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Michael P. Ramirez

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

<title>Daily Cartoon: Friday, February 25, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Friday, February 25, 2022

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

A Casper man says he's being forced to part ways with his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig at his wife's behest, blaming the vehicle's irresistible appeal to the opposite sex.

"I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less," Austin Griess wrote in a tongue-in-cheek Facebook post advertising his lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon for sale. "My wife is making me sell my lifted AMC Eagle because of all the attention it brings. 

"I only have eyes for her, yet this car seems to draw in way too many female lookers for my comfort."

Austin Griess found the 1984 AMC Eagle 4X4 Wagon on Facebook Marketplace during the dead of winter.

During the cold months he worked on it, installing a lift kit, tuning it up and making it reliable enough to serve as a daily driver. Then he said he turned it into a true “chick magnet” by added a modern stereo.

The goal was to debut the finished wagon with 150,000 original miles on it at a Memorial Day car show.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"We didn't make it in time for entry,\" Griess said."}]

"The payment is due here in June," he joked. "No trophy making a payment."

After months of wrenching and modifying the Oldsmobile, he said that his wife has had enough of competing with the AMC for attention.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The wife just kind of had enough of me at that point,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"So, the Eagle is now looking for its next owner."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Finding Bigfoot"}]

Along with making whoever drives it irresistible, "This would be a perfect Bigfoot hunting rig,” said Griess, adding that his day job is in sales.

[{"type":"text","text":"The four-door Eagle is rugged, practical, and weird. "}]

"That's the ideal car to take your wife and two kids and throw all your crap in the back, go to the mountains for a picnic, and go fishing" says mechanical philosopher Ron Gordon. 

The Eagle is powered by a 4.2-liter inline-six engine shared with old Jeeps.

The original muffler is still hanging on, although Griess admits it's become a little rough around the edges.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It's a little bit raspy,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Perfect For Wyoming"}]

Long before crossovers filled dealership lots, vehicles like the AMC Eagle were doing much of the same work.

Ron Gordon owned an auto shop in Big Piney for 15 years and has spent nearly 70 years around cars. When shown photos of Griess’ golden Eagle, his first reaction was blunt.

"One of the Lee brothers made it: Ug Lee or Home Lee," Gordon said with a laugh.

[{"type":"text","text":"But beneath the humor was genuine admiration."}]

"It was a pretty unique car in its day," he said. "It was the first real sport utility vehicle on the market."

[{"type":"text","text":"The Eagle debuted years before today's crossover craze."}]

It combined station wagon practicality with four-wheel-drive capability, making it particularly appealing in places where winter weather and rough roads were facts of life.

"It'd be good for anything from going fishing or to sheep ranch," Gordon said.

That versatility made vehicles like the Eagle a natural fit in the Cowboy State. 

Griess agrees, calling it "the perfect Wyoming car — great for snow, inclement weather and getting off the paved roads."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Before SUVs"}]

To understand why people get nostalgic about station wagons, Gordon said you have to remember what Wyoming life looked like decades ago.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then, a trip to town wasn't a quick errand."}]

"It was 60 miles to go buy groceries," Gordon recalled. "When you got in the car to go someplace, it was an event."

Station wagons weren't fashion statements, he added, "They were tools. They hauled groceries, hauled kids, and camping gear." 

Gordon remembers one summer when his family traveled to Idaho, where his father was working in the mountains.

The family camped, and he and his brothers slept in the back of a station wagon.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"There was a bear come in one night,\" Gordon said."}]

The animal poked holes in juice cans before dogs chased it away and up a tree. Looking back, Gordon laughs at the memory.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I guess the station wagon was a safe haven for me,” he said."}]

For families throughout the West, station wagons were simply part of life before minivans hit the scene.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Everybody that had a big family had a station wagon,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Time Machine "}]

Griess was born in 1988, but said he grew up surrounded by remnants of the decade. 

His parents were older. His uncles still wore the giant mustaches that survived long after the 1980s were over. 

"Life was simpler back then," says Griess. "If you wanted to do something, you just did it." 

[{"type":"text","text":"The AMC Eagle was meant to embody that mindset. "}]

"It just screams going out and camping with just the necessities," he said.

Music helps complete the vision. The Eagle has speakers — of course. Its soundtrack, according to Griess, has plenty of Molly Hatchet, Ted Nugent, and old-school rock.

It’s the kind of music that sounds best with the windows down and a dirt road ahead.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Let The Eagle Fly'"}]

Selling a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle won't be easy. Building it was part of the fun, said Griess, and bringing it to life was the reward. 

"It's hard to part with,” he added. "But when you have limited space, you've got to let go sometimes. Let the Eagle fly free."

Its next owner will get a lifted station wagon, a conversation starter, a piece of nostalgia, and a camper.

