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<title>You Still Here? Tuesday, April 11, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

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You Still Here?  Tuesday, April 11, 2023

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

Andrew Rossi

Outdoors

Wildlife

[{"type":"text","text":"How many wolverines are in Yellowstone National Park?"}]

The National Park Service doesn’t have an easy answer for a census of these 

Neither does biologist Jim Halfpenny, but he does have an estimate based on decades of confirmed evidence — and it’s a lot more than most people think.

 seven “documented” wolverines in the region from 2006-2009. Halfpenny’s nearly 50 years of research says there are dozens more, at least 31 verified in the last five years and "83 absolute verified wolverines” since 1990.

That was the story Halfpenny shared recently at the historic Range Riders Lodge in Silver Gate, Montana. Dozens of people attended his presentation on what he calls the “elusive, sparse, and downright rare wolverine.”

“Tonight, I’m dealing with verified reports only,” he said. “No matter how much I trust somebody who says they saw a wolverine, that's not counted. This is where I have positive verification.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bad PR"}]

The wolverine, in Halfpenny’s opinion, has a bad reputation through no fault of its own. He’s spent decades reversing their public image by fastidiously learning more about them.

“We're going to talk about the real wolverine,” he said. “The real wolverine is quite a different creature than the stories you probably grew up with.”

The wolverine has been known by many names, among them “the Devil Bear,” “the Glutton,” and “The Evil One.”

Even Peter Krott, a biologist who hand-raised wolverines alongside his own children, titled his 1959 book on wolverines “Demon of the North.”

“I hate to say it, (but) the wolverine is a plain out-and-out victim of bad PR,” Halfpenny said.

Halfpenny has been tracking and studying wolverines in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem since 1979. In that time, he said he’s seen the truth about “the curious big weasel.”

“Dave Need and I picked up a grant for $80,000, which was a lot of money then, for three years of chasing lynx and wolverine,” he said. “That was the start of the wolverine hair snagging for the United States.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fact And Fiction"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Wolverines have long been depicted as almost mythical creatures. "}]

The earliest accounts from North American explorers depict them as fearless, vicious, and ill-tempered animals that battle bears and eviscerate anything in their path.

Halfpenny has always been focused on verification. When it comes to understanding the truth of the wolverine, everything else is pointless.

“There's two basic eras of wolverine knowledge: the natural history books and things that we read there, and the modern science,” he said.

The natural history books say a wolverine could grow up to 80 pounds. Modern science, in the form of over 700 in-the-field weighings of wild wolverines in North America, reached a much more conservative conclusion.

“The largest weight ever is 37 pounds,” Halfpenny said. “A male might hit 35, but the average weight is around 30 pounds.”

Natural history says a fully grown wolverine could be more than 6 feet long. Modern science hasn’t found a wolverine larger than 3 feet long.

Halfpenny has seen wolverines interact with grizzlies but never engage them in combat. If anything, wolverines are extremely deferential to their much larger neighbors.

[{"type":"text","text":"Wolverines were also nearly hunted to extinction. "}]

In fact, Halfpenny believes they might have been extinct in Montana by 1920, partly due to the National Park Service's early archaic anti-predator policies.

“If you read the Yellowstone superintendent’s report from 1877, which really irritates me, it says, ‘strychnine poisoning for wolves and wolverine habitats will go on in Yellowstone.’ That was the period of massive predator slaughter in the ecosystem,” he said.

Halfpenny asked his audience to make a mental note that a wolverine had been spotted in the southeast corner of Yellowstone in 1871.

“Put that in your memory,” he said. “We’re going to come back to it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Rocky Mountain Reunion"}]

Halfpenny’s story of wolverines was simultaneously a story of how technology changed the dynamic of wildlife conservation in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

When he started studying wolverines, the first method of verification was to physically trap the elusive animals.

“We had a 12-foot-square cage with a noose inside,” he said. “We grabbed the back legs, laid them in the center of a tarp, and rolled them up like a hot dog.”

He had a special guest on his earliest trapping projects: singer, songwriter, and actor John Denver, who chronicled the adventure in the 1978 television movie “

“John pitched in just like everybody else and worked his tail end off to do that,” Halfpenny said. “It was great to be working with him.”

In one scene, Denver is carrying one end of a wolverine cage with a wolverine inside through a blizzard in the mountains. Halfpenny noted the peculiar way Denver was walking that had nothing to do with the deep, blowing snow.

