Daily Darwin

Look, I'm an acrobat!! (individual was not permanently injured -- he's just an idiot)

Darwin 5 17 23

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

<title>Daily Darwin: Wednesday, May 17, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Look, I'm an acrobat!!!

Daily Darwin: Wednesday, May 17, 2023

 Look, I'm an acrobat!! (individual was not permanently injured -- he's just an idiot)

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Wildlife

Wind turbines kill thousands of Wyoming birds and bats every year, but a wildlife official says that emerging technology might help lower the kill count.

In 2025, wind turbines killed 1,160 large birds, such as raptors and waterfowl, Wyoming Game and Fish habitat protection program supervisor Will Schultz told the state Game and Fish Commission on Wednesday.

Turbine blades also killed 9,152 small birds, such as meadowlarks, and 13,423 bats, Schultz said.

Fast-spinning turbine blades aren’t always the most deadly, he added.

“A lot of the mortality for birds and bats happens at very low wind speeds, because they’re flying around and they’re not paying attention to those blades,” Schultz said.

The official tallies might not represent all the birds and bats killed by wind turbines, he said. The deaths are recorded by people, usually private contractors, who occasionally walk around underneath turbines and count carcasses.

Sometimes, dogs are brought in to help make the counts more accurate, Schultz said.

Wyoming’s bird and bat losses are generally considered to be within the acceptable range by region-wide standards, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"What Can Game And Fish Do?"}]

Game and Fish doesn’t have the authority to approve or deny permits for wind power projects, Schultz said. That rests with the seven-member Industrial Siting Council under the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.

Game and Fish works closely with project permit applicants, usually long before ground is broken, he said.

Biologists determine what effects a project might have on Wyoming’s birds, wildlife, fish and plants, Schultz said. And they can offer guidance on how to lessen the effects on wildlife and the environment.

Game and Fish can also advise the Industrial Siting Council about what permit conditions might help save wildlife and conserve the ecosystem, he said.

Once a wind farm is up and running, Game and Fish can also help monitor its effects on wildlife and offer ideas for mitigation, he said.

Commissioner John Masterson asked Schultz if Game and Fish has the authority to tell a wind energy developer, “You have way exceeded the acceptable number of raptors that have been killed, you have to shut down until we figure that out.”

Schultz said in such an instance, Game and Fish could bring its concerns before the Siting Council, but only the council has the authority to shut a wind farm down.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mitigation Efforts"}]

Technology might help stem the tide of bird and bat deaths, Schultz said, adding that it’s been a common practice to post people with binoculars on wind farms.

Those people can watch for birds, particularly raptors, and shut turbines down, which allows for eagles and hawks to fly through safely, Schultz said.

Increasingly, a technology called IdentiFlight makes it unnecessary to post people on site, he said.

The system uses cameras to monitor bird traffic and can automatically shut down and restart turbines as needed, Schultz said.

In some cases “painting one blade of a wind turbine black” help birds see it before it’s too late, he said, adding that hundreds of hours of work and research have gone into wind farm risk mitigation.

Anti-Wind Farm Activist Remains Skeptical

Laramie resident Anne Brande, founder of the Albany County Conservancy, has lobbied against wind farms for years.

She wasn’t at Wednesday’s Game and Fish Commission meeting, but told Cowboy State Daily that she appreciates the department’s efforts to mitigate bird deaths.

She’s particularly concerned about golden eagles.

Wyoming has a significant resident population of the large raptors that favor wide-open country, where they can hunt rabbits and prairie dogs.

The state’s population of golden eagles is also thought to 

 when many of them migrate in from the north.

Golden eagles’ preferred habitat puts them at greater risk of hitting wind turbine blades, Brande said.

And the secondary effects of power lines spreading out from wind farms also isn’t considered, she said.

Golden eagles can be easily disturbed by too much human activity and new structures, which might cause them to abandon their nests, Brande said.

The eagles are also a key “indicator species” of how well Wyoming’s ecosystems are doing, she said.

“If every single golden eagle nest if valuable, can we afford to screw up?” Brande added.

She thinks the number of eagles, other birds and bats killed by wind turbines are undercounted “big time.”

While systems such as IdentiFlight might help, Brande said she’s skeptical whether that will be enough to make a real difference.

Golden eagle death 5 27 22 scaled

<title>Wyoming Wind Turbines Killed More Than 23,000 Birds And Bats Last Year | Cowboy State Daily</title>

More than 23,000 birds and bats were killed by wind turbines in Wyoming in 2025, according to a report presented Wednesday to the state Game and Fish Commission. “They’re flying around and they’re not paying attention to those blades,” said an official.

Wyoming Wind Turbines Killed More Than 23,000 Birds And Bats Last Year

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

Andrew Rossi

 shook things up enough in Yellowstone National Park on Thursday morning for people 

The epicenter of the 7:20 a.m. earthquake was along the Grand Loop Road, south of Canyon Junction, at a depth of 6.53 kilometers. That’s just over 4 miles beneath the surface.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), at least 14 people reported feeling the earthquake within 30 miles of the epicenter. Its intensity was low, and there were no reports of damage.

The USGS categorized the earthquake as a III “Weak” on the Modified Mercalli intensity (MMI) scale. That means the quake’s energy would be noticeable but not much stronger than the vibrations caused by a large truck driving by.

It's not even the largest earthquake in Wyoming this week. A magnitude 3.5 earthquake was detected west of Rock Springs on Tuesday.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"All Shook Up"}]

Earthquakes are a very common occurrence in Yellowstone, one of the most tectonically active places in North America. According to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, there were 118 earthquakes detected in June alone.

Thursday morning’s magnitude 3.3 quake was Yellowstone’s largest of the year so far, but a few earthquakes of that magnitude are expected every year.

“Earthquakes that get into the magnitude 3 range are rare, but there are usually three to 10 of those in the Yellowstone area every year,” Mike Poland, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, 

. “The vast majority of earthquakes are magnitude 2 and below.”

In 2025, there were 1,119 earthquakes located in and around Yellowstone. The largest quakes were three magnitude 3.7 events.

That was a “quiet year,” according to Poland. In an average year, there are between 1,500 and 2,500 earthquakes detected in Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Catching The Feels"}]

When a magnitude 3.9 earthquake hit Yellowstone in January 2025, the largest quake in the park since 2023, it wasn’t even detected on 

 installed at the Wyoming Geological Survey's headquarters in Laramie.

"We were about 350 miles from the epicenter,” said geologist James Mauch. “It was a bit too far away and low in magnitude to detect in Laramie.”

According to Mauch, magnitude 3.0 earthquakes are “very typical activity for Yellowstone.” 

They might be slightly stronger than the average Yellowstone earthquake, but not strong enough to be unusual, he said.

“We typically get around five ‘felt’ earthquakes every year, so this is right in line with the average,” he said.

What the earthquake doesn’t indicate is any significant change in Yellowstone’s volcanic systems. Even at a depth of 4 miles, Thursday morning’s quake was too shallow to indicate anything volcanic, which is true for most of Yellowstone’s earthquakes.

“Because there are so many faults in the region and a lot of water moving around in the subsurface, Yellowstone is a recipe for lots and lots of earthquakes,” Poland said. “There’s nothing particularly anomalous about (a magnitude 3.3 earthquake), and none of these quakes are associated with any volcanic activity.”

Yellowstone Lake and earthquake Mauritius Images via Alamy 7 16 26

<title>Yellowstone Records Earthquake Thursday Morning, Felt 30 Miles Away | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A magnitude 3.3 earthquake in Yellowstone on Thursday was felt by people as far away as 30 miles. It’s the largest earthquake of the year so far in the national park. “We typically get around five ‘felt’ earthquakes every year,” said a geologist.

Yellowstone Records Earthquake Thursday Morning, Felt 30 Miles Away

Guest Column

Guest Columnists

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” is a phrase coined by my great uncle, General George Patton. It was also a favorite of Lee Iacocca’s, a champion of American industry and leadership. 

Both men did incredible things for our country, one leading the Third Army on their way to winning an impossible war against unspeakable evil and the other, helping to lead an industry out of near certain bankruptcy while helping to revitalize a vital sector of America’s economy.

It's an adage of courage and confidence, not one of temerity and passivity. Donald Trump is a great president because he, like Reagan before him, is a man of action born of confidence in himself and the greatness of our country.  

I wonder if the current conversation about data centers, artificial intelligence, and American ingenuity will continue to be fueled by the traditional American belief in our ability to meet challenges head on and solve them, or if now is the time we will turn to worrying about what horrible things will happen if we act.

Maybe that is the sentiment of the time, and if it is, it comes at precisely the time when this president is asking us to make America Great Again. What irony! Right now, we have far too much wringing of hands, saying no to almost everything, and not enough leading.

Take for instance my colleague in New York state, Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY), who has just put a one year pause on the construction of any new large AI data centers in her state. She chose sensation over sense. What short-sighted thinking. Her response is not sober reflection and prudent policy, but political faint-heartedness. 

Let me be clear: as governor, I do not support any state-mandated moratorium on building data centers in Wyoming. The job of deciding whether to encourage the building of data centers falls, as it should, on the more than capable shoulders of our local communities within the constraints allowed by the legislature. 