Or, as Gordon puts it, they'll get exactly what station wagons were always meant to be, "a helluva good car." 

AMC Eagle IMG 5493 6 20 26

<title>Casper Man Selling His 1984 AMC Eagle 'Chick Magnet' Because Wife Wants It Gone | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Casper man says his wife is making him sell his beloved Bigfoot-hunting rig — a lifted 1984 AMC Eagle wagon with 150,000 miles he says attracts too much female attention. "I knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it hurt any less,” he said.

Casper Man Selling His 1984 AMC Eagle 'Chick Magnet' Because Wife Wants It Gone

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Wildlife

A few weeks ago, tourists chuckled as a young grizzly named Storm was chased off by an angry sandhill crane, but nobody was laughing Thursday when Storm devoured an elk calf alive in front of about 100 people.

The calf was alive for roughly 15 minutes as it was being eaten by the 3-year-old female, wildlife researcher John Winnie Jr. told Cowboy State Daily.

Winnie was there with students from his Yellowstone National Park wildlife ecology field class.

“We were kind of awed at watching a bear take prey," said Winnie, an associate teaching professor in the Department of Ecology at Montana State University.

“But we were shocked and surprised at a calf staying alive that long,” he added.

“There were mixed comments from the crowd,” as 

 near the shore of Yellowstone Lake, Cody resident Vince Vanata told Cowboy State Daily.

“Some people had empathy for the elk calf, and some people were thinking it was just nature taking its course,” he said.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Good Find For A Bear"}]

Similar to deer fawns, elk calves have little to no natural scent, Winnie said.

And for about the first two weeks of their lives, the calves can’t walk well enough to keep up with their mothers, he added.

So, their mothers will stash them in hiding places and then leave to go feed, occasionally returning to nurse the calves.

Unfortunately for the calves, that trick doesn’t always work, Winnie said. Sometimes, the mother’s lingering scent from a nursing session will be enough to tip off a bear, wolf, or coyote.

And other times, a calf might move at just the wrong moment (or, from the predator’s perspective, just the right moment).

That might have been the case with Storm on Thursday, Winnie said.

He wasn’t there when the grizzly first found that calf, but said one of his students witnessed the moment. The bear’s head suddenly snapped in the calf’s direction right before she moved in and found the helpless young elk.

That probably means Storm heard the calf rustling in the grass, or caught a glimpse of it moving, Winnie said.

Once Storm started eating, it was hard to watch, he said.

The calf cried out as it was being devoured, but no other elk heard it.

“The nearest cow elk we saw were probably out of earshot, 400 to 500 yards away,” Winnie said.

Vanata said he thinks Storm had earlier been hazed by park rangers from another location.

“I think that if the rangers hadn’t had moved the bear, it wouldn’t have been there to find that calf,” Vanata said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bears Take A Heavy Toll"}]

The elk calf’s gruesome fate was a common one, Winnie said. Elk calves suffer high mortality rates, and predation is one of the main causes.

And most of the predation comes from bears, both grizzlies and black bears, he said.

“I don’t think a lot of people grasp just how high elk calf mortality is,” Winnie said.

It’s thought that as many as 90% of cow elk are pregnant going into spring, “and most of them carry their calves to term,” he said.

So, there might be as many as 80 calves per 100 cow elk when the birthing season starts, usually in early June.

However, “by the time the first of the next year rolls around in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, we’re down to around 20 to 25 calves per 100 cows. And most of the calves that were lost were lost to predation,” Winnie said.

Wolves have the advantage of hunting in packs, so calves aren’t worth their effort, Winnie said. They tend to concentrate on adult elk.

Coyotes will take quite a few elk calves and deer fawns, but bears take the most by far.

As lone hunters, bears have slim odds of taking down adult elk, so they focus on calves during the spring.

And because they can’t count on finding the calves by scent, they’ll scour the ground hoping to find a meal, Winnie said.

He said he’s seen bears apparently “working a grid pattern” in areas where they think calves or fawns might be.

And it’s not uncommon for calves or fawns to be eaten alive, Winnie said.

“I’ve seen it twice before, both times with black bears,” he said.

When taking down larger prey, predators rely on “killing bites,” Winnie said. That’s because they can’t risk injury from an adult prey animal fighting back.

But with calves and fawns, bears can just use their “overbearing weight” to pin down the hapless prey and eat at leisure, Winnie said.

Sometimes mother deer or elk will try to distract the bears away from their young, but usually to no avail, he said.

“I saw once where a white-tailed deer got right in front of the bear, raised her tail and jumped, but the bear didn’t even notice her” as it focused on the fawn, he said.

A sandhill crane recently had better luck scaring Storm away from its young.

