You Still Here

Now let's all watch a log get obliterated by throwing it in front of a high pressure stream of water.....

Bonus video 5 27 24

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

<title>Bonus Video: Monday, May 27, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Bonus Video: Monday, May 27, 2024

 Now let's all watch a log get obliterated by throwing it in front of a high pressure stream of water.....

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Politics

A federal agency has an agreement with Wyoming's two tribes to run license plate reader cameras on the reservation, authorities confirmed Thursday. 

Cowboy State Daily has observed license plate reader cameras already installed on roadside posts at the north entrance to the reservation abutting Riverton, and the south entrance from the Lander side.

The license plate readers are put up by DEA (the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) through an agreement with the tribe, said U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman Joshua Barnett in a Thursday email. Barnett added that the BIA is "not part of that agreement." 

Wyoming Highway Patrol (WHP) Lt. Col. Karl Germain told lawmakers during a Tuesday committee meeting that the WHP was working with the BIA to put up the cameras. 

But Germain clarified in a Thursday phone call, saying he misspoke and was trying to highlight the cameras can be a good tool in crisis situations. 

"Highway Patrol doesn’t have any LPRs," said Germain. "We have no mechanism to purchase those or put them up." But the patrol's umbrella agency, the Wyoming Highway Patrol, manages the highway right-of-way and is responsible for authorizing camera installations, he said. 

The Select Committee on Tribal Relations, which is a state legislative panel,

discuss how state law interacts with the two tribal governments of Wyoming: the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone

There, Germain said, “Those (cameras) are obviously helpful for a number of reasons, and you know I fully recognize some of the privacy concerns of with that."  For missing person cases or Amber alerts, those cameras “can be invaluable to help recover that person in a timely manner,” said German. “There aren’t a lot of cameras in Wyoming right now. If the reservation is able to put those up, it’s just another tool at the disposal of law enforcement.”

Committee Co-Chair Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, voiced concern, calling the cameras a facet of “big surveillance.”

“It’s a big step in our surveillance society,” said Case. “Not quite as far as England where they have facial recognition all the way through London but … it feels that way a little bit.”

 the controversy surrounding the cameras. 

License plate readers are cameras, generally facing roadways, that capture images of vehicles and license 

 and log dates and times for those images. The devices can also capture images of drivers and occupants of vehicles and passersby.

Case amplified his comments in a Thursday interview, saying the license plate readers, government-accessible DNA databases, facial recognition technology and other government surveillance measures now in play would have been "appalling" to the Founding Fathers. 

"All this stuff is somewhat '1984'-ish," said Case, referring to George Orwell's dystopian novel about an authoritarian surveillance state. 

[{"type":"text","text":"This Drug Trafficking"}]

The cameras have been posted for "months" Wyoming Department of Transportation public relations specialist Cody Beers told Cowboy State Daily. 

An advocate of the license plate readers, Nicole Wagon touted them as useful and important during a Jan. 27 meeting of the Tribal Relations Committee. 

Wagon, who lost one daughter to murder and another to hypothermia amid suspicious circumstances, is an advocate for better safety measures for indigenous people.

“It’s a component to stop the violence. It’s a component to make it safe for all the community members,” said Wagon of the cameras, 

She said the Wind River Intertribal Council, which comprises executive-branch governments of both tribes, signed a resolution in 2024 to work with license plate reader efforts on the reservation.

Neither the Eastern Shoshone Business Council nor the Northern Arapaho Business Council responded to Cowboy State Daily’s 

requests for comment, however the ESBC’s spokeswoman requested more information on the topic, which 

Cowboy State Daily inquired of the BIA at that time, and the agency said on Feb. 3 that it “does not have license plate readers on the Wind River Indian Reservation” and to check with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). 

The agency’s spokesman Joshua Barnett said Thursday in a follow-up exchange that the DEA puts up the license plate readers “through an agreement with the tribe,” of which BIA is not a part.

While he did not confirm the cameras’ presence or use, DEA Public Affairs Officer Stephan Tubbs wrote in a Jan. 28 email that, “The key trafficking routes for the Mexican Cartels across our Rocky Mountain Field Division are the I-25, I-70, and I-80 corridors in Colorado and Wyoming.”

“These highways are arteries for the cartels to bring their poison — namely fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine — into and across our nation,” Tubbs said, adding that targeting cartel routes is “vital.”

