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<title>Daily Cartoon: Monday, October 3, 2022 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon: Monday, October 3, 2022

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

As of Monday, 35 Wyoming political candidates have sworn to love their enemies.

 after the public killing of conservative icon Charlie Kirk, and has since been working to restore the servant spirit and civility to the public arena in Wyoming.

The Tuesday after the May 14-29 filing period ended for political candidates, the group sent each candidate a pledge, group incorporator Matt Micheli told Cowboy State Daily.

“I will love my enemies, not just my friends. I will stand faithfully upon my convictions without giving into cruelty,” the pledge says. “I will call out wrongdoing without canceling people. 

"I will refuse to let the letters on someone’s hat or the hashtags in their bio mean more to me than the Gospel. I will not be swept up in the outrage cycle, but will instead step out of the chaos and boldly examine my own actions.”

The signers also commit to “bring the peace of Christ back into the public square — to show a divided world what it truly looks like to follow Him, not as a culture warrior but as a Kingdom person.”

The pledge invokes the group’s founding verse, Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”

Two of the three GOP candidates for governor had signed the document as of Monday: Sen. Eric Barlow and Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder.

So too had three of the 10 Republican U.S. House candidates: Senate President Bo Biteman, former Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow, and Casper-based veteran Kevin Christensen. U.S. Senate candidate Jimmy Skovgard is also among the signers.

In the governor’s race, Barlow told Cowboy State Daily he doesn’t normally answer candidate questionnaires, but this one was “quite simple” and in line with the promise he made last year to run a clean campaign anyway.

“And whether we agree on issues or don’t, we can still be respectful and honoring of them as, you know, fellow human beings,” Barlow said.

Degenfelder in an email said she's a "devout follo

wer of Christ and certainly agree that politics has become increasingly unchristian."

"People of faith can and should do better following Christ’s teachings as we engage in debates about policy and Wyoming’s future," she said. "We can do this without compromising on our convictions. I will always take an unequivocal stand on issues that are black and white for me - like protecting the Second Amendment, defending the sanctity of life, reducing taxes, and promoting Wyoming’s legacy industries."

She said she completes other questionnaires from voter groups, the media and industry associations "whenever possible" and sees them as a way to be transparent. 

Another GOP gubernatorial candidate, retired Marine Col. Brent Bien, did not comment in response to an email and voicemail. His campaign

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyoming Can Use It"}]

Cowboy State Daily this pledge could be effective in Wyoming, and that he wants to help the group’s cause.

Another former lawmaker, Fred Harrison, was less optimistic about the pledge’s ability to curb vitriol in the state’s political arena. But he said each person should take the effort seriously.

[{"type":"text","text":"As for Micheli, he said the pledge is meant to be unique."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Wyoming candidates face a number of pledges and have for years."}]

In 2020, the group Wyoming Gun Owners launched a pledge-style survey to candidates and derided the political hopefuls who didn’t sign it with phrases 

, “(it’s) a very dangerous situation for gun owners,” or “we all know what that means.”

More recently, the Wyoming Republican Party and its county subgroups launched a candidate pledge based on the state party platform. 

Some candidates have pointed to inconsistencies in the platform wording and called the 

 Others have called it a much-needed revival call for Wyoming’s broad-based GOP.

Micheli said the Peacemakers pledge isn’t meant to be used as ammunition, because its wording discourages that.

“The goal of this is kind of the opposite of all these other pledges you see out there,” he said. “The other pledges are kind of putting people into tribes and trying to figure out what tribe you’re in.”

Micheli said this pledge, however, tells each candidate to “look inward” and improve instead of “hammering anybody else over the head with it.”  

[{"type":"text","text":"Might Just Work"}]

Peterson, who served in the Wyoming Senate from 2005 to 2018, lauded the effort.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I could certainly get behind a movement like that,” said Peterson."}]

Peterson had voiced similar goals one week prior on a live video interview on Cowboy State Daily's Morning Show With Jake, 

Though the effort is “the light at the end of the tunnel” in what Peterson cast as a darkening, exhausting political arena, people will have to refocus on one another as fellow human beings to make it work, he said.

“If you love the person that’s opposed to either your way of life or philosophy or way of thinking,” he said, “and in your mind, your core belief is this is a brother, a sister, a person — and I don’t know what life experiences they’ve had, what brought them to the beliefs they have — it at least gives (one) the courtesy to be patient and listen.”

It takes effort to see the person through the issues. It’s also difficult to ratchet people down from the fiery realms to which public discourse has risen, said Peterson.

“It’s hard work to listen to somebody yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, random thoughts and things to be argumentative … and say, ‘Oh, I can see you’re very passionate about your belief but you’re not making any sense,’” he said.

Rules of decorum in public arenas, the humility to apologize to one another where necessary, and applying mental rigor toward the actual issues are the way back to civility, Peterson added.

If people avoid dehumanizing and screaming at each other, their conversation will also get smarter, he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Starting With You"}]

Harrison wasn’t as optimistic as Peterson, but called the pledge’s mission a worthy undertaking for each individual regardless of what society does.

“I’m not seeing a willingness on both sides of the aisle to discuss (differences),” he said. “I appreciate what they’re doing. I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

But, he added, “I’m not sure it’s always going to work, but that doesn’t mean anything. What did Mother Theresa say? We’re called to be faithful, not successful.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Harrison served in the Legislature from 1983-1992."}]

He was a Democrat then. But, ardently pro-life and socially conservative, he parted ways with the party starting in about 1992 and is now Republican. He’s also grown more fiscally conservative, Harrison said.

Harrison now writes a regular column for Cowboy State Daily in which he often scrutinizes the current state of the judiciary and jurisprudence.

“People think my articles are pretty sharp,” he said with a chuckle. Yet on May 9, he penned a 

 against resorting to violence or violent sentiments against judges, saying that nullifies good arguments on the issues.

If people wish to apply the peacemaker group’s pledge, it will take honest discussion, he said. People also have to start taking the high road and stop de-humanizing each other, he added.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Signers, So Far"}]

Micheli told Cowboy State Daily the group didn’t give candidates a deadline to sign the pledge. So this list isn’t final. As of Monday, the 35 signers spanned the governor’s, congressional, state legislative, and county commission races. They are:

State Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate

Update -  This story has been updated to include a post-publication comment by Megan Degenfelder. 

Mix Collage 23 Jun 2026 06 04 PM 252

<title>35 Candidates, Including Two Wyo Gov Hopefuls, Sign Love Your Enemies Pledge | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Wyoming group that launched a civility movement after the killing of Charlie Kirk has gotten 35 candidates to sign a peacemaker pledge to love their enemies. That includes gubernatorial candidates Eric Barlow and Megan Degenfelder.

35 Candidates, Including Two Wyo Gov Hopefuls, Sign Love Your Enemies Pledge

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

The situation with the Colorado River is dire, and likely will keep getting worse if the river continues to be managed according to arcane policies, officials representing the four Upper Basin states said Tuesday.

Water-management policy needs to shift away from legal wrangling and toward the realities of water availability, or hydrology, members of the Upper Colorado River Commission said during a meeting in Denver.

The commission didn’t make any policy decisions, and plans to meet again this summer.

At issue is whether the Upper Basin states – Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico – can keep meeting downriver demands according to water allocations drawn up under the 1922 Colorado River Compact.

The compact also includes the Lower Basin states – Arizona, Nevada and California – as well as Mexico and numerous Native American tribes.  

The headwaters of the Colorado River are in Colorado. Wyoming’s Green River is one of its main tributaries.

Wyoming and Utah share Flaming Gorge Reservoir. It’s facing a 

 in an effort to replenish desperately low Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona state line.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Worst Year On Record"}]

The conversation must shift from legal wrangling to managing the river according to what nature provides, commission members said.

“As I’ve been saying for years, this is a problem that needs to be settled by hydrology,” said state engineer Brandon Gebhart, Wyoming’s representative on the commission.

“This is one of the worst, if not the worst, hydrologic year on record,” he added.

Longstanding drought conditions across the West, coupled with the unusually dry 2025-2026 winter, have left ranchers, farmers and communities facing tough choices, commissioners said.

“It is dire; the pain is felt in every corner of every state in the Upper Basin, Colorado commissioner Beck Mitchell said.

In Utah, some small towns have already run out of water and are hauling it in, Utah commissioner Gene Shawcroft said.

There have been calls for a “statewide state of emergency” because of drought, he added.

Gebhart said all of Wyoming is also essentially in a state of drought.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bad News For Ag"}]

At one point, commission executive director Chuck Cullom displayed slides showing aerial photos of agricultural areas in each Upper Basin state.

There was stark contract between widespread greenery in images from 2024, when water was relatively abundant, and those from 2026. This year's photos show far more brownish, dry land and shrunken reservoirs.

Regarding images taken along South Piney Creek in Wyoming, Gebhart said more than just a lack of green crops is at stake.

South Piney Creek ranchers might have to cut back their cattle herds because of a lack of forage, he said.

Mitchell said farmers and ranchers in the Upper Basin states are facing conditions that can’t be ignored.

“In a year like this year, they’re impacted in ways that we can’t imagine sitting in a room in Denver, trying to keep cattle alive, trying to keep crops alive, trying to make it through one more day,” she said.

On one optimistic note, it was reported to the commission projects are underway in each state to curb secondary water losses during crop irrigation. That includes installing more efficient headgates on irrigation canals, and lining canals with concrete or other materials to keep water from leeching into the ground.

Wyoming has roughly $6 million earmarked for such projects, staff reported.

Management of dams and other infrastructure in the Colorado River Basin should be managed for long-term water conservation, Mitchell said.

“When we consistently release more than what is coming into our reservoirs, we drain the system,” she said.

And this is a pivotal year for Colorado River management. Water-use negotiations and infrastructure operations were last updated in 2007, and are up for renewal at the end of 2026.

The Upper Basin can’t be managed in a perpetual cycle of diminishing returns, Shawcroft said.

The effects of drawdowns to feed the Lower Basin accumulate on long-term storage, he said.

“There’s likely to be little to no carryover storage (this year),” he said.

And there will likely be even worse water shortages next year, “Unless we have a Snowmaggedon runoff,” he added.

Green river 6 23 26

<title>Colorado River's Dire Water Picture Expected To Hit Green River Ranchers Hard | Cowboy State Daily</title>

At a meeting in Denver on Tuesday, Wyoming's state engineer said 2026 is "one of the worst, if not the worst, hydrologic years on record" due to the dire water situation in the Colorado River's Upper Basin states. He said Green River Basin ranchers will be hit especially hard.

Colorado River's Dire Water Picture Expected To Hit Green River Ranchers Hard

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Public Lands

Another hydrothermal explosion has rocked Yellowstone National Park, only 100 feet from the pool that 

The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory confirmed that a hydrothermal explosion occurred around 5:09 a.m. June 13. When geologists went to evaluate the area the next day, they found a 21-foot-wide pool filled with boiling, silty water, a 60-foot fissure, and water spouting 30 feet into the air.

It was an unexpectedly dynamic event in Biscuit Basin, which has been closed since a similar explosion occurred at nearby Black Diamond Pool in July 2024.

“Black Diamond doesn't seem to have been affected by this event in a major way,” Mike Poland, scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told Cowboy State Daily. “That’s a sign that these are very shallow events that impact individual features in a very explosive thermal basin.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Big Blow Up"}]

The observatory detected the explosion as soon as it happened. It was even captured on the camera installed in Biscuit Basin to monitor Black Diamond Pool.

When geologists got to the basin the next day, they found several significant changes. For one thing, there was the new 21-foot-wide crater filled with boiling water, which Poland wasn’t surprised to see.

“That’s pretty standard for Biscuit Basin,” he said. “It has a lot of high-temperature water.”

What was more surprising was a 60-foot-long fissure and several new vents.

“All of these vents were draining water into the Firehole River, and geologists found near-boiling waters in most of these vents,” Poland said. “They were draining enough water that the river itself turned a milky-white color for many miles downstream.”

Based on the scene, Poland said the event was a “relatively small” hydrothermal explosion. It occurred in an area with no existing thermal features.

After weeks of observation, the water-filled crater has shown some geyser-like behavior. Water was seen rising as high as 30 feet.

Poland was interested in the longevity of this behavior and all the new features in Biscuit Basin. It’s too early to say whether they’ll be long-lived or peter out over time.

“It’s completely unknown at this point,” he said. “Maybe that (spouting) was caused by a release of the pressure accumulated beneath the surface, or maybe this new pool will end up being a geyser-like feature. Clearly, there was a lot that went on the morning of June 13.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Predicting The Unpredictable"}]

Hydrothermal explosions are caused by water rapidly converting to steam. The rapid phase change from liquid to gas releases an enormous amount of energy, as evidenced by the incident at Black Diamond Pool on July 23, 2024.

“It’s a pressure-cooker situation,” Poland said. "When water turns to steam, it expands over 1,000 times. When that happens in a confined space, the space can't hold the rapid expansion of steam and can cause explosions.”

Biscuit Basin has been closed to the public since that day, but sophisticated equipment has been installed so geologists can monitor ongoing activity. Black Diamond Pool has 

 since then, but nothing as significant as the July 2024 event.

wasn’t significant by Yellowstone standards

, Poland is excited about what can be learned from it. It might help him and other geologists, hydrologists, and volcanologists predict the unpredictable.

“One of the problems with studying these explosions is that you really don't know where they're going to occur,” he said. “If you put out a monitoring station, you’re never guaranteed to catch an explosion, and we don’t know of any precursors that might indicate an explosion is imminent.”

This hydrothermal explosion occurred 400 feet from temperature sensors and sophisticated stations installed to monitor seismic and acoustic activity in Biscuit Basin. With this event and “a year’s worth of data,” Poland hopes they might find a potential precursor.

“This explosion happened in the middle of an area of dense monitoring, he said. “We've got an opportunity to dive into all of those data sets and see if there was some change in the system that was detected by the seismic and acoustic monitoring.”

Identifying a precursor to hydrothermal explosions will help keep people safe in Yellowstone and around the world, Poland said. It could inform scientists when a hydrothermal explosion is imminent, or the risk is higher based on temperature, acoustic signals, or some other change in the system.

Such a precursor isn’t known to exist, and Poland isn’t confident they’ll find one, but a prime opportunity to do so just presented itself.

“This was a pretty good situation,” he said. “We had all the monitoring instrumentation in the right place at the right time, lots of data already collected, and no one was threatened by this activity.”

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

Since June 13, Biscuit Basin has gotten less explosive. The real question is whether any of the changes will become permanent.

According to Poland, many of the vents opened by the explosion have since dried up. The collapsed crater is still filled with boiling water, but the geyser-like behavior hasn’t been observed since June 18.

“The future of any of these features is really unknown at this point,” he said. “Will they stay boiling or gradually cool down? Was there a change in the heat emission of Biscuit Basin? Those will be the interesting questions going forward."

Meanwhile, other than what Poland described as a “subtle bubble” from the pool’s vent, Black Diamond Pool doesn’t seem to have been impacted.

Poland sees that as evidence of how Yellowstone’s thermal features coexist. While most of Yellowstone’s geysers, hot springs, and steam vents share space with other thermal features, most tend to be separate rather than part of a vast, interconnected system.

“When the 2024 explosion happened, none of the other features in Biscuit Basin changed their behavior,” he said. “This explosion happened 100 feet north of Black Diamond Pool, and it doesn't really seem to have affected it in a major way. That’s a testament to how local all these events are.”

Biscuit basin 6 23 26

<title>Explosion Creates 20-Foot Crater of Boiling Water in Yellowstone National Park | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory confirmed Tuesday that a hydrothermal explosion occurred in Yellowstone's Biscuit Basin that created a 21-foot-wide pool filled with boiling, silty water, a 60-foot fissure, and water spouting 30 feet into the air.

Explosion Creates 20-Foot Crater of Boiling Water in Yellowstone National Park

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying 

 flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming around the area.

Thousands of bees are still homeless and visibly trying to survive in large groups on “bee trees” along U.S. Highway 191. 

Jim Holstein with Yellowstone Tour Guides has been passing through the area where the accident occurred. He took a photograph of one of the bee trees, where thousands of bees had completely covered a small lodgepole in a vast, buzzing swarm.

“They were still there on Monday,” Holstein told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s in the park between Big Sky and West Yellowstone. All the hives have been cleaned up, but there are quite a few bees left.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bee Trees"}]

Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan is familiar with bee trees. They’re an indication that a colony of bees is actively house-hunting.

“It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” he said. “The queen leaves and takes about half or more of the colony and moves to a new safe location.”

Jordan said this is common behavior for honeybees when a hive gets overpopulated. The existing queen will take nurse bees and guard bees to sustain herself in a temporary location while scouts search for a permanent 

“The scouts will search until they find a permanent location,” he said. “In the meantime, you'll have groups and colonies hanging in the trees as they regroup.”

A new permanent home could be a hole in a tree, a cave, or “anywhere that’s out of the water and elements,” said Jordan. 

Bee trees are meant to be staging locations so the scouts can lead the hive to their new home.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sugar High"}]

When the scout bees find a suitable location for a permanent hive, their next priority is

“Right now, they’re looking for a sugar source,” Jordan said. “Bees need sugar to produce wax from their glands. Once they produce the wax and form it, they'll actively engineer foam in what we call a pendulum manner to make honeycombs.”

Bees instinctively know how to build hives, and their goal is to start propagating as soon as possible after a hive-destroying incident.

