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[{"type":"text","text":"Lightning can be a real timesaver when trimming trees..."}]

You still here v2 11 14 23

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

<title>You Still Here? Tuesday, November 14, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Lightning can be a real timesaver when trimming trees...

You Still Here? Tuesday, November 14, 2023

 Lightning can be a real timesaver when trimming trees...

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

A rancher near Choteau, Montana, caught video of six grizzlies strolling across his calving lot behind his barn late Monday, and said there were as many as seven bears on his property that night.

The next morning, rancher Neal Collins said agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed as many as 10 grizzlies out of patches of brush across the road from his place.

Collins said no people or livestock were attacked by the bears on his place, and FWP used non-lethal “cracker” shotgun shells to scare off the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A ‘Herd’ Of Grizzlies"}]

Sparky Wallace, a friend of Collins who also lives near Choteau, somewhat humorously described the group of grizzlies as a “herd.”

He told Cowboy State Daily he and some of his neighbors have had encounters with multiple bears, as the number of grizzlies out on the prairie has steadily increased.  

Chad White, a bear management specialist with Montana FWP, said the bears on Collins’ property were probably a “couple of family groups that have been hanging out in the area.”

Meaning, they were likely two related adult females such as “a mother and daughter” and their cubs, White said.

The Choteau area has been busy with bear activity this spring and summer. The bears wander from the Rocky Mountain Front onto the prairie along the Teton River, which flows past Choteau. 

The bears might be feeding on green vegetation and other natural food sources, then taking shelter in brush patches.

“It may be that he (Collins) has the natural shelter for day bedding and they were traveling around the area,” White said. 

White said the FWP bear manager responding to Collins’ call told him as many as 10 grizzlies fled once the hazing stared.

FWP personnel fired cracker shells into the brush where the bears were holed up. Cracker shells fire a small explosive charge with a delayed fuse, designed to explode in the air and ward off predators such as bears and wolves.

“The six or seven bears in the family groups ran off in one direction, and two or three more ran off in another direction,” he said.

It’s not known where the other two or three bears might have come from, White added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Alarm Barks"}]

Collins said he was first alerted to the bears’ presence Monday when one of his dogs started frantically barking at about 9:30 p.m.

“We’ve got this one dog that’s supposed to be a cow dog, but she’s really not,” he said. “She was just barking, barking, barking. She barks on occasion, but not like that.” 

He said he stepped outside to investigate and saw a “flash of a bear.”

So, he immediately went back into his house, shooing the dog inside with him.

A camera he has mounted on the backside of his barn caught video and photos of the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘You Get Immune To It’"}]

Collins’ ranch is about 35 miles out on the prairie from the Rocky Mountain front.

Grizzlies are usually associated with mountain habitat. However, they were originally a Great Plains species, and were driven into the mountains as the West was settled.

Grizzlies have been growing in number and expanding their range in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in recent decades. In Montana, they’ve been pushing ever-farther onto the prairies.

Collins said his father was in his 70s before he ever saw a grizzly anywhere near Choteau. But the bears have become a common sight of late.

When asked if having the bears around worried him, Collins said, “I suppose, but you get immune to it.”

Even so, he’s not happy about the growing number of prairie grizzlies.

“There here, even though I don’t want them here,” he said.

In Wyoming, grizzlies attacking cattle is frequently listed as the leading cause of human-bear conflict.

Collins said he hasn’t lost any livestock to bears yet.

"Even so, they sure don’t help them (the cattle) even if they don’t kill them,” he said. "They move through the cattle herd and stir them up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bird Hunting Gets Wild"}]

North-central Montana is a bird hunter’s paradise. And in decades past, grizzlies would have been the furthest things from bird hunters’ minds.

That’s not the case any longer. In 2023, 

 between bird and whitetail deer hunters in separate incidents.

Those occurred in the vicinity of the Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area. It’s between Choteau and Fairfield, Montana, about 40 miles west of Great Falls.

Collins said that several years ago, a bird hunter had to shoot and kill a charging grizzly across the road from his place.

“He ended up with a scratch on his arm, because the last shot was right at the end of the gun barrel,” he said.

