It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming! I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom, for Tuesday, April 16th.
After years of rumors that there were grizzly bears roaming Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department on Monday confirmed that one has been killed for preying on cattle near Ten Sleep.
Outdoors reporter Mark Heinz said the bear’s expansion east across the Bighorn Basin was inevitable.
“ For years and years people have been saying there's Grizzlies in the Big Horn. Never any confirmation about it we have that a grizzly bear was, according to the game and fish department. They had to euthanize a grizzly bear for deprecating cattle killing cattle near 10 sleep in the big horns. So we have after all these years, we have confirmation that there are grizzly bears in the big horns.”
The report of the grizzly in the Bighorns comes amid a buzz over the recent sighting of a grizzly south of Havre, Montana, part of a continuing pattern of grizzlies pushing ever farther east into Montana’s high prairies.
A uranium resurgence in the Cowboy State has embraced a boomtown mentality that Wyoming hasn’t seen in 50 years.
The CEO of Uranium Royalty Corporation told energy reporter Pat Maio that Wyoming is seeing a full-blown startup of a mining industry that previously sat idle for decades.
“now's a great time for a lot of companies, the rush into the market, because of prices have gotten so high. I mean, they hit a record level earlier this year, I believe at the end of January,... the last couple of weeks or a week or so maybe two at the most prices are starting to recover again, you know, and you're starting to see more, more of the same old, same old, you know, these companies in Wyoming are all rushing to get into production.”
Maio reports that a number of companies have announced plans to begin production of uranium mining in the Cowboy State.
No one showed up to a protest on the capitol steps in Cheyenne on Monday, where the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals called on Gov. Mark Gordon to push for the state to tax all meat in Wyoming, to compensate for the alleged negative impacts cattle have on climate change.
Political reporter Leo Wolfson says that request is a tough ask in a deeply red state widely known for its ranching heritage and cattle production.
“Gordon, who's also a rancher himself, pointed out that there was only four people at the rally. And he also said that he supports Wyoming's ranchers and meat industry, and really made no commitment to doing anything that the protest was asking for. I also spoke to Amanda Brody, who is the Senior protester from PETA, Florida, Florida bass woman, and she was saying that it's not taxes not as outlandish as it sounds, and mentioned how there's alcohol tax and a tobacco tax.”
None of the four protestors at Monday’s event are Wyoming residents. Two are from nearby Colorado. Another, who's a Florida resident, said her group is headed to Boulder next for a rally about a different topic.
A Lander man is accused of bludgeoning a man to death with a metal bar Sunday morning while the pair were drinking together.
Crime and Courts reporter Clair McFarland says 39 year old Michael Vigil told police he was just trying to knock the man out, after the man made sexual advances toward him.
“ Vigil had invited a man to drink with him at the Hills home, and the man made a pass. The affidavit simply it relates from Vigil’s interview, the claim that the man lowered his shorts, exposing his genitalia and Vigil was concerned that he was going to endure some kind of sexual attack. And he asked the man to leave, he told the police, but the man didn't and somehow ended up in Vigil’s bed where Vigil allegedly told police that he retrieved a pipe and hit the man in the head three times, hoping to knock him out. So, Lander police said that they originally responded to what they thought was an assault call, but they found a body when they arrived at the home.”
Vigil appeared in Lander Circuit Court Monday afternoon, but said he was not able to process what was going on in court because of his schizophrenia and a need for medication.
And in a matter related to the torment of a wolf that has enraged people around the world, Wyoming state officials say they plan to investigate whether having a live wolf in the Green River Bar in Daniel rose to the level of being a food safety violation.
Daniel resident Cody Roberts has been fined for keeping a live wolf, which he had captured after running it down with a snowmobile. He took the wolf to the bar, and at one point taped its muzzle shut.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that failing a retail food safety inspection can result in fines and other penalties.
“I talked to the department of agriculture today, their consumer health services division does do restaurant inspections, and they're planning as a result of all this and these reports and allegations, they are planning on doing an inspection of the Green River bar, you know, the outcome of which could be anybody's guess at this point.”
After allegedly showing the wolf off and teasing it in the bar, Roberts took it out behind the establishment and killed it.
And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming’s only statewide newspaper by hitting the subscribe button on CowboyStateDaily.com
I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
Radio Stations
The following radio stations are airing Cowboy State Daily Radio on weekday mornings, afternoons and evenings. More radio stations will be added soon.
KYDT 103.1 FM – Sundance
KBFS 1450 AM — Sundance
KYCN 1340 AM / 92.7 FM — Wheatland
KZEW 101.7 FM — Wheatland
KANT 104.1 FM — Guernsey
KZQL 105.5 FM — Casper
KMXW 92.5 FM — Casper
KBDY 102.1 FM — Saratoga
KTGA 99.3 FM — Saratoga
KJAX 93.5 FM — Jackson
KZWY 106.3 FM — Sheridan
KROE 930 AM / 103.9 FM — Sheridan
KWYO 1410 AM / 106.9 FM — Sheridan
KYOY 92.3 FM Hillsdale-Cheyenne / 106.9 FM Cheyenne
KRAE 1480 AM — Cheyenne
KDLY 97.5 FM — Lander
KOVE 1330 AM — Lander
KZMQ 100.3/102.3 FM — Cody, Powell, Medicine Wheel, Greybull, Basin, Meeteetse
KKLX 96.1 FM — Worland, Thermopolis, Ten Sleep, Greybull
KCGL 104.1 FM — Cody, Powell, Basin, Lovell, Clark, Red Lodge, MT
KTAG 97.9 FM — Cody, Powell, Basin
KCWB 92.1 FM — Cody, Powell, Basin
KVGL 105.7 FM — Worland, Thermopolis, Basin, Ten Sleep
KODI 1400 AM / 96.7 FM — Cody, Powell, Lovell, Basin, Clark, Red Lodge
KWOR 1340 AM / 104.7 FM — Worland, Thermopolis, Ten Sleep
KREO 93.5 FM — Sweetwater and Sublette Counties
KGOS 1490 AM — Goshen County
KERM 98.3 FM — Goshen County
Check with individual radio stations for airtime of the newscasts.