“If you look at the end (of the cage), that opening's big enough for a wolverine paw to come through and get a piece of John's ass, to put it one way,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Science Marches On"}]

As Halfpenny continued trapping, other scientists were undertaking the first modern studies of wolverines in North America. 

The next big advancement was radio-collaring, started by Howard Hayes in northwest Montana.

Then in the 1980s, Halfpenny became acquainted with CyberTracker. It was a handheld computer program developed by Louis Liebenberg to track and study wild animals in South Africa.

“He developed a picture-icon system for PDAs,” Halfpenny said. “It was a way to manage wildlife without a budget.”

When the Wildlife Conservation Society started trapping wolverines in the 1990s, they introduced implanted trackers and DNA sampling.

“By grabbing DNA samples, we could start looking at the populations,” Halfpenny said. “With radio collars and CyberTracker, we could create a map and gather years of behavioral studies.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then in the 2000s, biologists had the money for helicopter surveys."}]

These individual studies pooled their knowledge and assembled the first comprehensive analysis of wolverine diversity and distribution in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"Halfpenny had an unlikely ally in his endeavors. "}]

He regularly worked with commercial fur trackers, who diligently informed him when they trapped a wolverine and allowed him to see, study, and measure the specimen for first-hand verification.

[{"type":"text","text":"“The trappers always provided us with locations and DNA,” he said."}]

That’s why he categorized the classification and federal protection of the wolverine as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2023 as “a trade-off.”

“That seems like it might be good for the wolverine, but it's poor for our knowledge,” he said. “It depends on which side of the coin you want to take.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Inheritance"}]

In August 2022, biologists Doug McCartney, Steve Moore, and Bill Turner were hiking in the mountains in the southeast corner of Yellowstone. 

That’s when they saw something incredible: 

13 wolverines in the same snow-covered bowl.

Halfpenny said this sighting has been “highly disputed.” After extensive forensic analysis of McCartney’s photos, pixel-by-pixel in Gaia GPS and Photoshop, he feels he has verified 12 of the 13 wolverines.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I can’t find the 13th one,” he said."}]

He could even verify that the wolverines in the photos were two adult males, three adult females, and two other adults, with the rest being younger individuals.

With no carcass in the area, Halfpenny has an incredible theory: family inheritance.

“I think one of those was an adult female with an adult male,” he said. “The other two females were daughters, each of whom had their two (offspring), and one was mated with the second adult male.”

As evidence, Halfpenny cited the sighting of a wolverine in the same area in 1871.

“This is favorable habitat,” he said. “I can’t prove it, but I'm arguing this is a family unit that's taken over that area.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"So, How Many?"}]

Then there’s the debate over just how many wolverines are in Yellowstone.

The “old park estimate,” according to Halfpenny, was six individuals. After decades of research and verifiable evidence, Halfpenny says the actual number is “much higher.”

[{"type":"text","text":"However, that doesn’t make it any easier to give a hard number."}]

“Yellowstone is 3,400 square miles, and the ecosystem is 23,000 square miles,” he said. “You want me to tell you how many secretive, elusive, 3-foot-long creatures there are in that area? Yeah, thanks.”

Nonetheless, Halfpenny has a number: 83 verified wolverines between 1990 and 2026, and at least 31 individuals verified in Yellowstone in the last five years.

“No question,” he said. “I have the evidence. I have 83 absolute verified wolverines.”

Halfpenny is so confident in his estimate because he and his colleagues are able to identify wolverines individually based on their appearance. 

Everything from a wolverine’s ears, cheeks, and tail to its movement and coloration can be ascribed to an individual known from photos, trail cams, or DNA analysis.

That’s led Halfpenny to believe, with “no question,” that Yellowstone’s wolverine population is increasing, all based on verifiable evidence.  

“If we sit down and look over the years at the number of positive verifications, starting back in 2015, what you see is the numbers increasing,” he said. “It’s more than just cellphones. A lot of these we had in hand, either dead, collared, or anesthetized.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Shoot, Shoot, Shoot'"}]

Over time, Halfpenny and his colleagues have developed an understanding of the biology, ecology, and geographic range of wolverines, leading to a better assessment of their population health and conservation status.

Nobody’s trapping or radio-collaring wolverines anymore, and CyberTracker has been obsolete for decades, he said. 

The key to the scientific verification of wolverine verification in Yellowstone is in the hands of citizen scientists.