Wallace, a horse trainer and saddle maker, said he’s run into multiple grizzlies while bird hunting.

“I hunt ducks a lot. And even on the little prairie potholes out here, you’ve got to walk in there loaded and ready for bears,” he said.

Herd of grizzlies 2 6 30 26

<title>Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Montana rancher Neal Collins said a camera on his barn captured a "herd" of seven grizzlies on his property Monday night. The next morning, agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed 10 grizzlies out of brush across the road from his place.

Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property

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

Andrew Rossi

Public Safety

When does a reckless act in Yellowstone National Park qualify as child endangerment? It’s a question many people are asking after recent events in the park.

A photo circulating on social media shows a man carrying a child off the boardwalk in one of Yellowstone’s thermal basins. The photographer, Babi Lama, said he witnessed the incident near Grand Prismatic Spring.

"Dude is HOLDING HIS CHILD while walking around the thermal pools at Grand Prismatic Spring," he wrote. "What the hell is wrong with people?"

Yellowstone visitors of all stripes are routinely cited for 

 If any of these incidents involve a child, can the perpetrator be charged with child endangerment?

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"All The Signs"}]

Greg Jackson is a former deputy chief for the U.S. Park Service’s Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services in Washington, D.C. During his career, he was presented with several situations where a child endangerment charge was merited.

“I’ve done it before,” he said. “There are a lot of things that parents do that are placing children in danger but aren't necessarily obvious to them at the moment.”

After viewing the photo of the child-carrying man in Yellowstone, Jackson had several questions that would have factored into any citation.

“Generally, (Yellowstone) tries to prevent people from walking into hazardous areas,” he said. “I’m guessing there’s some system of warning people of the risk of that area that I can’t see in the photo.”

 posted throughout Yellowstone’s thermal areas. Boardwalks are the designated pathways to keep people safe.

Jackson also added that those same warnings are handed to every visitor, attached to the map they receive when entering the park.

“In a case like this, you’d attempt to document all the warnings that person had regarding the hazards, not just what may be apparent in the photo,” he said. “I’d want to know what signs were there. Is the area labeled as a geyser field or a thermal feature?”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Child Endangerment?"}]

Wyoming Statutes Title 6. Crimes and Offenses 6-4-403 lays out the legal parameters and ramifications regarding the abandonment or endangerment of children. It specifies that no parent, guardian or custodian of a child shall “knowingly or with criminal negligence cause, permit or contribute to the endangering of the child's life or health by violating a duty of care, protection or support.”

That’s where citing a Yellowstone visitor for child endangerment can become tricky. In Jackson’s view, those charges usually come when there’s more overt malice rather than simple ignorance.

“It depends on how obvious the danger is,” he said. “If you're obviously exposing your kid to what most reasonable people would see as a reasonable danger, (child endangerment) would be on my list of reasonable actions.”

Jackson said the difficulty with child endangerment charges, in this context, would be “articulating the circumstances” to justify the citation. That case could be easier to do in Yellowstone, given the uniqueness of the environment, he said.

“Most people don’t walk around on boardwalks,” he said. “The fact that there are boardwalks and sulfur-smelling steam coming out of the ground indicates something unusual is going on in Yellowstone. That, to me, indicates there’s something worthy of caution.”

However, Yellowstone’s unique environment might make it more difficult to charge someone with child endangerment.

“If it's a person who has absolutely no clue that the ground around them is hazardous, then I don't think that charge would be reasonable,” he said. “I think most reasonable people would say there’s a reasonable danger, but someone could genuinely not perceive that danger.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Oh, The Humanity"}]

Jackson recalled issuing charges for child endangerment and disorderly conduct during his time at Lake Mead in the southwest U.S. There, issuing those citations and charges was more clean-cut.

“There were a lot of boating regulations that had to do with safety,” he said. “It's fun to ride on the bow of a boat, but when you fall off the bow, go under the boat and into the propeller, that stops being fun.”

Jackson regularly cited parents for letting underage children pilot or ride on certain spots of watercraft that were prohibited. However, the decision to cite someone for child endangerment was “a bit of a judgment” that erred toward humanity over legality.

