Proudly Serving the Hulet and Devils Tower Community
Proudly Serving the Hulet and Devils Tower Community
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A judge has ordered federal wildlife officials to decide by Jan. 20 whether Yellowstone-area grizzly bears should be delisted from the Endangered Species Act. The order, issued by U.S. District Court of Wyoming Judge Alan Johnson, could speed up a potential handover of authority to Wyoming, Idaho and Montana - opening the door for grizzly bear hunting. Johnson issued the decision Friday in response to a Wyoming petition that sought to compel the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to honor a missed...
At its peak, the mighty Elk Fire made a furious wind-driven, overnight run. Sheridan and Johnson County firefighters had never seen anything like it before on their home turf. Neither had their parents or grandparents. Between 1:30 and 5 a.m. on Oct. 4, the blaze consumed more of the Bighorns' rugged east slope than any previously documented fire had burned that forest in total. "In a matter of three hours it ran 25,000 acres," Bighorn National Forest Supervisor Andrew Johnson said weeks later....
CHEYENNE-When Rep. Karlee Provenza arrived at the Wyoming Capitol this legislative budget session, three death threats were waiting in her mailbox. The Democrat from Laramie says she has watched people stand in the gallery overlooking the House of Representatives, trying to intimidate her "all day." It's likely that come the Legislature's 2025 general session, those same folks trying to bully Provenza could legally be carrying firearms. "In this space where I'm receiving death threats, I don't n...
WYOMING RANGE FOOTHILLS – From its mobile perch high in the sky, the infrared camera didn't detect so much as a jackrabbit. Jared Rogerson, a Wyoming Game and Fish Department wildlife disease biologist, wielded the controller of the DGI Matrice 300 drone from a flat, grassy field just outside of the Bench Corral Elk Feedground's fenced haystacks. He scanned one acre of sagebrush and grass after the next. This was the state agency's top-of-the-line drone, a roughly $12,000 machine, and he was fam...
DEVILS TOWER-When the cyclic population of deer near Ogden Driskill's Crook County ranch peaks, sometimes he'll count as many as 800 whitetails grazing away in a single meadow. That circle-shaped pasture draws in the deer because of its irrigated, nutritious grasses, and it doubles as a venue for nightly 6 p.m. hayrides targeted at tourists. The throngs visiting Northeast Wyoming pack onto a trailer towed by a tractor to enjoy views of the 5,112-foot-high spire that towers over Driskill's property. During the fall of 2021, staff at Driskill's...
Newly published research exposes the role gas drilling infrastructure played in shrinking habitat for northeast Wyoming's dwindling sage grouse population - and it also provides a blueprint to help the imperiled species continue to exist on industrialized landscapes. In the Powder River Basin, a coalbed methane industry boom around the turn of the century brought with it some 30,000 wells, thousands of miles of roads, power lines and pipelines, along with scores of wastewater ponds resulting...
Wyoming will spend more than $4 million to kill coyotes, wolves, ravens, skunks and other “nuisance animals” in 2023-’24 — more than any previous fiscal year. Federal trapper Steve Moyles helped make the case for one portion of the expenditures May 18 in a presentation to the Wyoming Animal Damage Management Board. The common raven, he told board members, is a “nasty bird” that causes horrific injuries to young, defenseless cattle on calving grounds. “They peck navals, they peck eyes, they actually peck holes in joints of calves,” said...
The state of Wyoming is going to court again over grizzly bears, this time because federal wildlife officials missed a deadline to decide whether they would pursue removing Endangered Species Act protections. State officials announced their petition in a cheeky press release this week, accusing the U.S. Department of Interior of "hibernating" on deadline. "The petition seeks to remedy the DOI's inaction," the statement from Gov. Mark Gordon's office said. Under federal policy, the U.S. Fish and...
Findings emerging from an intensive, years-long Wyoming research project are beginning to substantiate suspicions that elk may be thriving on western landscapes at the expense of widely struggling mule deer. "More is not always better," University of Wyoming ecology professor Kevin Monteith told WyoFile. "In this situation, with deer and elk, we may not be able to have our cake and eat it too. We may not be able to have robust, large populations of elk and robust, large populations of deer."...
