Man Sentenced For Vandalism To Important Petroglyph

On April 4th, Trenton Ganey was sentenced in federal court to 60 months supervised probation, $10,000 restitution, and 100 hours of community service for damaging petroglyphs on the canyon walls along the Colorado River. Ganey, 29, of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, pleaded guilty last December to a charge of damaging an archeological resource, a Class E felony.  Ganey was on a guided fishing trip on the Colorado River last June. When the group stopped at a beach below Glen Canyon Dam, Ganey hiked up a short distance to a famous petroglyph known as the “Descending Sheep Panel” and scratched “TRENT” into the petroglyph panel with a rock. His actions were discovered by rangers shortly after the group departed. They confronted him when the group disembarked at Lee’s Ferry. Ganey immediately admitted his actions to the rangers, and upon learning the age and significance of the petroglyph panel, expressed remorse for his actions.  He later agreed to be interviewed for an article which appeared in the Arizona Daily Sun in an effort to deter others from similar acts.   At his sentencing, Ganey told the court that he was profoundly sorry for the damage that he had caused to the panel, which has great significance to Native Americans in Northern Arizona, and that he was sorry for the shame that he had brought upon himself and his family. The Descending Sheep Panel contains elements of rock art interpreted to represent three separate temporal and cultural periods dating in age from about 1,000 years ago to somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago.