“I felt she was quite healthy,” he said. “If she did actually go to den, she’ll probably have two or three cubs.” Schwabedissen also said the last confirmed sighting of 399 was in mid-September of last year. He said there were more reported sightings afterwards that were “likely to be her.” Without a GPS collar, 399’s exact whereabouts are unknown. “However, we fully expect that she is denned up,” Schwabedissen said. While 399 is “at the upper end of a grizzly bear’s lifespan,” her body condition “did look good” last fall, he said.
Residents and visitors in Wyoming, Montana northeast Washington, and northern and eastern Idaho should be prepared for a grizzly encounter and work to prevent conflicts by following the tips below – preventing a conflict is always easier than dealing with one.
WYDOT originally had planned to start the environmental and design project in 2026 but decided to advance the project to start sooner. Bob Hammond, WYDOT’s Resident Engineer, said that daily traffic on WYO 22 has increased by 20 percent over the last 10 years. He added that traffic growth during peak travel hours were even higher during this timeframe, with approximately 30 percent growth in the morning peak hour and 17 percent in the evening peak hour.
“Our organization has always favored voluntary country of origin labeling,” he said. “I think this is a step in the right direction. Currently, a label that says 'Product of the USA' is very deceptive from our perspective; it could be entirely produced in another country, and only processed in the U.S.”
“We’ve never known an animal to survive CWD. They all succumb to it,” he told a crowd at the department’s season setting meeting Monday night in Powell in the Yellowstone Building on the Northwest College Campus. “Typically deer succumb to it in about 18 months — we usually say somewhere between 18 and 24 months.”
Adult male grizzly bears typically emerge from hibernation in March, while females with young typically appear between April and early May. The first grizzly bear sighting of 2022 in the Jackson Hole area occurred on March 13 in Grand Teton National Park. When bears emerge from their dens, they search for any available foods and often scavenge animals that died during the winter.
Near Pinedale, an outbreak of a rare respiratory disease is moving through the Sublette herd of pronghorn, a group of nearly 40,000 antelope. A few hundred of its members migrate north to Grand Teton National Park in the summer. Mycoplasma bovis infections that cause serious cases of pneumonia have killed some 200 animals in the herd since mid-February.
When individuals access closed winter range, they cause animals using the area to become stressed or flee to new locations. This retreat requires animals, especially ungulates like deer, elk, and moose, to use energy they cannot spare. Further, it can place them in areas less suitable for grazing and/or browsing, preventing them from gathering the food sources they need to survive. This leads to a weakened condition, which can have a direct effect on the animals’ ability to defend itself, making it more susceptible to predation and disease, and can lead to future reproduction problems in individual animals.
Among the reported overdose deaths in 2022, 29 percent were linked with prescription drugs, 59 percent with illicit drugs and 10 percent involved a combination. Opioids, which can be either prescription drugs or illicit drugs, were connected to 72 of the reported overdose deaths last year. Fentanyl was linked with 48 of the deaths and methamphetamine with 47.
Pinedale Region season-setting meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 22 – 2023 season-setting meeting, at the Pinedale Game and Fish office, 432 Mill St., Pinedale, from 6 to 8 p.m. For those unable to attend one of the season-setting meetings in person, there will also be presentations posted to the Game and Fish website by March 17, highlighting proposed changes from the 2022 hunting seasons by each biologist district.
Each winter, well-intentioned people begin to feed wildlife, under the assumption it will ensure their survival through winter. Unfortunately, feeding of any kind causes more harm than good to mule deer and only furthers their decline. Mule deer are adapted to their environment and specifically to the plants they rely on to survive. Throughout the summer they eat highly nutritious plants to build up their fat stores. Through the winter they eat less overall and transition to eating woody plants that are less nutritious while they utilize their fat stores for energy and survival. Unlike elk, mule deer are highly selective foragers due to their specialized digestive system. Mule deer digestive systems contain specific bacteria that help break down only the plants they eat and are adapted to. The bacteria adjust slowly to match their diet through each season, and in the winter their gut contains the appropriate bacteria to digest only their winter diet of woody materials. Any human-provided food sources, including hay, apples, corn, etc. are simply not digestible and cause an abundance of lactic acid, acidosis, dehydration, and ultimately death. Fed mule deer often die from starvation with full stomachs of food they cannot digest.
Participants develop their job and leadership skills while exploring personal values, gaining self-esteem, expanding their awareness of work ethics, and learning firsthand about environmental and conservation issues. Corps members also participate in evening and weekend recreational activities and discover the many options for careers in the National Park Service and other land management agencies.
”The next steps include an in-depth status review and analyses using the best available science and information to arrive at a 12-month finding on whether the removal of ESA protections for grizzly bears in the NCDE and GYE are warranted,” wrote media contact Joe Szuszwalak. “If so, removing ESA protections would then be initiated through a separate rulemaking process, with additional public notice and comment.”
“What I think this will do,” Sommers said, “it’ll ease that rush of people.”
“We’re not seeing significant mortality yet, but if winter conditions continue as is, we are likely to see above-average mortality for both mule deer and pronghorn,” said Pinedale Region Wildlife Supervisor John Lund. “Now is the time to give these animals a break to increase their chance of making it through the long winter ahead.”
In Sublette County, the average gas price was $3.45, according to GasBuddy price reported on Wednesday.
“Many people chose to relocate to less populated, lower cost areas during the pandemic, and the increased availability of remote work made this possible,” Wenlin Liu, chief economist for the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division, said in a Monday report on the data.
Wildlife managers suggest these best practices to help wintering wildlife: Leave fence gates open wherever possible to allow unimpaired movement of animals across the landscape, especially along roadways so animals can avoid a potential vehicle collision. This can also help reduce damage to fences and prevent animals from getting entangled and dying. Many landowners have modified their fences to make them more wildlife-friendly by replacing the bottom wire with a smooth wire and lowering the top wire or adding a pole to the top. The Wyoming Game and Fish and their many partners have converted nearly 700 miles of traditional fence to wildlife-friendly fence in the Pinedale area alone. Avoid snowmobiling or recreating on low-elevation winter ranges, but rather opt for the high country with deeper snow where animals are less likely to be disturbed. Resist the urge to feed wildlife to “help” them through the winter, as it typically does more harm than good. Feeding can result in increased potential for disease transmission, as well as conflicts with people, pets, and traffic due to high densities of animals in developed areas. Similarly, protect and make stored hay crops and pet feed unavailable to wildlife, especially alfalfa. While game animals will readily eat these foods, they may not be able to metabolize them, and will often end up dying with a full stomach. As motorists, plan ahead, drive slower and pay close attention for animals along our roadways. Wildlife-vehicle collisions occur at a higher rate during the winter months and research has shown that slowing down, even just five miles-per-hour can greatly increase a driver’s reaction time to avoid a collision. This is especially important at dawn and dusk when animals are more active and harder to see.
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The project team has been working to finish the baseline conditions report and develop a range of options for improving safety and recreational access along the corridor to consider. The team will present these considered projects and improvements along the corridor in poster form and look forward to getting valuable in person feedback from the public so please attend at your convenience.