“Any and all tools available need to be utilized to save American lives from the continuing deadly impact the cartels and their dangerous drugs inflict on our communities,” said Tubbs. He referred back to that statement when Cowboy State Daily sent a follow-up inquiry in May. 

The FBI, which also performs law enforcement functions and investigations on the reservation, declined in a Feb. 2 email from FBI public affairs officer Vikki Migoya to comment “about investigative techniques or law enforcement tools we might or might not use.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Criminals Or 'Complete Morons'"}]

Erick Blackburn, former chief of the Wind River’s BIA outpost, discussed the cameras on a public Facebook exchange last month.

 map showing two of the cameras stationed at the reservation’s Riverton entrance.

, they’re license plate readers,” wrote Blackburn in a comment, 

referring to AI-powered license plate technology used by several Wyoming municipalities. 

“Law enforcement can search specific license plates for ATL — attempt to locate — for Amber alerts and vehicles reported to be trafficking narcotics,” Blackburn continued. "Everyone against them is criminal themselves or complete morons!!”

Blackburn said in another comment that was the BIA chief who “oversaw the project in an attempt to apprehend the narcotics coming into Fremont County and the reservation.”

He said both tribes are “heavy in favor” of the technology and “we had to have their full approval.”

“They were sick and tired of their people senselessly dying,” Blackburn added.

Blackburn, who later confirmed he’s now retired, said the cameras are working and fentanyl overdoses have declined.

 drug dealing POS, or snatching children and trying to drive away with them, you have nothing to worry about,” Blackburn wrote.

Blackburn did not immediately respond to a message request for further comment.

Barnett said Thursday that he was told a former BIA chief may have helped the tribe with the project, on the tribal side, but the project is still a DEA and tribal venture. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Obey The Constitution"}]

Robert Frommer, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice and one of the attorneys urging stronger Fourth Amendment protections in this area, told Cowboy State Daily he’s not in favor of eradicating the cameras.

But they should be subject to the same Fourth Amendment restraints as other law enforcement tools, he said in a Thursday phone interview.

The Fourth Amendment generally bars entry into a person’s home without a warrant, for example, but has exceptions for “exigent circumstances” 

 indications that someone is being harmed inside the home.

On hearing about the cameras stationed at the reservation’s entrances, Frommer said that’s a common method across the nation so that law enforcement can track who enters and leaves a given region. 

When he reviewed Cowboy State Daily’s photographs, he said they’re not Flock brand cameras, but some other brand.

“It’s hard to feel secure and to go about your daily life when you’re always knowing that the government is looking over your shoulder,” he said. “And that’s what these ALPRs (automatic license plate readers) allow. This, kind of, pervasive monitoring of individuals.”

 on this issue would require officers to get a warrant before accessing a person’s historical location information, unless an emergency makes getting a warrant impractical. 

It would restrict the data gatherers’ conveyance of people’s historical location information to third parties.

It would require that a record is created every time someone’s historical location information is accessed, and it would require training for officers accessing that historical information.

The proposed legislation would specify that authorities can’t use unlawfully obtained camera data to prosecute someone, but they also can face civil consequences for violating someone’s rights.

[{"type":"text","text":"The technology can be easy to abuse, said Frommer."}]

“Without any kind of warrant requirement or even internal procedures, it often means that the person deciding whether to search or not is just the bored officer in the patrol car,” said Frommer. “We’ve seen abuses where police have been stalking former romantic partners, wives, ex-boyfriends; other situations where it’s been used to keep tabs on people who are engaged in political activity.”

[{"type":"text","text":"This spreads to the immigration debate, he said."}]

Frommer and his co-counsel in an April 15 lawsuit complaint against the city of San Jose, California, wrote that that city’s massive AI-enhanced surveillance camera system has cameras near immigration lawyers’ offices and health care facilities.

As for the Wind River, Frommer said that, “I understand there might be drug problems in Wyoming and the reservation. There are drug problems all over the country.

“But you can’t let the worries of the day blind you to the long-term constitutional problems of what you’re doing.”

He added, “We want people to obey the law. And if we want people to obey the law then we have to, with just as much vigor, want our officers and government officials to obey the Constitution.”