“You tend to give parents the benefit of the doubt, somewhat,” he said. “From a human standpoint, you want to believe that nobody in their right mind would intentionally endanger their own child.”

Jackson couldn’t say whether the Yellowstone visitor in the photograph was intentionally endangering his child, but he doubted it.

“Sometimes, people will throw caution to the wind and cross a line for a once-in-a-lifetime experience or photo-op,” he said. “They become so enthusiastic with their exuberance of getting their children an up-close experience of a geyser that they don’t appreciate the danger. This incident looks fairly benign.”

The “worst thing” Jackson could imagine is a parent or guardian who recognizes and doesn’t care about the dangers to which they’re subjecting their children. While it’s not unheard of, he considered that scenario and mindset exceptional.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Clear And Present Danger"}]

Overall, Jackson could see a case for charging parents with child endangerment or negligence for their actions in Yellowstone, but understands why park rangers might forgo such a charge.

“A child endangerment charge is going to depend on what the law says,” he said. “If they’re placing the child in danger, you're going to have to articulate that there was some danger and the person being cited was responsible for placing the child in that situation.”

In this instance, Jackson didn’t have enough information to say whether a child endangerment charge would have been appropriate.

“Was there danger? Yes. Was it apparent to the adult? I'm not sure. They might have been completely oblivious to the danger in that particular spot,” he said.

Child endangerment might stick more easily when it comes to wildlife offenses. Jackson’s seen plenty of people approach wild animals for photo-ops or try to get them to take food out of their hands.

“I never cited anybody, but I warned people that animals with big pointy things growing out of the top of their heads can really hurt their kid,” he said. “If you’re exposing your kid to an obvious danger, and the threat can be easily perceived, then there’s definitely a case to be made.”

Grand Prismatic guy holding kid 6 30 26

<title>Man Caught Carrying Child On Dangerous Yellowstone Grand Prismatic Thermal Pools | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Yellowstone visitors near the popular Grand Prismatic Spring were outraged Sunday watching a man carry a child on dangerous thermals pools. "What the hell is wrong with people?” said a visitor who got a photo of the incident.

Man Caught Carrying Child On Dangerous Yellowstone Grand Prismatic Thermal Pools

A Lincoln County man walked away from what the Wyoming Highway Patrol said could easily have been a fatal accident that sent his truck tumbling into the Snake River Canyon upstream from Alpine on Monday.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol responded to the incident at mile marker 124 on U.S. Highway 89. The call came in around 1:20 p.m.

“A Ford pickup was traveling southbound when the driver said he lost control of the vehicle,” WHP spokesman Aaron Brown told Cowboy State Daily. “He went into the opposite lane and sideswiped a car hauler.”

When the pickup cleared the car hauler, it went through the guardrail and tumbled down a steep embankment into the river. Brown said the vehicle rolled two to three times before coming to rest on its wheels, 20 feet into the Snake.

The driver walked away with minor injuries. He was treated and released from an Alpine hospital later that day.

[{"type":"text","text":"However, he didn’t escape without a citation."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“We did issue a citation for failure to maintain lane,” Brown said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wear Your Seat Belt"}]

Brown said the driver was likely wearing a seat belt when the accident occurred. That was “probably what saved his life.”

“When people roll their vehicles and they're not wearing their seat belts, their bodies are going to find a way out of that car,” he said. “You’re going to be ejected, partially or fully. Either way, your chances of survival at that point are slim to none.”

Brown couldn’t confirm if the driver was wearing his seat belt. He believes the minor injuries the driver sustained and his ability to escape the vehicle on his own can’t be explained any other way.

“That vehicle was pretty crushed,” he said. “After rolling over three times and landing in the river, the driver walks away simply because he was wearing his seat belt.”

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

The incident occurred near a notorious spot in the Snake River Canyon called the Big Kahuna, the area's largest and most famous rapid.

Clint Erickson, the captain of Star Valley Search and Rescue, said the Big Kahuna is “infamous” among local river rafting guides and search and rescue volunteers.

“As far as water features on the Snake River, it's very well-known,” 

. “A lot of people surf on the Lunch Counter rapid, so it’s a well-known water feature.”

