Daily Darwin

[{"type":"text","text":"I get by with a little help from my friends...."}]

Darwin 6 3 24

Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>🚧 Daily Darwin: Monday, June 3, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

I get by with a little help from my friends....

Daily Darwin: Monday, June 3, 2024

 I get by with a little help from my friends....

You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"College cheers make no sense....."}]

Bonus vid 2 1 4 26

<title>🚧 Bonus Video 2: Sunday, January 4, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

College cheers make no sense.....

Bonus Video 2: Sunday, January 4, 2026

John Thompson

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Brittany Heseltine knows straight away when a predator is nearby. The cattle she tends tell her when something's wrong. 

When they're calm, paired up and grazing, all is well. When the cows are not cooperative, spread out and bawling for their calves, there's a chance she'll find a bloody mess. 

Run-ins with predators, namely grizzly bears, black bears and wolves can be fairly common here near the headwaters of the Green River. 

Heseltine is a foreman and range rider for the Upper Green River Cattle Association. She's 31 and has worked this job for the last five years. She has three horses, four dogs, four other range riders, and 800 cattle in her charge. 

She spends five months each year, June through October, mostly on her own, working in the shadow of the Wind River Range. Days off are as rare as shooting stars, but she says it's not a bad place to hang her hat. 

People from all over the world travel through this area every summer on the Continental Divide Trail. 

The road through here is as rough as a corn cob. It leads over Union Pass and connects Dubois with Highway 352 at the north end of Kendall Valley. 

"If I get lonely and want to talk to someone, there's always people on the road," she said. 

Sometimes the ranchers she works for stop in to say hello and bring salt for the cattle. Her boyfriend and family members stop in once in a while too. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Green River Drift"}]

Eleven ranchers are members of the cattle association. They turn out about 5,000 head of cattle every spring. It's part of the famous Green River Drift, a 58-mile-long cattle trail used continuously since the 1890s.

The Drift as it's known, was featured by the television news magazine “60 Minutes” in 2021. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Day by Day"}]

Every morning she saddles up and heads out among the grazing pastures surrounded by dense mixed conifer forest. The grass is lush this year.  

She understands that predators own the night and that makes mornings the most interesting time of the day. She's like a detective traveling out to investigate a potential crime scene. 

First off, her border collies, Tory, Jenny, Gyp and Roe fan out among the willows in a river bottom. They will "clean out" this area, pushing cattle uphill to the open ridges and sidehills where she wants them to graze for the day. 

"The cattle tend to move down into the river bottom at night," she said. "They prefer to be out on open, flat ground so there aren't a lot of obstacles in their way if they need to escape. But they come down here because they know it's safer when they're closer to people." 

After they clean the river bottom, she rides among the herd and checks for any animals that might have respiratory problems or lameness. Dealing with foot rot, pneumonia, pink eye and other ailments are among a range rider's common tasks. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Doctoring"}]

Her saddlebag unbuckles and folds open to reveal a veterinary kit containing a large bottle of oxytetracycline, syringes, needles and a marking crayon. With a sick calf she'll rope it, throw it and hold it down with her knees to give it a shot, while her horse holds the rope tight. Then she'll mark it with a crayon and record the calf's ear tag number and brand. 

She knows how to estimate a sick cow's weight and calculate the correct dosage of medicine. Heseltine earned two associate degrees from Western Wyoming College and a Bachelor of Animal Science from the University of Wyoming.

With the bigger yearlings, cows and bulls she has the option to call for help from another range rider, or she knows a couple of tricks. The first, easiest, and less risky is to pull out her dart gun and administer medicine from a distance. 

The other is to rope the animal and if it will stand quietly with the rope around its neck she will toss a length of the rope around the front of its body on the ground and try to get it to step over the rope. If it steps just right she can catch the rear legs and the head at the same time and put it on the ground where she can administer medicine. 

Most of the ailments she encounters aren't difficult to diagnose, she said. With foot rot there will be swelling and lameness, pink eye causes runny red eyes and with respiratory diseases they have a hard time breathing. 

