Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Continuing the Crook County News Since 1884
Sorted by date Results 1 - 12 of 12
POWELL — The Bureau of Land Management released a draft Thursday of an updated sage grouse management plan that places species protections back on track after several years of disruptions to the historic 2015 sage grouse plan. That was then credited for halting plans for costly protections for the species under the Endangered Species Act. Following 2019 court orders overturning Trump administration changes to the historic collaborative plans, the BLM has been managing sage grouse habitat according to those adopted in 2015, the agency said. H...
POWELL - Unlike most high school kids, environmental photojournalist Julia Cook spent much of her free time in the basement of the Draper Natural History Museum stripping rotting meat from the skeletons of various animals; bears, wolves, mountain lions. A half-dozen years later, you can still find her there volunteering to do work many would turn their nose up to. "Sometimes it is a bit smelly," Cook said during a recent lecture at the museum. Cook was an intern with the Wyoming Game and Fish...
POWELL - Federal officials and wild horse supporters are calling for calm after highly emotionally charged threats were made to Bureau of Land Management employees over the removal of wild horses in the agency's efforts to reach appropriate management levels within the McCullough Peaks Herd Management Area. "Please don't attack BLM employees," said Deputy State Director of Communications for BLM Wyoming Brad Purdy in an interview with the Tribune, saying he understands the passion and emotion...
POWELL — The grizzly bear found dead along the North Fork Highway last week was killed by a Cody area hunter who said he mistook the animal for a black bear, according to court documents. The hunter, Patrick M. Gogerty, reportedly came forward on May 2 — the day after he reportedly shot the bear, and after the bear’s carcass drew widespread public attention. “Gogerty should have turned himself in immediately,” North Cody Game Warden Travis Crane wrote in an affidavit included in court records. Park County Prosecuting Attorney Bryan Skoric charg...
POWELL — The first suspected case of avian flu killing a mammal in Wyoming has been sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wildlife lab for verification. A red fox, one of three suspected cases recently sent to the state lab, tested positive. All scavenging mammals, including pets, are in danger of contracting the disease according to state officials. Last week, for the first time, three grizzly bears suffering from the virus were “humanely euthanized” by Montana officials. Game and Fish large carnivore program manager Dan Thompso...
POWELL — Electrically stunned trout rolled to the top of the water, revealing their white underbellies, while volunteers hoping to save Wyoming’s prized game fish sloshed through the muddy, receding pools of the Cody Canal to scoop them up as fast as possible. The volunteers, who face a wet and sometimes bone-chilling task, were fueled by the sugary sweetness of donuts and black coffee as the rescue mission continued just after sunrise Friday. It was obvious there were a lot of fish to be saved along the ditch near the South Fork of the Shoshon...
POWELL - Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a July 7 ceremony at the White House by longtime friend, U.S. President Joe Biden. "Joe Biden and I have been friends for 55 years and worked together for 18 years," Simpson said in a Tuesday interview. "It's a high honor and I'm touched." The Cody resident served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1965 to 1977 and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978. Simpson held several leadership...
POWELL - Native fish populations in Yellowstone Lake have been jeopardized since fisheries biologists found lake trout illegally introduced in 1994. The process of removing the invasive species has cost tens of millions, while labor-intensive methods have evolved. As the park makes headway mitigating the effects of lake trout, two more species have recently caused concern in the fight to protect Yellowstone Cutthroat trout. Tuesday evening, the East Yellowstone chapter of Trout Unlimited...
POWELL — As a grizzly bear chased a wounded elk into the river in the Hayden Valley in Yellowstone National Park, a Cody wildlife photographer trained her video camera on the surprising series of events. The result of B.E. Judson’s effort gave the world a somewhat hard to watch, yet intimate and educational view of a day in the life of predator and prey. What may be a common event outside the view of visitors became a rare glimpse of the savage nature of wild places. The video has been viewed by more than 1.3 million people since being pos...
POWELL — A father and son team from Cody claim they solved the clues left by Sante Fe art dealer Forrest Fenn and are now waiting for their payoff of gold and jewels. Chris and Christopher Hurst say that after presenting their evidence to Fenn, he announced later that same day that the hunt was over and the riddle solved. It was on the evening of June 6 that Fenn announced that the treasure — a cache of gold and jewels reportedly worth somewhere between $1 million and $5 million — had been discovered. “It was under a canopy of stars in the lush...
POWELL — The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission has decided not to try superseding the Endangered Species Act and federal regulations and enact a hunting season on grizzly bears. But commissioners’ frustration is at a boiling point. Last week, the commission considered a recent bill by the Wyoming Legislature that, at least in theory, gave the panel the authority to pass a hunting season despite a September ruling that reinstated federal protections for the Yellowstone area’s grizzly bears. In response to the legislation, three questions were pos...
POWELL — On Friday, President Donald Trump’s administration published its intent to remove Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states. That triggered a 60-day review by a team of scientists and opening the proposal to public comment in the Federal Register. “We propose this action because the best available scientific and commercial information indicates that the currently listed entities do not meet the definitions of a threatened species or endangered species under the [Endangered Species] Act due to recov...
