In the fall of 1995 Lee Anderson was hoping to get on with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as a game warden.

So he volunteered for the agency and for several months, picked up road kills alongside the highways near Missoula where he was going to college at the time. 

It was gut wrenching work, as one might imagine a dead deer along Highway 93 in the summer heat. 

But it got his proverbial foot in the door and the next year, after going through training while still going to college full-time, he found himself a brand new FWP game warden, eventually stationed in the wilds and winds of Plentywood, with miles of sky all around him. 

Anderson was no stranger to living the life of law enforcement. His brother was also a warden and his father, George, spent his life in law enforcement as well, including 20 years as Teton County Sheriff. The family grew up in Choteau, hunting, fishing and exploring the Rocky Mountain Front and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. 

Early in his career he recalled breaking one of his most memorable cases, along with agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There was a hunter back then who claimed to be a Montana resident, but his story never added up for Anderson. The man didn’t own land. Never paid taxes, that sort of thing. 

Eventually the guy rolled into a game check station FWP used to run near Wibaux. Anderson questioned him and eventually issued him citations for illegally hunting as a resident. 

The man calmly opened his wallet and paid the substantial bond with a wad of $100 bills. 

Wardens needed to find the proof  of the illegal hunts. They needed to find the animals themselves. With help from federal agents they were able to track the man, and the mounts at his home in Minnesota. 

The perp was none too pleased to see Anderson, with his red hair and freckles, standing there when they served him a warrant for violations of not only Montana Law, but the Lacey Act, a federal law that prohibits the illegal trade of wildlife. 

Anderson recalled driving home with a horse trailer full of 350 score elk mounts, confiscated from the man, who eventually paid substantial fines and lost his hunting privileges for years. 

In 1999 there was a warden opening in Whitefish and Anderson got the job. He worked the woods and waters in that area for 7-½ years until being named warden captain for Region 1 in 2006 and then in 2022 he was named regional supervisor, a post he’s held up until a few weeks ago, when he retired after a distinguished career as a leader with the agency. 

“I just felt like it was time,” he said in an interview last week. “There’s a lot of good people who can come in behind me.” 

The work as supervisor has been rewarding, he said. He said he was proud to see the good work done by FWP staff to secure the Great Outdoors Project  Easement that put about 33,000 acres of land owned by the Green Diamond timber company west of Kalispell under a conservation easement. 

“Pretty proud we were able to do that,” he said. 

The multi-million easement used a blend of federal, state and private funds to preserve the lands from development while still allowing timber harvest and recreation. 

He said he was also happy to get a new and better fishing access site at the Sportsman’s Bridge on the Flathead River near Bigfork and he said it was rewarding to serve as the chair of the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem Grizzly Bear Committee, which is a multi-agency organization that oversees grizzly bear management issues in the region. 

Anderson was disappointed that grizzlies weren’t delisted from the Endangered Species List recently though. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service instead has decided to manage the bears as one large population across Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. 

Anderson noted that there are grizzly bears today in places that haven’t seen bears in decades and the population in Northwest Montana continues to grow and most biologists agree that the population here is recovered. 

“It’s frustrating when they keep moving the goalposts,” he said. 

But all in all, it’s been a great career, he said. 

“It’s been a good ride with a lot of good people over the years,” he said. 

Retirement will also give him a chance to volunteer, so don’t be surprised if you see a freckle-faced “kid” on a horse packing in supplies up the South Fork for biologists doing fish surveys. 

It’s just Lee Anderson, enjoying the landscape he loves.