"When they're stressed their ears are droopy and they'll hold their head low," she said. "But you have to know the difference between sick and just tired because you just pushed them up a hill." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Investigating Depredation"}]

"Walking wounded" is another problem she sometimes encounters. This is when a calf is injured by a predator but still on its feet. When this happens, she ropes and throws the animal on the ground and then ties its legs together. It waits that way until Wyoming Game and Fish shows up to investigate what happened. 

She will use an In-Reach satellite phone to send Game and Fish a message and a location with a global position sensor. Then a predator biologist will drive up and investigate what happened and try to pin down the culprit. 

Bears generally leave wounds on an animal's back between its front shoulders and on its brisket. Wolves leave bite marks on the back legs and rump. When they find a dead cow or calf they will skin it and look for teeth marks to determine what killed it, she said. 

Ranchers can receive a payout from the state when predators are proven responsible for livestock deaths. 

Sometimes she will find an animal that died from natural causes and a predator came along after the death and fed on the carcass. In this case she'll skin the carcass and look for pooling blood or bruising from bite marks. If there's no bruising of the meat or pooling blood under the hide, it's most likely the predator didn't kill it, she said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Day To Day"}]

On other days Heseltine will ride along and fix fences, pack salt blocks for the cattle to lick or move cattle from one pasture to the next. When it's time to change pastures a Forest Service range manager and the grazing association president come up and take measurements of the plants growing at specified places. They measure the same spots every year. 

"They take measurements at several sites and calculate an average length of the grass," she said. "If the average meets their requirements, then I have a couple of days before I change pastures. If the average is below their requirements, I start moving cattle immediately." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What’s required"}]

Range riders provide their own horses, dogs, horse trailers, trucks and tack. They also shoe their own horses so they need the tools for that job. The grazing association provides five cabins for the riders. Heseltine starts the season living in a house trailer and will move to a higher elevation cabin later this summer. 

In her spare time she likes Marvel movies and fantasy novels. She also spends time making chaps, purses and other leather goods. She has a small house trailer where she keeps a heavy-duty leather sewing machine and the other tools of that trade. 

As a youngster she rode horses but didn't have any experience with livestock until she was 16. Her stepfather Eddie Wardell, a Big Piney rancher, took her along to fix fences once and she met a woman range rider and decided that was what she wanted. 

"Eddie wasn't sure if I could handle this work, but after college they had an opening and I jumped at it," she said. "After my first year, Albert (Sommers) who was the grazing association president at the time, said 'you're coming back next year right?' I said if you'll have me. Now the current president Coke Landers told me I can't quit." 

John Thompson can be reached at News@CowboyStateDaily.com

Brittany Heseltine 2 7123

<title>🚧 Wyoming People: Brittany Heseltine Is A Real Working Cowgirl And Range Rider | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Brittany Heseltine is foreman and range rider for the Upper Green River Cattle Association. She has 3 horses, 4 dogs, 4 other range riders, and 800 cattle in her charge. She spends 5 months each year, June through October, mostly on her own, working in the shadow of the Wind River Range.

Wyoming People: Brittany Heseltine Is A Real Working Cowgirl And Range Rider

Jake nichols 720

Jake Nichols

Business & Tourism

Business

,” the sleeper hit for Amazon, dropped Season 2 last month. Hardcore fans and greenhorns were treated to more of the same twisty and confusing subplots from the Western/sci-fi thriller that has drawn comparisons that it’s “Yellowstone” meets “Lost.”

Similar to Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone,” which has spawned a franchise of spinoffs and made Westerns suddenly hot again in Hollywood, “Outer Range” follows the struggles of a ranching family to hang onto their land. Like “Lost,” “Outer Range” appears to be in no hurry making any headway toward its meandering plot conclusions.

Without giving away too many spoilers, the biggest twist in “Outer Range” might be the fact that it isn’t shot in Wyoming, though the pseudo-Western starring Josh Brolin purports to take place there complete with more than a few thirst-trap backdrops of the iconic Tetons. 