As with most development, it is the communities, counties, and local boards who do the heavy lifting in economic opportunity. We shouldn’t change that now. I believe, as our founders, that government closest to the people has the ability to fiercely protect their own homes and families.

Governor Hochul and her leftist friends in Albany are swallowing the dictates of their far left supporters, by banning the fracking of oil and gas in New York state, blocking pipelines conveying gas to the Northeast, and now by banning data centers. And to what end?

Lost economic opportunities only hurt the communities, workers and families in her state that would benefit from the tax revenues and the jobs brought by these companies–while compromising our nation’s security and leadership.

America has had enough of “Build Absolutely Nothing Near Anybody” dogma. We are a great nation not because we did not do anything, but because we worked hard to do it right and to do it well.  

Leadership is the will to keep going even in hard times. Leadership requires perspective, objectivity, careful consideration, and initiative as much as it does direction to navigate through the maze of conflicting information and disinformation whether generated from the far left or the far right. It’s true for agriculture. It’s true for energy. And it's true for business. 

President Trump, in his recent statement decrying Hochul’s disastrous decision said this, “Data centers are tremendous wins for the states and communities that are lucky enough to get them.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"I concur. "}]

He is exactly right. They use our energy here, energy over 80% of which we currently ship to states who have tried to control how, where, and what we develop.

They can be built to conserve our water and compliment our communities. This is not some doe-eyed endorsement of all tech; it is an endorsement of Wyoming people, whom I know and respect, that we can do it the right way.  

President Teddy Roosevelt famously said, "People of Wyoming, I believe in you and in your future." He was not saying that to people who lacked courage, were reluctant to engage, or were happy to let things happen to them. He was talking about people who carved their future from what was given to them. 

, requires Wyoming’s state agencies to prosecute current law to the limits granted them by the Legislature, and it also asks them to bring back recommendations for improvement within the coming month. Those  will be reviewed, refined, and forwarded to the Legislature for their consideration in 2027.

In meantime, I call on all Wyomingites to reject election-year fearmongering, to reflect soberly on the issues, and to join me in leading Wyoming into a bright future. 

My great Uncle also said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” Here in Wyoming we raise sheep, we do not act like them.

Mark Gordon is the 33rd governor of Wyoming

Gordon headshot 7 16 26

<title>Guest Column: Data Centers — Lead, Follow, Or Get Out of the Way | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon writes, "President Trump, in a recent statement said this, 'Data centers are tremendous wins for the states and communities that are lucky enough to get them.' I concur. He is exactly right."

Guest Column: Data Centers — Lead, Follow, Or Get Out of the Way

Kerry Drake

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

CHEYENNE — The day after Gene Holthus’ home in Cheyenne’s Buffalo Ridge subdivision was gutted on July 16, 1979, he stood outside taking photos of the destruction. 

His three sons were busy trying to salvage anything they could from the house as Wyoming National Guard helicopters flew overhead to protect the neighborhood from looting.

Holthus told the Wyoming State Tribune that he was at work at the Wyoming Highway Department when he saw the huge twister rip past the Game and Fish Commission.

“I immediately called my wife, Alta, and told her to get in the basement,” Holthus said. “She didn’t know a thing about it.”

He said the next few minutes were terrifying as he waited for a chance to get home. Holthus learned that a gas main had broken in his basement.

“Somebody called the fire department and within about five minutes they came and dug my wife out of the basement,” he recalled. “Thank God she only had a few scratches.”

As Holthus continued talking to the reporter, one of his sons came running up and handed him an envelope he’d found several blocks away. It contained vivid color photographs of the family’s garden, which was now buried under rubble.

Holthus looked at every one of the photos. 

“I just can’t believe that something this small could remain intact while bigger things were totally destroyed,” he said. 

The reporter told him he was sorry about everything his family lost. Holthus turned around and pointed at the house.

“This can all be replaced,” he said. “We survived. And I’ll treasure these photos and all the memories.”

Holthus died in 2015, but he and his family had survived what 47 years later is still the most destructive tornado ever recorded in Wyoming. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"9-Mile Path Of Destruction"}]

The tornado that touched down was not only rare for the capital city, Cheyenne had never had one within city limits prior to July 16, 1979. 

The tornado was officially an F-3, using the EF scale that ranks tornados by damage intensity. But some scientists believe it was even more fierce, an F-4, based on the intensity of destruction it left behind.

The tornado first formed around 3:10 p.m. near the intersection of Vandehei Avenue and Valley View Road. Peak winds were estimated between 136-165 mph.

