Tag Archives: Wyoming

U.S. judge orders federal protection restored to Yellowstone grizzlies

FILE PHOTO: A grizzly bear roams through the Hayden Valley in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, U.S. on May 18, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart/File Photo

By Laura Zuckerman

PINEDALE, Wyo. (Reuters) – A federal judge on Monday ordered Endangered Species Act protections restored to grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park, halting plans for the first licensed trophy hunts of the bears in the region in more than 40 years.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen in Missoula, Montana, sided with environmentalists and native American groups by overruling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision to strip the grizzlies of their status as a threatened species.

The outcome caps one of the most high-profile legal battles over the Endangered Species Act in many years, rivaling previous disputes surrounding the gray wolf and northern spotted owl.

The ruling came as the Trump administration is seeking to rewrite Endangered Species Act regulations that scientists say would erode wildlife protection for the benefit of commercial interests.

The Trump administration’s decision in June of last year to “de-list” the grizzly, formally proposed in 2016 during the Obama era, was based on agency findings that the bears’ numbers had rebounded enough in recent decades that federal safeguards were no longer necessary.

The de-listing, welcomed by big-game hunters and cattlemen, had applied to about 700 Yellowstone-area grizzlies in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

Environmentalists countered that treating those bears separately from other grizzly populations in Montana and elsewhere in the Lower 48 states was biologically unsound and illegal under the Endangered Species Act, and the judge agreed.

Grizzlies, which are slow to reproduce, number fewer than 2,000 bears across the Lower 48. That is far below an historic high of 100,000 before widespread shooting, poisoning and trapping reduced the bears’ population to just several hundred by 1975, when they were placed under federal protection.

Environmentalists have said that while grizzlies have made a comeback, their recovery could falter without continued federal safeguards. They point to, among other things, alterations in the bears’ food supply from climate change and human threats posed by poachers and road traffic.

JUDGE FINDS REASONING ‘ILLOGICAL’

Christensen found that the Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to apply the best available science, as required under the law, in evaluating continued threats to grizzly populations, including limitations in its genetic diversity.

The judge pointed to two studies cited by the agency that he said actually contradicted the government’s own conclusions that the Yellowstone grizzlies could remain genetically self-sufficient. In his 47-page opinion, Christensen called the agency’s reasoning “illogical.”

The judge’s ruling makes permanent a court order barring Wyoming and Idaho from going ahead with plans to open grizzly hunting seasons allowing as many as 23 bears in the two states to be shot and killed for sport outside of Yellowstone park. The season had been set to begin on Sept. 1.

U.S. law prohibits hunting altogether inside the park, and Montana had decided against a grizzly hunt, citing its concerns about long-term recovery of a bear population that is arguably one of the most celebrated and photographed in the world.

Native American tribes, which revere the grizzly as sacred, sought reinstatement of its threatened status as essential to protecting their religious practices.

Ranchers, who make up a powerful political constituency in Western states, have strongly advocated de-listing grizzlies, arguing the bears’ growing numbers pose a threat to humans and livestock. Agitation for state management of the bears also came from hunters, who highly prize them as trophy animals.

The judge said he discounted such factors.

“This case is not about the ethics of hunting and it is not about solving human- or livestock-grizzly conflicts as a practical or philosophical matter,” he wrote. Instead, it turned strictly on his determination that the Fish and Wildlife Service had exceeded its authority.

The agency said it stood by its de-listing action, adding the was reviewing the ruling and “considering next steps.”

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead, a staunch critic of the Endangered Species Act, said he was “disappointed” by Monday’s decision, citing $50 million he said his state had spent on grizzly management over the past 15 years.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Forest rangers, fire crews brace for eclipse watchers to descend on U.S. West

Forest rangers, fire crews brace for eclipse watchers to descend on U.S. West

By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – Forest rangers and fire managers across the U.S. West will be on high alert as motorists flock to Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming for next week’s total solar eclipse, clogging roads and straining scarce resources at the height of summer wildfire season.

The rare spectacle of the moon passing directly in front the sun, combined with the appeal of the West’s great outdoors, is expected to draw tens of thousands of eclipse enthusiasts to rugged, remote national forests and rangelands from the Cascades to the Northern Rockies.

Authorities face an unprecedented challenge from the throngs in a region swathed in tinder-dry vegetation vulnerable to ignition from unattended campfires, discarded cigarettes and hot tailpipes.

“It’s all hands on deck,” said U.S. Forest Service ranger Kurt Nelson, who works in the Sawtooth National Forest near the affluent resort of Sun Valley in central Idaho.

Even without the added threat of careless humans, lightning-sparked wildfires are common at this time of year, raising fears that larger-than-normal crowds of tourists may end up in harm’s way and need to be evacuated.

U.S. fire managers last week elevated the nation’s wildfire readiness status to its highest for the first time in two years, citing heightened danger from thunderstorms.

Besides public safety issues confronting officials, drifting plumes of smoke, even from distant blazes, could end up obscuring the views of eclipse watchers on an otherwise clear day.

The Aug. 21 event marks the first total solar eclipse visible anywhere in the lower 48 states since 1979.

