An influencer petted a Mount Rainier marmot. A national park ranger called his parents.

Jared Shult wasn’t thinking about petting wildlife when he started up Mount Rainier National Park’s popular Skyline Trail. 

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About a mile and a half into the hike, though, the 23-year-old influencer from Texas reached a scenic viewpoint and noticed a marmot and a squirrel mingling with other visitors. They seemed comfortable around people, probably because they had been fed in the past. He knelt down to get a better view of the marmot from a distance and was surprised when the friendly whistle pig quickly approached him. Shult gave it a quick scratch on its back while it hugged his leg, and his friend filmed the encounter.

Shult didn’t know it at the time, but his marmot interaction violates federal regulations that prohibit visitors from feeding, touching, teasing, frightening or intentionally disturbing wildlife, and is punishable with fines of up to $5,000 and six months in prison.

Later that day, he posted the video to share with his 171,000 Instagram followers. He had been posting a lot of content protesting the ongoing destruction of Big Bend National Park in the name of border security recently, and wanted to show the lighter side of a national park road trip.

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A post shared by Jared Shult (@jaredshult)

Comments started pouring in, with some followers oohing and aahing at the cute critter and others scolding Shult for getting too close. He posted a PSA in the comments, explaining that he hadn’t fed the animal. Then an odd comment appeared: Someone claiming to be a park ranger warned that officials would be in touch soon about a misdemeanor.

“Mount Rainier National Park Rangers will be in contact regarding not only your misdemeanor but your insistence on posting this for likes,” the comment read. It came from account “rain_ger_iskander,” which had only one post, from October 2025.

“I thought it was someone just trolling me,” Shult told SFGATE. 

The next day, while Shult was visiting Portland, he got a call from a Washington area code. Not knowing who it was, he didn’t answer. Just minutes later, his parents each received calls from someone who identified himself as ranger Alexander from Mount Rainier, then explained that Shult had a small fine coming his way.

The next time the number showed up on his phone, Shult answered.

“When he called, I still thought it was probably fake,” Shult said. “When I asked if he was serious, he got a little aggressive about it. I apologized — I totally get it. They were upset that I posted a video about it for so many people to see. I wasn’t in the right mindset at the time. I saw other people with animals and didn’t stop to think about it.”

After the phone call, the purported ranger posted the ticket that would be mailed to Shult publicly, both in the comment section of Shult’s original video and on his own account.

The citation was for violating federal regulations prohibiting visitors from touching wildlife. Shult received a $230 ticket for petting the marmot, but the ranger told him he could’ve been charged up to $5,000 and faced six months in prison.

Mount Rainier’s wildlife guidelines specifically warn that marmots, chipmunks and ground squirrels may look friendly but should never be fed or touched, and say visitors must stay at least 50 yards from any park wildlife. 

“I’m totally fine with being held to that standard and I apologized, but did think that the way that it was handled was pretty irresponsible,” Shult said.

Shult does not know how the park found his contact information, or the phone numbers of his parents.

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When asked about the citation, Mount Rainier National Park officials told SFGATE that the park is investigating how the ranger handled it.

“We are aware of the situation and the concerns raised regarding the outreach methods in this instance,” read an emailed statement Thursday attributed to Terry Wildy, the public affairs officer at the park. “This type of communication is not standard procedure for the park, and we are currently looking into the matter internally and working directly with the individual ranger involved.”

Mount Rainier National Park did not respond to questions about how officials obtained his and his parents’ contact information, or whether searching social media for wildlife violations is usual. 

“Our primary concern with park visitors approaching, feeding, or touching wildlife—including hoary marmots—is the habituation of wild animals to humans,” the statement continued. “Habituation can alter natural foraging behaviors, lead to dependency on human food, increase the risk of disease transmission, and result in defensive reactions or bites from animals.”

This incident comes more than a year after an executive order from the Trump administration announced it would fight the overcriminalization of federal regulations. The order states that the country is “drastically overregulated” and seeks to reduce enforcement of violations that aren’t directly causing or risking public harm.

“The purpose of this order is to ease the regulatory burden on everyday Americans and ensure no American is transformed into a criminal for violating a regulation they have no reason to know exists,” the order reads. The Interior Department did not respond to questions from SFGATE regarding that executive order or the incident at Mount Rainier, but stressed that visitors are advised not to approach, feed or attempt to touch wildlife.

Shult says he accepts that petting a marmot and posting a video of it was problematic. He just wishes the lesson had been delivered differently.  

“I take responsibility for it, and I understand why they were upset about the video,” Shult said. “But I don’t know — is this standard practice? And if this is standard practice, they should probably revise that a little bit.”