal prison—two months.

University of Oregon students left tents, coolers, trash bags, and clothes at Shasta Lake after drinking heavily. The Lambda Chi fraternity left coolers marked with Greek letters; they issued a formal apology and offered cleanup help.Formal apology.offered to help clean up the mess.

Yes, that is correct.Grease: Live.Star Vanessa Hudgens and her boyfriend, Austin Butler, carved their names into a protected red rock in Cocoino National Forest, Arizona. After Hudgens posted the picture on Instagram, a federal investigation started.

Six preservationists removed the spray paint from a vandalized historic cabin in Grand Teton National Park. The cabin is known as the Shane cabin because it appeared in the 1953 western filmShane..

Several vandals carved their names into theFrame Arch.Frame Arch of Utah's Arches National Park, home to sandstone arches millions of years old. The graffiti is so deep park workers might not repair the damage without harming the sandstone.

A hiker on the Tumalo Falls Trail in Oregon found afather.and his two children scratched their names into a metal railing. When the hiker told them to stop, the father ignored him and told the kids to keep going. The hiker photographed the family and posted it on Facebook, which got the U.S. Forest Service's attention. The service launched an investigation and found the people.

Kenny and Aryn declared their love in sandstone.Kenny and Aryn apparently love each other so much they engraved their names in a heart in the sandstone in Zebra Slot Canyon in Utah. Park employees spent hours removing the graffiti, and they still do not know who Kenny and Aryn are.

In the early 90s, arafting guide bombed a river.A rafting guide got tired of portaging his clients around a Class 6 rapid in Arizona's Salt River Canyon. He bombed the river to make the rapid easier to handle. He achieved his goal, but he also took out a barrier protecting native fish from non-native predators.

Multiple students defaced rock art.Geology students autographed rocks.autographed rocks on a Utah canyon wall with several ancient Native American drawings. Authorities know the vandals were students because they wrote OSU—the initials for Ohio State University—on the rocks, and Ohio State runs a capstone geology course in Utah every year.

Someone painted a bold, ugly piece of graffiti.A piece of graffiti.Someone painted a bold (and ugly) piece of graffiti on a footbridge in the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area in Colorado. The graffiti looked especially bad because the bridge served as park access. Several visitors reported it, but authorities have no idea when it was painted.