And it will be the first in 99 years spanning the entire continental United States, offering a brief glimpse of the sun completely blotted out – except for the corona of its outer atmosphere – across a 70-mile- (113-km-) wide, coast-to-coast path through 14 states.

Oregon, Idaho and Wyoming are the first three states traversed by the narrow 2,500-mile (4,000-km) “path of totality,” mostly through rural areas unaccustomed to heavy traffic.

BUMPER-TO-BUMPER TRAFFIC

Roads through Idaho’s Sawtooth, for example, are likely to see bumper-to-bumper traffic in the days before and during the eclipse, Nelson said.

That has prompted a regional hospital to park a life-flight helicopter nearby in case of a medical emergency. Extra firefighting crews are also on standby.

Months of bone-dry heat have already brought restrictions on campfires and smoking in many Western forests. But authorities see the fire risks ratcheting up with the influx of travelers, few of whom may understand the dangers.

A wildfire in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest prompted the closure this month of access to Mount Jefferson, the state’s second-highest peak and a would-be destination for those hoping to see the total eclipse, said Kirk Copic, visitor services information assistant for the forest.

First responders may not be able to help travelers as quickly as in a normal situation, Idaho State Police spokesman Tim Marsano warned, adding, “The 911 system is going to be pushed to its limit.”

In the Sawtooth alone, forest rangers expect as many as 30,000 people to inundate an area around the small town of Stanley, home to just 68 year-round residents.

Nelson said the grass has been mowed down in eight eclipse-viewing areas set up for the public, to ensure fire-safe temporary roadside parking.

Smoke from wildfires already burning in Idaho, Oregon, Montana and elsewhere could impair eclipse-viewing for some, but forecasters say smoke conditions, driven largely by wind speeds and direction, will remain uncertain until a day or two before.

The sun will be so high in the sky that smoke should be of little consequence, unless it’s extremely thick, said Michael Zeiler, an avowed “eclipse-chaser” who made a 650-mile (1,000- km) drive, to Casper, Wyoming from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in hopes of witnessing his ninth total solar eclipse.

“This will be the most amazing event you have seen in your life,” said Zeiler, a member of an American Astronomical Society panel for public guidance.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho; Editing by Steve Gorman and Clarence Fernandez)

Wyoming Wildfire Forces Hundreds of Evacuations

A fast-moving grass fire that started at a landfill Saturday has at least a dozen families that have lost their homes and caused over 500 homes to be evacuated in Central Wyoming. 

Winds gusting up to 50 mph on Sunday pushed the blaze to the east and forced evacuations in the Evansville area. The fire started Saturday in a composting area at a regional landfill near Casper. On Sunday, the fire covered about 7,000 acres and destroyed about 15 homes.

The strong winds in the region for this time of year may have helped to ignite the fire.

About 120 people and 50 fire engines are fighting the blaze. Numerous fire departments from around the state are helping.

The Wyoming State Fire Marshal’s office is investigating the cause of the fire, which remained 50 percent contained on Monday evening.

FBI Issues Alert: Middle Eastern Men Harassing Military Families

The FBI has issued an alert to officials in Colorado and Wyoming over a group of Middle Eastern men who have been harassing military families in the region.

Areas specifically mentioned by the FBI alert include Greeley, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

One incident had two Middle Eastern men approaching a woman outside her home.  The men stated they knew she was the wife of a U.S. interrogator.  The men laughed when she denied the claim and then the men entered a dark-colored sedan that contained two other Middle Eastern men.

Other incidents have the men attempting to gain information.

“On numerous occasions family members of military personnel were confronted by Middle Eastern males in front of their homes,” the FBI alert reads. “The males have attempted to obtain personal information about the military men’s family members through intimidation.”

“The family members have reported feeling scared,” it added.

ISIS has stated that they intend to strike military members in their homes and last March published a list of addresses they claimed belonged to U.S. military members.

The alert also says the FBI cannot confirm if the incidents involve the same men.

Rare July Snowfall Hits Rockies

The National Weather Service (NWS) says ‘this pattern should not happen in July.”

The pattern? A weather front that brought several inches of snow to elevations over 8,000 feet in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.

The NWS also said the front was bringing the “windiest July day ever” to the region.

“In my 27 years as the chief meteorologist for KXLF/KBZK, I have only reported a few times that snow is falling in SW Montana in July,” Mike Heard, a television meteorologist for the affiliate serving Bozeman and southwest Montana, told the Washington Post. “Today [Monday] is one of those days.”

The weather system was a combination of moisture and cold air from Alaska and Canada that stalled over the region. The NWS says those weather patterns usually do not appear until late August or early September.

The famed Jackson Hole, Wyoming ski resort said they had over an inch of snow and farmers throughout the region had to scramble to cover crops. Other resorts reported a mix of rain and snow depending on the elevation.

“This morning it was snowing right where the ski lifts start and all the way up the mountain,” said Tom Conway, assistant golf pro at Big Sky Resort south of Bozeman. “At our elevation on the golf course, about 6,500 feet, it was raining. But at 9,000 feet there was about an inch or two of accumulation.”

“We’ve covered our melons and cukes and closed the greenhouses. We are saying to the fruits and veggies, ‘Stay warm, everybody,'” Jessica McAleese, co-owner of Swift River Farm said to Yahoo.