As smartphones became more widespread in the late 2000s, the number of wolverine sightings in Yellowstone increased.

Halfpenny has used amateur photographers of wolverines to build his scientific case for the growing population of wolverines.

“These excellent photos and videos have characteristics we can recognize,” he said.

Yellowstone visitors don’t have to venture too long before having a chance sighting of bison, elk, grizzlies, or wolves without leaving their vehicle. 

If they want a guaranteed sighting of these animals, there are certain hotspots where they have a higher chance.

“Where can I find a wolverine in Yellowstone? They are where they find you,” Halfpenny said.

On a practical level, wolverines seem to favor the northeast and southeast corners of the park, as it appears to be their ideal habitat.

It’s much easier to find wolverine tracks, especially in the snow. That’s why Halfpenny says every Yellowstone visitor should carry a 6-inch ruler with them.

“(If) you find a track, get a ruler in there,” he said. “Don't put a hand. Don't put a foot. Don't put a $1 bill. We need something solid with exact measurements. Even a comb or a pen is better. Hands don’t count.”

Regardless, Halfpenny wants any and all photos and videos of wolverines in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

That, he said, is the next chapter of “the wolverine story” and why he encouraged anyone with a smartphone or camera to “shoot, shoot, shoot.”

“We need positive evidence of wolverines, and all the reports I've talked about tonight come from positive, verified evidence,” he said. “Photos are cheap. Electrons are cheap. So, shoot, shoot, shoot and send (your photos) to me.”

Wolverine in Yellowstone 12 8 23

<title>Biologist Says There Are Dozens More Verified Wolverines In Yellowstone Than Reported | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A prominent biologist with 50 years of research says there are dozens more confirmed wolverines in Yellowstone than are reported by the National Park Service. He says there at least 31 verified wolverines in the last five years and 83 since 1990.

Biologist Says There Are Dozens More Verified Wolverines In Yellowstone Than Reported

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

CASPER — His name is in the Wyoming Aviation Hall of Fame, he was a longtime pilot for Amoco, and an aviation mechanic and an air racer sought out for his expertise.

Despite an initial seventh-grade education, U.S. Army veteran James “Jim” Good would go on to teach mechanics at a technical college, achieve an aircraft mechanic’s airframe and power plant license, and an air transport pilot rating, the highest level commercial pilot’s license.

His mechanical abilities allowed him to rebuild Soviet MiG-15 fighter jet and German Messerschmitt fighter planes, and be competitive at the Reno Air Races in his famous World War II-era T-6 Texan turboprop called "Wyoming Wildcatter.”

He bought two Soviet MiG-15 fighters from the Polish military in 1994, and after 10 years of restoration he finished one of the fighters and told the Casper Star-Tribune in 2004 that “it’ll fly.”

His son said the issue with the MiGs was that after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government clamped down on pilots who had old warbirds over concerns about the potential for terror.

Because of those regulations and requirements, his dad never flew the jet, but had fast-taxied the craft down the runway to ensure its potential to fly. 

The jet became one of the draws to the museum he opened in his hangar dedicated to veterans and aviation.

The MiGs have since been donated to the National Museum of Military Vehicles in Dubois.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"An Aviation Legend"}]

Jim Good’s skill in the air had him not only racing pylons at the Reno Air Show, but also spending years flying 50-75 feet above oil pipelines across a multi-state daily basis to check for leaks. 

He also helped organize local air shows and bring in war birds for them, flying many of the planes himself.

“I’m very proud of what my dad did for aviation,” said Ed Good, Jim Good’s only son who for a few years kept open his dad’s veterans and aircraft museum at the Casper/Natrona County International Airport hangar, where his dad operated for years.

Ed Good documented his dad’s accomplishments and nominated him for the Wyoming Aviation Hall of Fame, and was happy to see he was selected to join the hall in 2016 and know about the honor before he died the same year at 83.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wiring House At 13"}]

Jim Good was born in Fremont, Nebraska, but his family moved to Edgemont, South Dakota, where he spent most of his formative life. 

His father, a construction worker, died in a fall working on an armory building in Edgemont when the future pilot was 5 years old.

His wife and six children were left struggling.

“It was very hard for the family, particularly his mom, to get everyone raised and put food on the table,” Ed Good said. “He had only a seventh-grade education at at the age of 15.

“After serving in the South Dakota Guard, my Grandma Good signed for him to go into the United States Army.”