License plate camera inset 6 18 26

<title>License Plate Cameras At Entrances To Wind River Reservation Spark Controversy | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Drug Enforcement Administration has installed license plate cameras on or around the Wind River Reservation, authorities confirmed Thursday. "All this stuff is somewhat '1984'-ish," Sen. Cale Case said. "It’s a big step in our surveillance society.”

License Plate Cameras At Entrances To Wind River Reservation Spark Controversy

Crime & Courts

Two people died Wednesday after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart, drawing passersby from both sides of the city’s busiest road, North Federal Boulevard.

[{"type":"text","text":"The crash was reported around 8:15 p.m."}]

A white Dodge pickup with a crunched hood sat on its side in the middle of the road, while the mangled remains of what witnesses said had been a black Jeep sat upright nearly a half-block south of the pickup, on the northbound lane of the road.

Police, emergency medical personnel and the Riverton Volunteer Fire Department converged. People on the scene pulled one man out of the pickup. The man was bleeding.

“I asked him what the year was,” said Trent Hallada, who was walking in the area and felt debris, “possibly” hit his eye when the crash happened. “He couldn’t even say the date and year.”

Two more eyewitnesses, who both declined to be identified by name, said the driver of the pickup sat on the ground while personnel responded, but when the response calmed slightly, he tried to run.

Law enforcement officers tackled him and took him into custody, the two witnesses said.

The Fremont County Coroner’s office also responded with a transport truck. One person, who lay in the middle of the road under a tarp and closer to the black vehicle, was placed into the transport truck. Firefighters held red tarps around the person to shield public view.

The Riverton Police Department announced in a Thursday statement that “both occupants of one of the vehicles had serious injuries;” one was pronounced dead one the scene, and the second was taken to SageWest Health Care, “where they succumbed to their injuries.”

The RPD statement doesn’t describe the two different vehicles, calling them “one of the vehicles” and “the other vehicle.” But the statement, coupled with witness interviews, indicates that two people were in the black vehicle, and have both now died.

And the driver of the pickup was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide, plus other related offenses, the statement indicates when coupled with witness interviews.

RPD concluded its statement with a request for anyone with information on the wreck to call 307-856-4891.

Riverton crash 6 18 26

<title>Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Two people died Wednesday evening after a two-vehicle crash unfolded in front of Riverton’s Walmart. Law enforcement officers tackled a suspect who was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and vehicular homicide.

Two Dead, One Tackled And Arrested in Riverton Crash

 In Hot Springs County, the divide in Wyoming’s active Republican political base is actually a chasm.

That breach usually falls between the GOP faction more aligned with the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and the faction that tends to oppose it.  

It resurfaced Monday night at the Hot Springs County Republican Central Committee meeting, where precinct committee people and their elected officers gathered to handle regular business.

 delegate, Cheryl Aguiar, made a motion to nearly drain the party’s checking account by sending $4,000 to the Wyoming Republican Party. She didn’t explain the motion to committee leaders at the time.

Her motion failed on a 6-6 tie vote, after which five people, including Aguiar, left the meeting.

People on both sides of the controversy told Cowboy State Daily the voters’ departure left the party short of a quorum and unable to pay its other bills, including to local businesses.

Aguiar said in a Wednesday interview that she made the motion at the request of a large group to protest some members’ efforts last month to “sabotage” the party’s fundraiser dinner by hosting an alternate event on the same night, May 29.

“They literally tried to sabotage – to steal money from our yearly fundraiser; to hold an alternate event to punish the state (party),” Aguiar said. “Why come and punish the county if you’re mad at something the state (party) did?”

Aguiar said that for her part, she left the meeting Monday because the chair was letting attendees heckle and berate her – a claim Chair Joe Martinez disputes.

Multiple critics of Aguiar’s move countered in Tuesday and Wednesday interviews, calling the members’ departure childish.

“I think it’s pretty crappy to walk out on paying the bills for the (gala) that they all held,” precinct committeewoman Shurie Scheel said. “It’s one thing to be mad about it. It’s another to screw over the caterer.”

The party also owes other small businesses money, including the local newspaper, the Independent Record, for advertising, she said.

Scheel said she’s unsure if the local party will have a quorum again before new precinct committee people are sworn in next January, as it’s uncertain if the walkouts – whom she cast as sympathetic to the Wyoming Freedom Caucus wing of the GOP – will return to vote.