An excerpt from the original script of the show’s creator and writer Brian Watkins reads: “Exterior, Wyoming wilderness, night. The range. A vast valley. Behind it, the jagged, looming peaks of the Tetons. Postcard image of the American West.”

But the show’s producers never considered coming to Wyoming to shoot. Practically every movie or television series that is set in Wyoming is not filmed here. Too costly, too inconvenient, and wholly unnecessary, studios say.

It follows a trend that shows no signs of turning itself around, even with financial help from the state that has not exactly 

For the uninitiated, “Outer Range” is a genre-bending sci-fi Western that uses the allure of the vast and contemporary American West as a launching point into the supernatural. 

Acting is superb in the exclusive Prime Video offering and cinematography captures the West at its best, even if it is the Land of Enchantment pinch-hitting for the Equality State. 

Numerous scenes depict the Abbott family fixing fence, moving cows and making otherworldly discoveries on their spread with the recognizable Teton Range soaring majestically in the background. That kind of view costs millions of dollars to live near, millions more to film in. 

Right there is problem No. 1 if the state of Wyoming wants to attract more film crews to shoot in-state. Things usually come down to money and filming in Teton County would be stupidly expensive without massive subsidies. 

Money is only part of the reason why Cowboy State resident Craig Johnson’s “Longmire” won't ever be shot in Wyoming, or why the state will likely never again see a motion picture masterpiece like “Shane” filmed under the shadow of the Tetons.

[{"type":"text","text":"Hollywood has gotten too good at faking it. "}]

Don't be surprised. The entire industry operates on trickery. Viewers of “Outer Range” are easily made to believe Brolin is a rancher, a county in Wyoming has a gay female Native American as its sheriff, or that hippie chick Imogen Poots is even from the United States. She’s a Brit. 

The movie industry is based on making audiences believe what isn’t. Wyoming does not have a quaint little Western town called Wabang. There is no Amelia County. And the Tetons, while real, are as unnecessary to a film company shooting a Western as finding an actor who can ride a horse. 

Wyoming’s stunning mountain range was simply superimposed in the background using the latest in CGI techniques. For every member of the cast there are about 10 credited people on the production crew skilled in digital matte painting, CFX artistry, digital composition and gobs more visual effects specialists. 

Thanks to advancing VFX visual effects technology, it’s hard to know what’s real in a movie or television series and what’s been added in. 

Combine that with the sobering fact that most viewers would not know the difference between Wamsutter, Waco or Wabang — the fictional town in Wyoming acting as the TV series’ rustic ranching hub.  

Parts of Wyoming look like Utah, Colorado, Nevada or New Mexico. When directors need a shot that includes a truly Wyoming feature like Devils Tower or the Grand Tetons, they simply have it spliced in. 

NYC-based sitcoms “Friends” and “Seinfeld” shot in California. “Chicago” was filmed in Toronto. Gilligan’s entire island was created on a Hollywood backlot.

[{"type":"text","text":"If it’s that easy, why come to Wyoming at all?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Other States Stand In"}]

Experts say infrastructure for the film industry is the major reason why major projects don't film in Wyoming even when the storyline places them here. 

A lack of major airports, accommodations and access to big-city amenities are brought up when issues arise. Wyoming has little-to-no pool of experienced film workers and fewer semi-professional background actors or extras. 

Most studios are required to hire union labor. If none exist on location, these workers have to be flown in, fed and housed. Incentives and subsidies could help ease the pain of filming in remote Wyoming, but not likely to the degree necessary to make it worthwhile. 

“The harsh, uncomfortable reality is that Wyoming isn't visually distinctive enough to justify the hassle of filming there. It’s just not a particularly exotic or exclusive location,” said industry insider Peter Alston. “A quick establishing shot of a mountain range like the Tetons’ cameo in ‘Django Unchained’ can be made at a hundred other locations with a hundred times less effort. And if the story is edited right the audience won't even blink. 