Once they find a suitable spot with plenty of sugar in the vicinity, maybe a rock formation or building near a flower-filled meadow, the queen will follow the scouts to the new hive. Instinctively, all the bees on the bee tree will follow her.

Jordan didn't think there would be any bee trees for tourists to see by Wednesday.

“Those clusters will be gone within 24 to 48 hours if they find a good location,” he said. “After that, there’s nothing you can do to recover them, because tracking them is very hard.

The fact that bee trees can still be seen along U.S. Highway 191 six days after the June 16 crash might indicate the bees are having trouble finding an ideal place for a new home. But it definitely means the colonies can be safely recovered.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Get Those Bees, Please"}]

Within 24 hours of the semitruck incident, people were at the scene removing the damaged honey boxes and trying to recover whatever remained of the bee colonies that had been residing in them.

Jordan said the first 48 hours are crucial in a bee recovery situation like that.

“If you can’t get new hives set up in 48 hours, the queens will migrate and leave a pheromone trail that the bees accommodating her in that hive will follow,” he said. “That’s what the bee trees are: thousands of bees accumulating around the queen.”

That means there’s a small window to safely save these bees before they become permanent Yellowstone residents.

Jordan’s strategy would be to place a mobile swarm trap. It’s basically a column of PVC pipes with buckets attached to either end. The height can be adjusted to get as close as possible to the colony clusters.

“If the bees accumulate in the buckets as a temporary hive, you can relocate them to an apiary and manage them there,” he said. “You can even hold a bucket up to the colony and shake them inside. That’s how you can naturally collect and remove a colony.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"No Bears — Yet"}]

Commercial vehicles like semitrucks are banned in Yellowstone, but U.S. Highway 191 is an exception. It hugs the western boundary of the park and is an important 55-mile thoroughfare between West Yellowstone and Big Sky, 

"They've enacted a temporary 35 mph speed limit on the section where the bees are," Holstein said. "People have to keep their windows up, and there's no stopping until crews can get the remaining bees rounded up."

When the bee trees disappear, it means the bees have found a suitable spot to rebuild their hive. Finding and removing the colony would be difficult, if not impossible, especially in the dangerous wilderness of Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"After all, who loves honey more than bears?"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I haven’t seen any bears,” Holstein said. “Yet.”"}]

Jordan was more concerned about the people who lost their honey boxes and bee colonies. He knew how much money they had lost and must have spent trying to salvage whatever they could from the accident.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40-50% of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “Each honey box can cost around $500 and generate around $2,000 in honey. 

"There could be two or three owners who lost their livelihood in that accident. That’s at least one whole company that has to rebuild.”

Bee tree swarm 6 22 26

<title>Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Almost a week after a semitruck carrying millions of bees flipped over in Yellowstone National Park and destroyed hundreds of hives, bees are still swarming on trees in the area. “It’s what's called a swarming mechanism,” said a Wyoming beekeeper.

Millions Of Bees Swarm On Trees In Yellowstone After Hives Smashed In Semi Crash

Wildlife

When a massive bull bison died next to a busy road in Yellowstone National Park, the park’s rangers, bear management team, and maintenance crews had to get creative to quickly and safely dispose of it.

April Mead, a wildlife photographer based in Gardiner, Montana, spent three hours watching 

 unfold near Canyon Village on Friday morning. A front-end loader was needed to lift the 2,000-pound bison and drop it into a dump truck.

Meanwhile, the bear management team kept everyone safe from the hungry eyes of a determined grizzly.

“The grizzly came back while they were in the process of moving the carcass,” she said. “She was circling the hillside and the corrals. They had to haze her a couple of times before she left.”

Mead has seen and shared images of Yellowstone’s carcass removal process before, but this one was notably different. It seemed as if the park’s experienced staff were improvising the best way to get the job done quickly and safely.

“It’s different from all the others I’ve seen,” she said. “They spent a lot of time strategizing before they got it done.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Carcass Chaos"}]

Mead got to the carcass around 6 a.m. Friday. She’d heard that there was a dead bison alongside the road near Artist’s Point, south of Canyon Village, one of the busiest sections of Yellowstone once the day starts.

“I’d heard that (the bison) might have gotten hit by a car Thursday night,” Mead said.

Mead wasn’t the first one on the carcass that morning. A grizzly was already helping itself to the free meal, and a lone wolf also stopped by for a bite of breakfast.

Yellowstone rangers used a front-end loader and creativity to get a 2,000-pound bison carcass away from a busy road near Canyon Village on Friday. A wildlife photographer said a grizzly was circling the area determined to have the roadkill for breakfast.

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