Scheel said she and her husband might have to pay the catering business, We Got Your 6 Catering, in the meantime.

[{"type":"text","text":"A Court Case, Two Galas"}]

 Martinez as the local party chair and Scheel’s husband, Phil Scheel, as state committeeman. The judge ruled May 29 that the other people who’d been serving as chair and state committeeman for the past 15 months – Bradyn Harvey and Russell Lewis – were elected in a manner that violated state law.

Monday’s gathering was also the first meeting after the battle of two galas.

The Hot Springs County GOP planned a Charlie Kirk memorial fundraiser dinner for May 29.

Scheel had been organizing the dinner. But she quit planning it to support an alternate “Take Back Wyoming” dinner set for the same evening.

Scheel told Cowboy State Daily she backed the alternate dinner to protest the state Republican Party’s new bylaw declaring a right to donate to or endorse some Republicans over others during the primary election cycle.

State law forbids the GOP and any other major party from taking sides among its own candidates in the primary election. The party is free to back Republicans against Democratic candidates and others in the general election, however. The state party is suing Wyoming over the primary backing ban right now, saying the statute violates the group’s First Amendment rights.  

“Take Back Wyoming: Non-Freedom Caucus Republican Candidates Shop Party,” the banner for the alternate May 29 gala says. “Supporting fair primaries and grassroots conservative values.”

Scheel told Cowboy State Daily she disagrees with the state party’s mission to overturn the state law because primary election day is “the day the voters of the Republican party choose their candidates. The party shouldn’t be choosing the candidates. The voters should.”

: “It shouldn’t be a room full of party insiders who decide who the Republican Party nominee will be, and then tell the voters who to choose. And, the more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got about it.”  

[{"type":"text","text":"So We Carried On"}]

In Aguiar’s telling, Scheel and others answered a state party maneuver with “retaliation” against the county party.

Aguiar said as one voter she doesn’t like the idea of the state party sending money to candidates pre-primary either, though she thinks the party should be able to endorse candidates during that phase.

[{"type":"text","text":"For her, that’s beside the point."}]

“We had to spend – I think there were three of us that spent three solid days calling candidates” to arrange the party, Aguiar said. “We did a good job.”

 U.S. House candidate Steve Friess and Secretary of State Candidate Rachel Williams (also known as state Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams) attended the GOP dinner.

 included a $1,900 bill to the caterer, $146 in advertising and other costs totaling about $2,904.

Martinez attended the Charlie Kirk dinner, which Aguiar said is to his credit. Other than the alleged heckling incident, Aguiar also spoke favorably of Martinez as party chair.

Aguiar said her husband had also run a profitable gun raffle for the party. 

Aguiar concluded that Scheel and the others involved in planning the alternate, protest dinner “don’t care.”

“These people do not care about the Hot Springs County Republican Party,” Aguiar said.

But after the judge’s order – filed the same evening as both dinners – the party leadership changed, and the party tilted toward the group not aligned with the more populist Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

“And for them to get the money that we raised, despite their sabotaging of the alternate event … I did not think it would be in good hands,” Aguiar said.

Aguiar said she and her husband, Bob Aguiar – who is also a Hot Springs County commissioner – left together, and Pam Phillips, to whom they’d given a ride, walked out as well.

She called it incidental that two more committee members, Michele Stevens and Russell Lewis, left the meeting at that time.

[{"type":"text","text":"The ‘Walkout’"}]

Aguiar was adamant that she didn’t make her motion to drain the account because of the judge’s order; she made it on behalf of a bigger group because of the dueling gala incident.

[{"type":"text","text":"Martinez doubts that, he said Wednesday."}]

The Charlie Kirk dinner raised less than $1,500 after expenses, while Aguiar moved to shift $4,000 from the local party’s account to its statewide counterpart.

“I mean, if it was specifically (because of) the Charlie Kirk dinner then that dollar amount should have been consistent with the actual profit,” Martinez said.

Martinez said he doesn’t believe anyone was heckling or verbally abusing Aguiar at the meeting, though the conversation grew “emotional.”

“It was an emotional item,” he recalled. “People wanted to know what the reasons for sending that money to the state were.”