When Storm got too close to the crane’s nest, the bird came at the young bear, standing tall with its wings spread. That was enough to 

Storm belongs to famous Yellowstone grizzly lineage. She’s the daughter of Snow, one of the park’s most visible bears.

And Snow in turn is the daughter of Raspberry, likely Yellowstone’s most famous living grizzly.

Raspberry has been missing for about a year and is feared by many of her fans to have died.

Bear eats elk alive storm bloody 6 20 26

<title>Yellowstone Tourists Learn That Nature Can Be Brutal When Grizzly Attacks Elk Calf | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Tourists in Yellowstone got a brutal taste of reality Thursday when a grizzly went after a live elk calf and devoured it. John Winnie, an ecology professor at Montana State who was there, said most people don't "grasp just how high elk calf mortality is."

Yellowstone Tourists Learn That Nature Can Be Brutal When Grizzly Attacks Elk Calf

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

Business

Some of Wyoming’s 1860s prospectors would be rolling over in their graves if they knew just how narrowly they might have missed striking it rich in South Pass City and other 19th-century gold hotspots.

Gold was there in those arid hills. All those poor pioneers really needed to find it was a helicopter and some artificial intelligence.

Not to mention modern geological science, which has led Relevant Gold founder and CEO Rob Bergmann down a multi-billion-year-old channel called the Abitibi Belt, to what he believes is a hidden gold belt underneath Wyoming.

“We can’t promise anything,” Bergmann told Cowboy State Daily. “But we do believe that all of the data indicates there’s a lot of opportunity that has really just never been tested in Wyoming — especially along these Archean belts that were once connected to the Abitibi.”

The hypothesis that those were once connected is the geological theory that’s brought Bergmann to Wyoming. 

The Archean belts arc from the CK Gold Project in southeast Wyoming, sweep through South Pass near Lander, and continue on to Bradley Peak near Rawlins. 

All three areas once drew gold seekers when the West was still untamed, from about 1867 to 1881. Each fizzled long before living up to their hype — even at the comparatively successful Carissa Mine in 

 with a toolkit the state’s pioneer miners could scarcely have imagined.

Instead of panning streams and digging random holes in the rock to find gold veins they could mine with hand tools and dynamite, Bergmann’s crews are flying helicopters to conduct geophysical surveys over the company’s projects at South Pass and Bradley Peak. 

The surveys can see hundreds of meters beneath the surface, mapping out rock types and identifying structures that commonly travel with gold and other precious metals. 

“It’s an incredible data set that’s never existed in the state of Wyoming before,” Bergmann said. “It allowed us to see up to 400 meters below the surface of some of these rock characteristics. It doesn’t necessarily find the gold, but it helps us find the things that might be associated with the gold.”

A Wyoming state grant helped fund the airborne surveys at Bradley Peak and South Pass, creating the new, high-resolution, geophysical picture of grounds that have been prospected off and on for more than 150 years.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Drilling Plans"}]

This summer, Relevant Gold will stage large drilling programs at Bradley Peak and in the South Pass area, fresh off raising more than $12 million in Canadian dollars. 

The drilling is about collecting sample cores from likely areas to map out where a mine might be economically feasible.

The company will focus on two targets this summer, but there are 17 targets in all. That’s a multi-year runway of possible follow-up work if the results remain encouraging. 

High-grade ore samples have already been collected, Bergmann added — samples that also contained significant percentages of silver, copper and lead. 

“We’ve already drilled gold, found gold,” he said. “What we have to start defining is whether there’s something over, say, a million ounces. We’re really targeting larger-scale gold and critical metal opportunities.”

While the word “mining” might conjure images of vast coal pits or 

 Relevant Gold’s footprint will look different. 

“Gold can be mined a lot of different ways,” Bergmann said. “But underground mining is the most common type.”

Those tunnels will likely be much narrower than trona or coal-mining tunnels. 

The company has set up a field office in Riverton, and has been working extensively with local contractors for drill-pad construction and reclamation. Its headquarters is in Canada, and it has an operational office in Minnesota.

Under state rules and bonding requirements, all the baseball-sized drill holes must be reclaimed and reseeded within a year, which will make it difficult to tell a rig was ever there.

Right now, Bergmann has a staff of between six to 12 local workers in Wyoming, along with support from three outside geologists and a small array of local suppliers and services.

Ultimately, if a mine is realized, that could balloon to a hundred or more workers.

South Pass City Witold Skrypczak via Alamy 6 20 26

<title>How Modern Technology Is Reshaping The Search For Gold In Historic Wyoming Mines | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Helicopters, artificial intelligence, and geology are giving a modern mining company a second shot at finding gold in historic Wyoming mines. The company believes there's a hidden gold belt and technology allows them to see 400 meters below the surface.

How Modern Technology Is Reshaping The Search For Gold In Historic Wyoming Mines

Government & Politics

Politics

In the latest twist in efforts to ban 3D-printed “ghost guns,” New York state and California have moved to ban printers capable of making them. 