While his need to work meant he had to leave school, Jim Good showed early on that he had a lot of smarts and understanding of all things electrical and mechanical. 

While a seventh-grader, he wired his family’s house for electricity.

A neighboring rancher knew the young man’s abilities and asked him to fix an irrigation pump, promising him a rabbit for his pay, Ed Good said. 

His dad went over to the field where the pump was, took a nail out of his overalls that he used to keep his straps pinned up, applied it to the pump and got it working.

The story goes that the rancher then reneged on his promise of the rabbit, so Jim dad went back and removed the nail and the pump stopped working.

“That’s one of our old favorite stories about him,” said his son. “But he was always a mechanical genius and it served him well throughout his life.”

While in the Army, Jim Good was sent to Germany with the 1st Division and became part of the Berlin airlift. His service from 1948 to 1952 qualified him as a Korean War veteran.

Once out of the service, the young man moved to Thermopolis to be near his sister and her family. 

He and worked on ranches, in the oil field, and as an apprentice blacksmith among other jobs. 

Jim Good also became a teacher of automotive mechanics at a technical college there.

He met and married his wife, Dixie, in 1954, and they had two children, Ed and his sister Jimmie.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Starting To Fly"}]

In Thermopolis, Jim Good started working on his private pilot’s license and with his brother-in-law, bought a Cessna 172. 

He pursued advancing his license and became friends with Mel Christler, who owned Christler Flying Service in Greybull. He was offered a job doing fabrication on the company’s airplanes, which included twin-engine DC-3s and Lockheed Constellation aircraft.

Ed Good said Christler was a World War II pilot who flew twin-engine cargo planes over the famous Burma “hump” from India to China, supplying Chinese forces who were allies to the U.S. 

Christler had bought the surplus planes for the company’s services.

The company specialized in spraying for fire ants and other insects across the country. 

Ed Good said his dad’s blacksmith and metal working knowledge helped them develop an airfoil to put on the back of an aircraft with an augur in the middle that took dry chemical from a hopper and spread it out toward the ground behind the wings.

At the same time, Jim Good was pursuing his airframe and power-plant license while upgrading his piloting capabilities.

Before he left the company, he was flight engineer on the Lockheed planes, sat in the right seat as co-pilot on DC-3s and then became a DC-3 pilot.

“He would be gone for months at a time to Tupelo, Mississippi, and other places,” Ed Good said. “They did the entire Gulf Coast spraying for fire ants for at least a year. They went all the way up to Canada and around the United States.”

Among the planes owned and used at Christler were a former Lockheed Constellation that served as Air Force One for President Dwight Eisenhower called Columbine II and another one called the Bataan that was used by Gen. Douglas McArthur.

Working for Christler, Jim Good became acquainted with a pilot for Amoco who flew pipelines for the oil company. When that pilot was being transferred to fly jets out of Chicago, he recommended Jim as his replacement.

The Good family moved to Casper, and from 1972 until his retirement in the early 1990s, Jim Good flew thousands of hours of low-level flight inspecting pipelines in a turbo-charged Cessna Centurion 210. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Sometimes his son accompanied him."}]

“That’s one of the most difficult, challenging kinds of flying that there is,” Ed Good said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Humble Pilot"}]

Wyoming Aviation Hall of Fame board member Dean McClain of Torrington agrees.

As a young flight instructor in Casper in 1977, McClain recalled when Good came to him for a flight review ride due to new FAA regulations that mandated pilots have one every two years regardless of their experience. 

“The flight instructors are like the bottom rung, they are the newest of the new people in aviation,” McClain said. “I was brand new, the ink wasn’t even dry on my flight instructor’s (certificate).”

McClain said Good at that time had years flying Amoco’s pipelines as well as with Christler.

When Good showed up, he brought his poodle that accompanied him on his pipeline flights across the country. 

McClain remembers him as gracious, humorous and a veteran pilot who took the requirement in stride.

“The dog had more hours in an airplane than I did,” McClain said. “There was a little comedy back and forth. I think the only question I asked was, ‘Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb’ or something stupid like that and signed his book. He got a big laugh out of it.”

McClain said Jim Good was always approachable and a resource for many in Wyoming’s aviation industry and beyond.

In addition to his professional flying, Jim Good joined a group of Casper-based aviators called the Tired Iron Racing Team in the early 1980s that had a couple of P-51 fighters, B-25 bomber, and the T-6 Texan advanced training fighter. 