Stevens in a post-publication comment pointed to her family's long battle against "threats and litigation" in the county. The Stevens family has tried for years to operate its tipi camping retreat and met with resistance from neighbors, a former iteration of the Hot Springs County commission, and the courts system. 

Stevens agrees with Aguiar that Martinez failed to maintain decorum, she said. 

"Monday night, when Chairman Joe Martinez let an agitated, packed room shout down Cheryl Aguiar’s motion to send part of the Charlie Kirk dinner proceeds to the state GOP, I didn’t feel safe staying in that room," said Stevens, adding that she believed the bills could still be paid. 

Stevens also criticized Shurie Scheel's change of course on the Charlie Kirk dinner, and Scheel's backing of a competing event. 

"It shouldn’t be overlooked that the Scheels have been at the center of the three most divisive legal fights this county has seen recently," said Stevens, adding allegations against Phil Scheel that have not been charged. 

"I didn’t walk out to dodge the bills," said Stevens. "I called Joe Martinez that same night and offered to reconvene to get every bill paid as soon as possible, and told him directly that walking out had nothing to do with the lawsuit. My only condition is the one I’d ask of any meeting: real order, and a room where people feel safe. I’m told the others plan to come back too."

Lewis told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday that the walkout wasn't coordinated. He said he walked out because of the dueling galas incident - not because of the court's order that removed him from leadership. 

Sherman Skelton, a school board member who attended the meeting as a spectator, said the walkout seemed coordinated.

“I felt very much like those people (should be) there to represent me, our precinct. Not their personal agendas,” said Skelton said. "And it was probably one of the most childish things I’d ever seen in my life."

Shurie Scheel said the walkout appeared “staged," that Aguiar said, "OK, let's go everyone," and they all rose in unison and left. Scheel said that Aguiar acknowledged on her way out that the committee wouldn't have a quorum after they all left.

Aguiar for her part said party members in Scheel's camp merely have "Aguiar derangement syndrome" and that Shurie Scheel is unhappy that Aguiar's husband defeated Shurie's husband in the last County Commission race. 

This Story has been updated to include a post-publication comment by Michele Stevens

Charlie kirk dinner via RRW political facebook page 6 17 26

<title>Hot Springs County GOP Members Walk Out After Failed Vote To Drain Account | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Hot Springs County GOP rejected a party leader's bid Monday to nearly drain its bank account and send $4,000 to the state party. Then five people on the losing side of the question walked out, leaving not enough voters to pay their bills.
 

Hot Springs County GOP Members Walk Out After Failed Vote To Drain Account

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

Andrew Rossi

Business

Agriculture

There's a big bee emergency in Yellowstone National Park after a semi-truck carrying dozens of beehives crashed Tuesday.

Dalton Broadus of West Yellowstone, Montana, was driving north along U.S. Highway 191 around 9 a.m. Tuesday when he drove past the scene.

Damaged and destroyed beehives were scattered across a quarter-mile stretch of road. Bees were swarming his vehicle, several tow trucks and a Yellowstone ambulance were at the scene, and someone in a beekeeping suit was already assessing the area.

“It happened about an hour before I got there, I believe,” Broadus said.

The Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, Hebgen Basin Fire/EMS, the Montana Department of Transportation, and the Montana Department of Agriculture responded to the scene.

James Peterson, dispatch manager for Eaton Road Solutions, told Cowboy State Daily his company received a call from the National Park Service to recover the flipped semi-truck. He wasn’t sure what caused the accident.

“We brought three recovery trucks and two traffic-control trucks from Idaho Falls,” he said. “It took us about three hours to get it back up.”

Peterson said Eaton’s crews were heading back to the scene Wednesday night to start recovering the damaged hives and, hopefully, the bees that had been residing inside.

“We’ve been working one-on-one with the company (that owns the hives), and they’re trying to save what they can,” he said.

The crews will require bee suits while on the scene. Fortunately, Eaton already had some at the ready.

“We haven’t dealt much with bees,” Peterson said. “This was our second bee call in 15 years, and we still have the beekeeping suits we got for the first call."

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

After viewing Broadus’s video, Cheyenne venture capitalist and beekeeper Michael Jordan said that, from what he could see, the incident was “a devastating loss” for all involved.

“From the way it looks. I’d think about 40 to 50 percent of what’s there is salvageable, maybe,” he said. “It’s a big dump across a long section, so I’d say they’ve got a three-day ordeal ahead of them.”

