Crews will be utilizing helicopter operations in the Stinking Springs area of Hoback Canyon to do some general maintenance of the avalanche infrastructure known as the O’Bellx units. These units use explosions to trigger smaller, controlled avalanches to prevent dangerous, uncontrolled conditions.
In the Pinedale Field Office area, these areas are closed: The Ryegrass, Bench Corral, Deer Hills, Calpet and Miller Mountain winter ranges including lands north of Fontenelle Creek, east of the Forest Service Boundary, west of U.S. Highway 189 and south of Horse Creek. The Mesa winter range east of County Road 110/East Green River Road, north of County Road 136/Paradise Valley Road, west of the New Fork River and south of U.S. Highway 191.
“Plaintiffs (Jaylyn Westenbroek, Hannah Holtmeier, Allison Coghan, Grace Choate, Madeline Ramar and Megan Kosar) have chosen to level accusations of impropriety against Defendants. They must now shoulder the burden of those accusations and walk in the public eye,” he wrote.
Commissioners decided to ax 765 licenses for hunters looking to bag “any antelope” in that herd, and another 1,225 doe and fawn licenses. Some hunters questioned why the department was still planning to offer “any antelope” tags, concerned they might lead to unsustainable levels of doe killing.
The change in electricity prices would vary across rate classes under the utility’s proposal. Residential customers would see the smallest increase, at 5.1 percent, with the average residential bill going up by about $3.52 per month, according to the utility. That percentage rises to between 5.6 percent and 8.4 percent for general service users and between 6.4 percent and 9.2 percent for all other categories.
“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.”
DEQ will celebrate throughout the month of May with outreach efforts that inspire Wyoming citizens to take action and consider incorporating air quality knowledge and conservation practices into their daily lifestyles.
As a part of the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) Affiliate Network, the Wyoming Alliance for Environmental Education has launched a pledge campaign called Outside for 5 encouraging teachers and educators in Wyoming to engage in outdoor learning for at least five minutes a day, five days a week, or any meaningful amount of time. This is part of a national campaign that calls upon teachers to support student wellness by learning outside.
An investigation initiated by U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations in April 2021, revealed Joshua Anders Rae of Bozeman, Montana, was collecting shed elk antlers outside legal dates for areas west of the continental divide in Wyoming. In April 2021, Law Enforcement Officers patrolling a winter range closure outside Jackson, WY encountered Rae hiding illegally collected antlers under the cover of darkness. The longstanding closure was established to protect wintering deer and elk. Rae, who entered the closure by traveling cross country a significant distance, was present in the area the day before the legal opening date, thus depriving numerous shed hunting enthusiasts of equal enjoyment and opportunity during the highly regulated opening day event outside Jackson, WY.
About 30 percent of the does in the Wyoming Range Mule Deer Herd had died by late March, when Gov. Mark Gordon convened a town hall-style meeting in Pinedale about winter’s dire effects on ungulate populations in portions of Wyoming. At the time, biologists explained that survival rates could continue to plummet — and their warnings proved prescient. In the two weeks that followed, another 20 percent of the adult female deer in the Wyoming Range succumbed to starvation and other winter stressors, a state biologist told WyoFile on Friday.
On Saturday, April 22, entrance fees will be waived in celebration of National Park Week.
Members of the 2023 wool judging team were Kristy Benjamin from Pinedale; Bailey Arends, Brighton, Colo.; Kirby Hales, Laramie; Hadlee Hollinger, Casper; Joe Mills, Peyton, Colo.; Todd Paisley, Wheatland; Megan Perez, Aurora, Colo.; Emi Ramirez, Steamboat Springs, Colo.; and Morgan Stratman, Stromsburg, Neb.
Beginning Friday, April 7, bicyclists willing to brave the unpredictable weather of spring in Yellowstone National Park can ride 49 miles between the West Entrance in West Yellowstone, Montana, and Mammoth Hot Springs.
The 14-mile section of road will open to motor vehicle traffic on May 1, weather permitting.
Both species are dying from starvation due to snow that’s buried their favorite shrubs, a lack of wind that usually clears hillsides for foraging, and persistent below-zero temperatures that have caused the animals to use up the fat stores that get them through winter — with at least a month of snow cover left.
“Wyoming is not a significant contributor to ozone pollution in our neighboring states. Data support the work that went into our state plan,” Gov. Gordon stated. “This is yet another example of this Administration picking and choosing examples which are intended to punish fossil energy-producing states.”
The group of women asserts that the new abortion law, albeit more detailed than last year’s ban, still contravenes many of the same constitutional protections cited previously. Those include Wyomingites’ rights to make their own health-care decisions, privacy, religious freedom and equal protection under the law, among others named in the state constitution.
All four projects will cause delays (Lewis River Bridge, Old Faithful to West Thumb, Yellowstone River Bridge and Northeast Entrance Road).
Hageman, however, pushed back, walking Servheen through provisions in an agreement between Wyoming, Idaho and Montana establishing a population goal for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem: About 932 animals, a number intentionally set to well exceed the 500-animal federal recovery threshold.
The oil and gas industry, as of September 2021, held more than 9,600 onshore federal oil and gas permits while the BLM was still processing 4,400 additional permit applications to drill federal parcels under contract — more than enough to support robust drilling programs, according to a November 2021 Interior Department report. Industry officials insist they need a surplus of permitted federal lease parcels to fund drilling programs, but the practice threatens to prioritize future drilling over other uses for those public lands, according to the Interior.