“Canada, Montana, Colorado and New Mexico — even parts of California — all have a similar spread of geography and climate. Even if a juicy subsidy suddenly appears, creative executives won’t be clamoring to utilize Wyoming’s vast windblown desolation,” Alston continued.

It’s the chicken or the egg dilemma for Wyoming. The state does not have the things major studios need but can’t build this infrastructure until the industry commits to putting the Equality State on the map. 

[{"type":"text","text":"New Mexico Understudy To Wyoming"}]

Today, Western-themed movies and shows are mostly shot on location in Hollywood-friendly places like Alberta, Vancouver or Albuquerque. In fact, the state of New Mexico is fast becoming a major player in the motion picture industry as a cheap and easy place to film almost anything. 

When the pandemic quashed Amazon’s plans to shoot “Outer Range” in Calgary, Canada, location scout Hilton Clay Peres quickly got to work identifying places in New Mexico that would pass for Wyoming just fine. Peres also worked on “Oppenheimer” and “News of the World,” both shot in and around Albuquerque. 

The Abbott Ranch was built from scratch not far from I-25 Studios (now rebranded as Cinelease Studios) where all of the interior scenes were also filmed. That particular production studio comprises six sound stages as well as exterior sets and production facilities. 

Cinelease has become a very in-demand filming destination in the past decade since movies like “Transcendence” (2014) and “Lone Survivor” (2013) were shot there. More recently, the Netflix series “Stranger Things,” Western drama “No Country for Old Men” and AMC’s “Breaking Bad” were also filmed in and around Albuquerque.

“Outer Range” crews left Albuquerque to shoot other scenes but remained in New Mexico. The fictitious town of Wabang was reimagined using Las Vegas, New Mexico, as the site. The historic cow town, which dates back to 1835, barely had to be dressed for most of the exteriors, said Amber Dodson, the state’s film office director. 

Las Vegas also served as another fictitious Wyoming town, Durant, in the “Longmire” television series.

“Outer Range” set up shop on Bridge Street in Las Vegas, using the cute downtown Kiva Theatre “as-is” in many shots. 

The Community 1st Bank on Douglas Avenue served as the Bison Valley Bank of Wyoming after a little dressing. The scene where Rhett meets his love interest Maria in a diner was filmed at Odessa's Café.

Additionally, some of the show's scenes were filmed near an antiques store named Plaza Antiques. Take a look at Google’s street view from March 2021 to see a production truck parked in front of a local art gallery that was in the process of being transformed into a pharmacy called Wabang Drugs.

Other scenes in “Outer Range” were filmed in nearby Lamy, New Mexico, a tiny railroad village about 18 miles south of Santa Fe. Weil and Grady's Saloon, seen in Season 1 Episode 4, was actually The Legal Tender Saloon at the Lamy History Museum. 

The rodeo scenes were all shot locally including several homegrown food trucks seen in the background.

Finally, the modern glass building that poses for University of Wyoming is actually the Physics and Astronomy Interdisciplinary Science (PAIS) building on the campus of University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

[{"type":"text","text":"‘Outer Range’ Goofs"}]

While the show’s crew goes to great lengths making sure what viewers hear and see in “Outer Range” is authentically Wyoming, those with a better grasp of the Cowboy State will be quick to point out where locals are asked to suspend reality just a bit. 

In Season 1 Episode 5 (“The Soil”) Royal Abbott (Brolin) drives to the University of Wyoming to meet with a professor. Assuming the Abbott Ranch is in the vicinity of the Tetons, this little cross-state venture is a 12-hour drive, round trip. Even though Abbott’s time with the professor is brief, it’s not realistic to assume he’ll be home for dinner unless he left at 6 a.m. and really loves driving. 

There is also a scene where Royal and his wife Cecilia are listening to an FM radio station out of Cheyenne from their ranch at the base of the Tetons. That’s one strong transmission to be carrying almost 500 miles as the crow flies. 