Its path through the city was 8.8 miles, which it traveled in about 30 minutes. 

The massive twister was 80 yards wide, or four-fifths as long as a football field.

It was the most destructive tornado in Wyoming’s history, and it caused one death: 14-month-old David McKinnon, who the Laramie County coroner at the time said died instantly from head injuries when his family’s trailer was ripped apart by the black funnel cloud.

Damaging about 400 homes, including 140 that were destroyed, the total property damage was estimated at $25 million, which is the equivalent to 

As people dug through the rubble, called insurance adjusters, and talked to friends and family about their ordeal, one thing about the natural disaster seemed universally described by survivors as miraculous. 

How could such an enormous tornado wreaking havoc for such a long time have not killed more people?

“This was my first major crisis,” Don Erickson, Cheyenne’s mayor from 1977-1989, told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday as he recalled the challenges he faced when the tornado hit the northern part of the city. 

“We had to show the community a lot of confidence, that we were doing the best we can,” he said. "And we did. We had a great team.”

Erickson, 89, can vividly describe everything he saw happen the day the tornado hit.

“I was sitting in my office with my risk manager looking through this great big window,” he said. “I thought, ‘My God, it looked kind of weird out there.’ Big black clouds coming around, and I said, ‘Let’s go up on the roof and see what’s going on.’”

Within 10 seconds of arriving on the rooftop, Erickson said that, “There was a big blast north of City Hall. Later on, we found that a transformer over by the governor’s mansion had been struck by lightning.”

Dave Guille, the head of civil defense for the city, called to tell the mayor that a tornado had hit the north side of Cheyenne.

Erickson, who had just dealt with one shock, called Cheyenne Police Chief Byron Rookstool, and together they made a hurried trip to the scene.

“The rescue effort was underway, and the devastation was amazing,” Erickson said. “We were so lucky that people were working and the kids weren’t quite home yet.”

He flew in a National Guard helicopter to see the path of destruction. 

“We’re fortunate that the Frontier Mall wasn’t built yet on Dell Range. It would have had a tremendous amount of damage,” he said.

Erickson said Gov. Ed Herschler immediately declared Cheyenne a disaster area.

Erickson said the entire city rallied to help take care of anyone impacted by the disaster. Scores of people opened up their homes to those who had lost theirs. 

Esther Howard formed the Interfaith Task Force, which brought local organizations together to coordinate how they could help anyone who needed it.

Erickson resurrected the group when had his next big crisis, which also involved disastrous weather that Cheyenne had never seen before: the Aug. 1, 1985, flood, which killed a dozen people and caused more than $51 million in damage. 

He said he took what he learned from the tornado tragedy, and that it helped prepare him for the even bigger disaster.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lucky For Him"}]

Tom Reed was a high school junior spending the summer of 1979 working for a construction company that was putting the finishing touches on a new house in his Buffalo Ridge neighborhood. 

On the afternoon of July 16, he was the last person at the site, cleaning it up so the house would be ready for the family that would move in soon.

He went across town to do the same thing at a house on the south side. That’s when he looked north and spotted the tornado.

“We were up pretty high so we could see it across town,” Reed said. “At first I thought it was a fire, but then I saw it move and realized what it was.”

He made another stop at the construction company, where someone told him that a twister had been heading right through his neighborhood. He raced home, but had to walk part of the way because of all the debris covering Roundtop Drive.

He said he spotted his mother, Becky Reed, outside their now heavily damaged ranch-style home doing what everyone else in the neighborhood was doing: trying to assess the damage and figure out what in the world to do next. 

Some people were looking for their pets, but his family dog was inside, unharmed.

Reed said that unlike some of their neighbors whose two-story and multi-level homes were severely damaged, with roofs blown completely off, the Reeds’ single-level house was still standing.

“The roof was kind of peeled back from where it met the west wall,” he said. “If you looked up in the family room you could look straight up to the sky.”

Reed said a lot of windows were broken, and the strong winds blew open the refrigerator door and the contents were tossed all over the house. The hallway walls were covered with ketchup and mustard.

But unlike about 1,000 other Cheyenne residents, the Reeds weren’t homeless that night. 

In fact, they never left. He said he and his father, Tom Reed Sr., who also worked for the same construction company, fixed everything themselves over time.

Reed, who has spent the last 30 years working for ESPN and living in Connecticut, talked to Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday from Dallas, where he’s on vacation. He’s headed to Cheyenne for Frontier Days.

Once he found that his mother was shaken but not hurt, Reed walked to the construction site he had left only an hour before. 

“The house was just gone,” he said. “There was nothing left but the foundation, and the furnace and a few other mechanicals in the basement. Not a stick of the house was left.”