Big Kahuna is so infamous that the U.S. Forest Service placed an automated external defibrillator (AED) at the Red Creek Trailhead, a mile downriver, to potentially save anyone injured in the rapid.

“When people fall into the Snake River (at Big Kahuna), the general flow of the river puts them in that area,” Erickson said. “The AED is there in case someone has a heart attack after falling in.”

Joyce Balls, 89, of Rigby, Idaho, died after falling into the Snake River Canyon in June 2025 in another incident near that part of the canyon. She was picnicking at the Big Kahuna Overlook when she fell 100 feet into the river.

Jay Hokanson, deputy coroner with the Lincoln County Coroner’s Office, confirmed that Balls died from “injuries sustained in the fall.”

Truck in Snake River 735908997 1696244811656670 8467685573708929046 n 6 30 26 png

<title>Man Survives After Crashing Truck Through Guardrail And Plunging Into Snake River | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Lincoln County man lost control of his truck, crashed through a guardrail, rolled several times and plunged 20 feet into the Snake River — yet walked away with minor injuries. Wyoming Highway Patrol ticketed the man for failure to maintain his lane.

Man Survives After Crashing Truck Through Guardrail And Plunging Into Snake River

[{"type":"text","text":"Everything about the Savannah Bananas is fantastic....."}]

Savannah bananas 6 30 26

<title>Bonus Video 2: Tuesday, June 30, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Everything about the Savannah Bananas is fantastic.....

Bonus Video 2: Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Around Wyoming

The Amish man at the center of a Crook County 

 has confirmed that the issue prompted him and his family to leave the state and says what was required of him by county officials is unconstitutional.   

Abe Yoder called Cowboy State Daily from a community phone near his property in Weldon, Iowa, on Saturday.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Amish historically do not use email or cellphones."}]

Yoder recently moved to Iowa, selling off much of his Hulett-area estate and taking his wife and nine of his 11 children with him.

“It does very much have to do with our sovereignty and rights,” he said.

Scott Pomerenke of Sundance, a friend of Yoder’s, put it this way: "They’re moving because they were pressured.”

[{"type":"text","text":"County officials say that was never the intention."}]

Yoder told Cowboy State Daily the county had threatened to fine him $10,000 per day per outhouse on his land that did not have a permit, threatened to take away his children, and asked him to sign a contract giving county officials permission to inspect the outhouses at any time.

County officials told Cowboy State Daily they did invoke financial incentive to get Yoder to comply with county regulations. They also point to a blanket clause on all county paperwork that asks for permission to inspect property. 

[{"type":"text","text":"But they vehemently deny anyone threatened to take away his children."}]

“There was no such thing,” said Caleb Peters, Crook County wastewater treatment specialist.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"How It Started"}]

The dispute began in October 2024, when Crook County officials discovered several Amish property owners west of Hulett had built pit-style outhouses without the permits required under county wastewater regulations.

[{"type":"text","text":"Peters said he became aware of the issue through satellite imaging."}]

Some outhouses were not sealed or properly vented, he told Cowboy State Daily.

“There was a compilation of a whole bunch of things,” he said, which led him to reach out to the property owners.

While he did not have an exact number, Peters said he guessed about 20 outhouses did not comply with county regulations.

County commissioner Bob Latham said county code requires human-waste receptacles to be portable, pumpable or connected to a septic system.

“You have to build them correctly and permit them,” Crook County commission chair Fred Devish said.

Upon learning about the codes and permitting regulations, all but two families complied, Peters said.

Those families were the Abe and Elizabeth Yoder and Rudy and Irene Borntreger, he said. An estate moving sale was held for both families earlier this month. The Yoders moved to Iowa, the Borntregers to Wisconsin.

[{"type":"text","text":"Yoder told Cowboy State Daily he felt targeted and strong-armed."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Sovereignty And The Law"}]

Yoder is sovereign, meaning he belongs to a group of self-governing people. He has no Social Security number and no birth certificate.

According to the Young Center for Amish Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, the Amish pay taxes. However, they do not pay Social Security taxes because they believe it is a form of insurance.