Royal also drives Sheriff Amy to a hospital on the Wind River Reservation as she bleeds out, a trip the show makes out to be some 20-minute emergency run. In reality, from the Tetons to the Wind River Reservation, the trip would be a good three hours in the most souped-up of pickups. 

These trivial logistical paradoxes hinder the show not one bit. It’s just interesting to see such attention to detail paid in one aspect and not another. 

For instance, the show’s sound designer Kevin Peters said, “When it came to all these Wyoming landscapes, we really wanted to get the nature right and respect that environment. We did our research and made sure the birds, crickets and winds were accurate.”

From the call of the magpie to the grunt of a bison, sounds on “Outer Range” are certainly more accurate than Hollywood’s perception of the immense distances within the 97,000-square-mile state.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyoming Was Hollywood"}]

Wyoming has played itself in hundreds of movies going back to the 1953 Western “Shane,” where much of the exterior shoots were done on location in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the base of the Tetons. 

John Wayne’s “Hellfighters” shot mainly in the Casper area in 1967. Parts of “Rocky IV,” “Every Which Way But Loose” and “Django Unchained” were filmed in Jackson Hole. In fact, director Quentin Tarantino considered shooting “The Hateful Eight” (2015) using the actual Fort Caspar as a backdrop but switched gears at the last minute.

When moviemakers for “Starship Troopers” (1997) needed a place that looked as desolate as future Earth after giant alien insects destroyed the planet, nothing fit the bill better than the badlands of Hell’s Half Acre midway between Casper and Shoshoni. 

And what could take the place of Devils Tower in the 1977 hit movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind?” Steven Spielberg and his crew spent a ton of time around Hulett shooting scenes for that movie despite pushback from the National Park Service about 

Brokeback Mountain shot a handful of exterior scenes in Grand Teton National Park, but most of that 2005 movie was filmed in Alberta, Canada. Taylor Sheridan’s “Wind River” was partially filmed in the Lander area though much of the production took place in Utah.

The truth is, movies that profess to take place in Wyoming, even when they are shot elsewhere, still probably boost the state’s image. While lawmakers have failed to provide the motion picture industry with significant financial subsidies and kickbacks, not much is likely lost as far as tourism promotion. 

“Yellowstone” continues to be a huge boon for Western states like Montana and Wyoming even if some 75% of the series was filmed in Utah. 

“Longmire” may have shot in New Mexico, but thousands of tourists flock to Buffalo, Wyoming, expecting to see the sheriff of Absaroka County. There’s even an annual “Longmire Days” every July.

On-location filming brings jobs and boosts local economies to a degree. But Wyoming remains a difficult place to come and shoot a major motion picture, according to industry experts. 

Infrastructure, including available talent pool for locals hires just isn’t there in Wyoming. No production houses. No rental houses or repair facilities for cameras, lighting and other specialized equipment. Everything a shoot might need has to be brought in from Denver or Salt Lake. 

Wyoming’s scenery, for the most part, can be duplicated elsewhere and more cheaply. 

Weather is also a huge factor. The state’s short summers do not allow for enough time to get production done within three or four months of guaranteed good weather.

While Wyoming isn’t a draw for on-location production, there’s no state that screams Western and cowboy more than the Cowboy State. With technology making it so production companies don’t actually have to film here, Wyoming has a huge future in the industry.

Contact Jake Nichols at jake@cowboystatedaily.com

Outter Range Rancher Royal Abbott rides his range in New Mexico with CGI Tetons serving to place his spread in Wyoming 6 15 24

<title>🚧 Amazon Hit ‘Outer Range’ Is Latest Example Of Wyoming Filmed Elsewhere | Cowboy State Daily</title>

“Outer Range,” the Western/sci-fi thriller supposedly set in Wyoming, dropped Season 2 last month. While the show’s crew goes to great lengths making sure what viewers hear and see is authentically Wyoming, those who live here might be able to spot the goofs.

Daily Darwin: Monday, June 3, 2024

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