Reed said it took him a while to process the scene. Talking about it 47 years later leaves him amazed and grateful that he got out of the area in time. 

“If I’d stayed a little longer, I would have been hiding in that basement,” he said.

Reed’s mother had been home alone working on her sewing machine when she heard the wind and realized some of the windows were open. When she looked out, she was staring at the tornado headed straight for her.

Becky Reed and the dog made it to the basement, where they went to her son’s room and pulled the mattress over them. She heard the sounds of destruction all around her as the twister plowed into homes.

“When she thought it was over, she went upstairs and out to the porch, only to see  the tornado roaring past her,” Reed said. “She told us later she thought, ‘I might have jumped the gun a little bit.’”

Reed said he’s still bewildered by what transpired that day, seeing some houses look untouched while their next-door neighbors’ homes were reduced to piles of rubble. 

Then he remembered something he said he hadn’t thought about for a long time.

“We had a coffee maker on the kitchen counter, with a pitcher and a panhandle with a metal ring around it,” Reed said. “The coffee maker was gone, but we found the handle out in the front yard. Sitting right next to it was a little dish that had $50 under it. That was just bizarre.”

Kerry Drake can be reached at: Kerry@CowboyStateDaily.com

Tornado 7 16 23 v8

<title>Most Destructive Tornado In Wyoming’s History Leveled Cheyenne 47 Years Ago | Cowboy State Daily</title>

It was 47 years ago on July 16, 1979, when a massive tornado ripped through Cheyenne, leveling hundreds of homes and killing a 14-month old. Decades later, it’s still the most destructive tornado in Wyoming history.

Most Destructive Tornado In Wyoming’s History Leveled Cheyenne 47 Years Ago

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

A Wyoming state lawmaker pleaded guilty Wednesday to driving drunk in Buffalo in late December, and was sentenced to probation and a $500 fine.

Rep. Bill Allemand, R-Midwest, took a plea agreement offered by Johnson County Deputy Attorney Joshua Stensaas, and gave his guilty plea in Buffalo Circuit Court at a Wednesday hearing.

He was arrested Dec. 28 in Buffalo. Stensaas has said Allemand’s blood-alcohol concentration was 0.24%. That figure is contested, Buffalo Circuit Court Magistrate Judge Jeremy Kisling noted during the Wednesday hearing.

A flurry of disputes over the chemical blood test were still in play when Allemand’s case settled.

Kisling sentenced Allemand to 90 days in jail — less the two he served when arrested — but suspended that sentence in favor of one year of unsupervised probation.

That means Allemand has a year of probation ahead of him, and if he fails probation, he may be sentenced to the remaining 88 days in jail.

For the first six months’ probation Allemand is required to submit to chemical testing between once and twice a month. He could be tested upon a law enforcement officer’s reasonable articulable suspicion as well, Kisling noted.

Under probation, Allemand is also required to stay out of bars and liquor stores, not violate any laws, complete his counseling or treatment as recommended, and pay his fines and fees. 

Kisling fined Allemand $500 but said he’d credit up to $200 upon a showing that Allemand had purchased a treatment evaluation as required.  

Kisling imposed other costs and fees: $70 in court costs, $150 for victim’s crime compensation fund, and $50 for the drug court surcharge.

Stensaas had recommended those terms, except he left the potential jail sentence length open to the judge’s discretion. 

Both the prosecutor and the magistrate said they were working to treat this case like any other first-time DUI featuring a high blood-alcohol concentration.

“Mr. Allemand I know there’s been a lot of to-do around this, and at the end of the day this court ignores the to-do,” said Kisling, adding that he’s treating this case like others of its nature.

He said he wishes Allemand luck, recognizes he’s working on the alcohol issue.

“Continue to maintain that sobriety… and put this behind you,” said Kisling.

[{"type":"text","text":"Allemand did not give a speech when it was his chance."}]

He did not immediately respond to a late-day voicemail request for comment after the hearing.

Allemand is running against Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer for the GOP nomination at the Aug. 18 primary election. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Next, The Lawyer"}]

At the same hearing Wednesday, Allemand’s attorney Mike Vang pleaded not guilty to a separate charge alleging 

Kisling ordered Vang to appear in court Wednesday to answer why he missed a hearing that had been set for July 8, where Vang had been slated to argue his claims that the prosecutor deprived him of key evidence.

 Wyoming state Rep. Bill Allemand pleaded guilty to DUI in court Wednesday and was given one year probation and fined $500. He faces 88 days in jail if he fails probation. 

Daily Darwin: Wednesday, May 17, 2023

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