During that period he became a check pilot on the B-25 and flew many old warbirds, including the T-6.

Ed Good said when the Tired Iron group disbanded, his dad bought the T-6 fighter and started racing the fighter every year at the Reno Air Show in the mid-1980s until 2007, when he quit flying because of his wife’s health.

He needed to spend more time at home caring for her.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Safety First"}]

Jim Good was known by the racers for his mechanical and technical abilities, and also for his safety protocols.

“They had regular safety meetings before and during races to proactively prevent anything happening to any of the pilots,” Ed Good said. “So, that was something he saw as one of most important contributions to racing, keeping everyone safe.”

Ed Good said that without the finances of some of the racers for new engines and other gear, his dad flew very competitively at Reno. 

He typically called the Wyoming Wildcatter his “old girl” and loved trying to get as much performance out of the fighter as possible.

As a mechanic, Jim Good put together several planes during his career. 

The Casper Star-Tribune sent a reporter with Good in a open cockpit stunt plane over the North Platte where he flew upside down for a story on July 13, 1979.

The reporter wrote that Good’s stunt plane could do all the things the old barnstormers did in the 1930s with him at the controls.

“Good bought the plane three years ago on the East Coast. Although it was manufactured in 1941, no one put the kit together until Good hauled it across the country in a U-Haul truck,” the story says. “It took him eight months to put the pieces together.”

Good also bought and put together a biplane that hangs from ceiling in The Hangar restaurant in Bar Nunn.

Newspapers articles from the 1970s and into the first decade of this century from time to time depict his skills, mechanical ingenuity and aerial exploits.

His airframe and mechanical ability allowed him to put together a World War II Messerschmitt Bf-109 fighter for the Military Aircraft Restoration Corporation of Chino, California, in a two-year project.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Spectacular Crash’"}]

When he tried to take it up on a maiden flight on May 27, 1986, it crashed as he was about to lift off the runway. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"McClain saw it happen."}]

“We were all standing there in front of the hangar when it took off and lost the wheel (due to) a wheel bearing and went out of control and off the runway and end over end,” he said. “It was a spectacular accident and he wasn’t hurt too badly. I think he was bruised up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"The German fighter was demolished."}]

During Jim Good’s flying career, he had opportunities to fly the P-51 fighter as well as the Douglas A-26 Invader bomber and the Martin B-26 Marauder. He also had a few hours in jet aircraft, occasionally serving as copilot on jets for Amoco.

During a career that included 40,000 hours in the air, he served as an FAA airframe inspector, administered FAA flight exams, hosted the Experimental Aircraft Association at his hangar and recruited groups such as the Commemorative Air Force who fly vintage warplanes to Casper on various occasions.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Helping Others"}]

Jim Good enjoyed helping other pilots the most, especially younger ones, his son said.

“I can remember people walking into the hangar, and the first words out of his mouth were always, ‘What can I do for you?’” his son said. “And if he could do something without charging for it, that was really fulfilling to him.”

The veteran pilot learned that he would be honored with entry to the Wyoming Aeronautics Hall of Fame just a few weeks before he died on April 24, 2016. 

Ed Good said his dad was humble about it, but the honor meant a lot to him.

“He said, ‘Well, I know there are a lot of other people who are equally qualified as I am,’” Ed Good said. “But I know it made him very happy.”

McClain said Good represented the best in Wyoming aviation and he experienced his graciousness and help as a young pilot.

“His whole career was in Wyoming, so that’s a big thing,” McClain said. “The other thing you have to be before we nominate anyone is they have to be outstanding in their character.

“Jim was top notch. I never talked to anybody who didn’t like Jim.”

Jim Good Finished Mi G and Jim 7 19 26

<title>Meet Jim Good, Wyoming Pilot Who Once Rebuilt A Soviet MiG Fighter | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Casper's Jim Good could fly and fix anything that could get into the air. In fact, he once rebuilt a Soviet MiG-15 fighter jet he bought from the Polish government, and raced a World War II turboprop.

Meet Jim Good, Wyoming Pilot Who Once Rebuilt A Soviet MiG Fighter

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

A Dubois man is betting a remote 9,000-square-foot, $7.95 million off-grid mansion made from reclaimed wood can lure Jackson Hole-level buyers across the Teton County line to Fremont County. “I have more wildlife on my ranch than Yellowstone,” he said.

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