A New York law signed last month states that 3D printers should come with technology blocking them from making firearms or firearms parts. A similar measure is before the California Legislature. 

The gun-blocking technology for printers might not be available until 2029 at the earliest, the 

Gun control advocates are hailing the printer ban as a way to get a handle on so-called “ghost guns,” or untraceable firearms made with 3D printers and lacking serial numbers.

Advocates for banning 3D-printed guns argue that those guns are increasingly being used in crimes.

In Wyoming, a gun rights advocate and 3D printing business owner told Cowboy State Daily that the California and New York measures are pointless. 

People have always made their own firearms and should have the right to do so, said Mark Jones of Buffalo, a national director for Gun Owners of America (GOA). 

Banning 3D-printed guns, or the printers that make them, won’t change that, he said. 

From a technical standpoint, the bans won’t work, said Kevin Thomas, owner of T&G 3D Printing in Basin.

As he sees it, there’s no way to make printers that won’t produce certain items. Printers will produce whatever they’re programed to.

“The printer itself can’t determine what is being printed,” he said. 

The New York law and California bill direct experts to craft algorithms that could detect firearm blueprints. 

Hypothetically, the technology would analyze 3D printing designs against a digital library of firearm parts, and reject those that match the parts. 

Some industry experts have told lawmakers in those states that won’t work. 

Thomas agreed, saying that’s because 3D printer operators would still have the final say through “G-codes” they enter in their machines telling them what geometric shapes to cut. 

Trying to control G-codes would not only be impractical, but it would also amount to an infringement on freedom of speech and expression, Thomas said. 

Moreover, major firearms manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson also use gun-design software, he said, adding that efforts to regulate firearms out of the 3D printing world will backfire. 

“What will end up happening is there just won’t be any 3D printers for sale in California, so people there will just go across state lines to get them,” he said.

Firearms parts or accessories can be 3D-printed for sale, except lower receivers, Thomas said. The lower receiver is the part of the firearm including, for instance, the trigger assembly. 

Lower receivers can be created for personal use only. 

Thomas said he doesn’t print firearms parts or accessories because of possible legal complications.

For example, if he made a rifle stock for a customer, and that stock became part of a firearm that was later used in a murder, that might come back on him, he said. 

Jones said that concern over “ghost guns” is hyperbolic. 

“People have been making their own firearms since 1776,” he said. 

Democrats have also tried using firearms serial numbers to create databases for a national firearms registry, Jones added.

“It’s actually illegal to keep a registry of what guns people have, and we think it should be,” he said. 

Ghost gun 6 19 26

<title>California, New York Aim To Ban 3D Printers That Can Make ‘Ghost Guns’ | Cowboy State Daily</title>

In the latest twist in efforts to ban 3D-printed “ghost guns,” lawmakers in New York and California are pushing to ban printers capable of making them.  From a technical standpoint, the bans won’t work, said Kevin Thomas, owner of T&G 3D Printing in Basin.

California, New York Aim To Ban 3D Printers That Can Make ‘Ghost Guns’

Hunting

While investigating a poaching case against a Utah hunting guide, wildlife officials found a video on his cellphone showing him shooting a compound bow at cattle.

In the video, one of the cows jumps after he releases an arrow, as if it might have been struck. The condition of the cattle remains “unknown,” Chase Pili, captain of administrative services for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR), told Cowboy State Daily. 

Pili said he wasn’t sure when the video — which was

 — was taken, but charges were filed in the case in February. 

DWR didn’t release the name of the man, who was convicted of attempted destruction of wildlife.

 District Court of Garfield County, Utah. The clerk of court could not be reached for comment. 

The man was under investigation for allegedly poaching a deer, DWR reported. Investigators executed a search warrant on his cellphone and discovered a video of him shooting at cattle.

“In addition to significant legal fees, the suspect now faces a long-term suspension of both his hunting and guiding licenses,” the agency says.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘It’s Appalling’"}]

The video depicts next-level unethical behavior, archery hunter Steve Martin of Rock Springs told Cowboy State Daily.

“It’s appalling, and as a bowhunter, it’s even worse,” said Martin, who represents Bowhunters of Wyoming. “The public will think we’re just out there shooting arrows at everything and that’s not good."

Martin said he’s unaware of any such incidents happening in Wyoming.

While investigating a Utah hunting guide for poaching a deer, wildlife officials came across a video of him shooting at cows with a bow. “It’s appalling,” says a Rock Springs bowhunter. “That sort of outfitter would never get a license in Wyoming."

Daily Cartoon: Friday, February 25, 2022

Michael P. Ramirez

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Daily Cartoon: Friday, February 25, 2022

Authors

Michael P. Ramirez

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