Yoder said his outhouses were built to code, including two that served an Amish schoolhouse on his land.

“I had researched to be sure I had everything up to specs,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

The only thing missing: A permit for each outhouse. Permits cost $200 each.

[{"type":"text","text":"Yoder said he had lived on the land for 10 years without a permit."}]

“It was never a problem,” he said. “Now, they come out and pounce upon me.”

Yoder said he believed the push was largely about money. Sheridan rancher Pepper Fipps, who has done business with Yoder, agrees.

“It’s amazing how the government wants their money,” Fipps told Cowboy State Daily.

But Devish said $200 is “not a terrible amount.” The fee pays for the county’s time to inspect and process necessary paperwork.

“It’s not a money grab,” he said. “We’re not making millions of dollars on wastewater permitting.”

According to Yoder, the county was in clear violation of the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States. Under the 14th Amendment, the state is prohibited from depriving any person “life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”

“In my way of looking at it, they threatened my life by threatening to take my children away. They threatened to take my property by putting a lien against it. This is unconstitutional,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

[{"type":"text","text":"Both Devish and Peters dismissed those claims."}]

“We don’t make laws without repercussions,” Devish said. “Whether you’re Amish or Mormon or Catholic or whoever the hell you want to be, there are rules.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The issue largely boiled down to filling out paperwork, Devish added."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"But it’s paperwork Yoder was not willing to sign."}]

Pomerenke told Cowboy State Daily that Yoder didn’t want to sign paperwork because under his sovereignty he didn’t need to.

He recounted a similar struggle that his own Amish grandfather experienced a half-century ago in Wisconsin. His grandfather was fined $75 a day for having non-conforming outhouses and ultimately landed in jail.

“He wouldn’t pay because he didn’t think it was a valid law,” Yoder said.

Finally, the county in Wisconsin ruled the grandfather was a simple farmer who wasn’t hurting anything and decided to leave him alone.

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

[{"type":"text","text":"In Crook County, the lengthy dispute played out in a series of letters."}]

Devish said one person sent a letter to commissioners saying, “I don’t know why county commissioners are so interested in my feces.”

“I’m not particularly interested in yours,” he said he responded. “I’m interested in everybody’s and that it goes where it needs to go in a proper manner. It is a biohazard that needs to be disposed of properly.”

Yoder said he sent multiple letters to county commissioners asking why permits were needed.

Peters said the Yoders did not respond to the letters he sent detailing the problems and the necessary solutions.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We had no way to talk to them,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Trespassing?"}]

Yoder said eventually county officials asked him to sign a contract that would allow them to come onto his property anytime to inspect the outhouses for the schoolhouse.

[{"type":"text","text":"Yoder did not sign it. But, he said, county officials showed up anyway."}]

“They trespassed,” he said. “They opened doors they had no permission to open.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Peters sees it differently."}]

“If we know there’s a health and safety violation, we have to investigate it,” he said. “If we have suspicion of something there, we have the right to go in.”

Peters said his attempts to communicate with Yoder were fruitless. He sent multiple letters with no response, he said.

“If (Yoder) wants to call that trespassing, then I guess so,” Devish said. “I think we should have the ability to go and see what’s being done or not being done.”

Having a record of what takes place on the land is important for future landowners, he said.

“I don’t want to buy some place that has biohazards that I’ll have to take care of,” Devish added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Seizing Children?"}]

Yoder also said the county threatened to take his children if he didn’t comply with regulations.

He said officials leaned on a 2025 high-profile case in Massachusetts in which the children of Isael Rivera and Ruth Encarnacion were taken into custody by the state after a pediatrician reported the family for medical neglect because they refused to vaccinate their 9-month-old due to religious beliefs. Those children remain in the care of the Massachusetts DCF and the case is ongoing.

[{"type":"text","text":"“They used that case to threaten us,” Yoder said."}]

Devish said to that claim, “I laugh out loud. That is ridiculous. No. No. There’s no taking children away. Good Lord.”

Abe Yoder moved his Amish family from Wyoming to Iowa after he says Crook County officials threatened him with stiff fines and removing his children over outhouse permits. County officials deny those claims and say they only sought wastewater compliance.

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