According to Jordan, an average honey box can hold between 75,000 and 125,000 bees. Each box costs around $500 and generates $2,000 in profit from honey production.

A semi-truck like the one that crashed can carry 250 to 500 honey boxes, and potentially double that if they’re trying to save space.

[{"type":"text","text":"“There could be up to 1,000 of those boxes in one load,” he said."}]

That’s easily millions of bees and hundreds of thousands of dollars lost in Yellowstone.

Jordan has been involved in similar incidents. He helped coordinate a salvage effort after a beehive-carrying semi-truck was involved in an incident on I-80 near Arlington.

“The first four hours are critical,” he said. “The truck drivers, the insurance company, and the owners of the colonies have to work together and approve everything. Somebody on-site is going to be the manager, and they’ll figure out how to fix the problem, so there’s a lot of communication that needs to happen.”

In this incident, all parties will have to coordinate with the Park Service. They’ll need to have a lot of input, given the accident happened in Yellowstone, and fines could be assessed.

“When your boat sinks in Glendale Lake, they charge you for littering, not to mention salvage,” Jordan said. “It’s going to be a pretty big loss, and that’s just the property damage. The owners will need approval from the insurance companies, and then there’s whatever liability the trucking company will have with the NPS. If the mitigation takes too long, they could lose everything."

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

Jordan wasn’t sure how the NPS would manage a 500-hive bee recovery in Yellowstone.

In a high-traffic area, such as a highway through Yellowstone during the summer, the first step in a successful recovery might be to call the fire department, he said. That’s potentially the worst-case scenario for the bees and the beekeepers, but the quickest solution for the NPS.

“If the bees are deemed a hazard to traffic, the fire department might go ahead and foam the whole area,” Jordan said. “That kills everything in the area, but you can go in and clear everything out without having to close down the highway.”

As for the bees, Jordan said everyone involved in the salvage operation must make critical moves within 48 hours. That’s how long they have before the surviving bees move on.

“The queens are going to be looking for locations where they feel safe,” he said. “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.”

Tracking down and individually placing the queens in new or rebuilt honey boxes is the best strategy, assuming the surviving queens can be located. Otherwise, there might be a big bee population in northwest Yellowstone.

“If the queens are in Yellowstone, they’re going to migrate into Yellowstone’s forests,” he said. “You can prevent that if you find the queens and put them in individual hives, but you have 48 hours to do it.”

When Jordan helped salvage the scene near Arlington, they successfully recovered 70% of the bees that had been on the semi-truck. They accomplished this by quickly setting up new honey boxes in a safe spot near the scene.

“Bees are very communal,” he said. “They work on a swarm mentality, and they can migrate and integrate into a new colony pretty easily. Once the new housing is set up, they’ll typically migrate to those locations within 24 hours.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Busy As Bees"}]

Jordan imagines the companies that owned the damaged honey boxes are coordinating a large response and rushing new housing to the scene.

“I’d say salvaging those colonies and hives will be a three-day ordeal, working 18 hours a day,” he said. “It depends on who’s managing the cleanup. The owners will want to keep as much product as they can, and there are many factors that go into that.”

That already complicated and urgent effort will likely become even more complex, given that it all needs to happen within a national park. The NPS might implement its own strategy to ensure the safety of visitors, traffic and the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem.

, a Yellowstone spokesperson said there were no reported injuries.

"Although the highway remains open, expect delays and traffic control measures as cleanup and mitigation work continue at the site of the accident,” the statement reads.

Broadus had the same takeaway from the incident as he’s had for years driving that 55-mph section of road in Yellowstone's northwest corner: slow down.

“I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents like this,” he said. “I drive from West Yellowstone every day during the summer. People speed quite a bit and pass within tight margins of oncoming traffic. They need to slow down.”

A semitruck carrying millions of honeybees flipped over on U.S. Highway 191 in Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday. Cheyenne beekeeper Michael Jordan called the scene "a devastating loss" of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the owners of the bees.

Bonus Video: Monday, May 27, 2024

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

Bonus Video 2: Friday, January 19, 2026

Bonus Video 1: Friday, June 19, 2026

Today In Human Excellence: Friday, June 19, 2026

Today In World Cup Fans: Friday, June 19, 2026

Most read