Lanny Flaherty believes that even if he gets his job back on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, he might end up getting fired a second time in 2025.

But he’s willing to take the chance.

Flaherty, one of more than 30 Wallowa-Whitman probationary employees fired in mid-February as part of the Trump administration’s effort to trim the federal government, has been following the multiple legal challenges to the firings of thousands of federal employees nationwide.

On Thursday, March 13, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered several federal departments to offer to reinstate employees fired in February.

The list includes the Agriculture Department, of which the Forest Service is part, as well as the departments of veterans affairs, defense, energy, interior and treasury.

Flaherty, 40, who lives in La Grande and worked as a Forest Service seasonal employee for many years before being hired full-time as a range ecologist in November 2023, said on Thursday afternoon that he hadn’t heard anything official from his union, the National Federation of Federal Employees, about his status.

Flaherty said he has talked with some former co-workers who told him they logged onto their personnel accounts and that their termination date is no longer listed.

He thinks it’s possible that even if he and other federal workers are rehired, they could be fired again, under a different justification.

However, Flaherty said he hopes that even if that were to happen, he could potentially receive back pay for the period between his firing and reinstatement.

Ideally, he said, he could return to his work. He spends his summers gathering data about the condition of cattle grazing allotments on the Wallowa-Whitman to ensure that they complied with federal laws, primarily the Endangered Species Act.

“I would go back because I believe in the work,” Flaherty said.