You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"Anyone who has or has had upstairs neighbors can vouch for this...."}]

You still here 6 11 24

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

<title>You Still Here? Tuesday, June 11, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Anyone who has or has had upstairs neighbors can vouch for this....

You Still Here? Tuesday, June 11, 2024

 Anyone who has or has had upstairs neighbors can vouch for this....

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

Andrew Rossi

Business & Tourism

Tourism

The Maverik gas station in Montrose, Colorado, can’t sell any diesel after someone dumped an RV’s waste tank into the station’s underground diesel supply.

The incident happened sometime on Monday, and a woman who answered the phone at the Montrose Maverik station on Tuesday confirmed that someone had dumped an RV waste tank into its underground diesel storage tank.

She said the pumps “are shut down right now,” that the store was busy, and hung up.

Cowboy State Daily hasn’t been able to confirm the status of the situation at the Montrose Maverik since that call. Subsequent calls weren’t answered.

Evan Peters shared details of the incident in the Facebook group Montrose Message Board.

“They dumped into the large manhole covers near the road directly into the diesel tank,” he wrote. “They have a dedicated dump at the larger pumps, but I guess someone decided to undo the manhole and dump there.”

To add insult to injury, Peters said a cashier at the Montrose Maverik told him the station had “just gotten a new delivery of diesel.”

Now, they’ll have to pump everything out of the tank and thoroughly clean it before it’s operational.

That’s what happens when someone’s No. 2 becomes someone else’s No. 1 problem.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Necessary Evil"}]

Bill Sniffin, an avid RV enthusiast and Cowboy State Daily columnist, said emptying an RV’s waste tank is “a necessary evil of RVing.”

“Let me tell you, it’s not fun,” he said. “It's usually a two-person operation, and it’s pretty darn rank.”

When Sniffin heard about the incident at the Montrose Maverik, he said it was “almost unbelievable.” 

He couldn’t see how anyone could confuse an RV dump station for the portal leading to a diesel fuel tank, regardless of how the gas station is situated.

“The dump stations are very obvious,” he said. “They’ll have signs all over the place, and it’s very self-explanatory.”

When people rent or buy RVs, they might not anticipate that anything that’s flushed down the on-board toilet needs to be emptied, usually every week or so. It’s the least glamorous part of traveling via RV.

“You can’t hire anybody to do it for you,” Sniffin said. “Luckily, I've got a wife who's a pretty good sport about it, but I have to admit that I have many pictures of her standing over the tank, holding her nose, and trying not to yuck.”

When discussing the Montrose incident, Sniffin kept referencing the 2006 film “RV” starring the late Robin Williams. In the movie, Williams plays an oblivious dad who rents an RV for a fun family vacation.

There’s a particular scene where Williams’s character has to empty the RV’s waste tank. Williams used his comedic genius to make the most of the all-too-relatable moment.

“He doesn’t know how to do it, so of course it explodes into a brown Old Faithful,” Sniffin said. “Anybody who's ever been in the RV business looks at that scene, cringes, and says, ‘For the grace of God, go sweet, those hoses better not pop loose.”

Sniffin has never had an incident as severe as depicted in “RV.” His worst experience was when one of the hoses he used to empty the waste tank split in the hot sun.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It was a helluva mess,” he said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Black Then Gray (In That Order)"}]

RVs have two notable tanks that need to be emptied regularly. The gray water tank holds the water used for sinks and showers, and the black water tank holds the smelly stuff.

According to Sniffin, an experienced RVer knows they need to empty the black tank before the gray tank.

“You have two valves and one hose,” he said. “The routine is to do the black valve first, so all the really bad stuff is gone, then you do the gray valve to rinse out all the stuff as it goes down.”

Where can you empty the black tank? It can be more logistically challenging than many people, especially first-time RVers, realize.

Most RV campsites have waste tank dump sites, either a singular designated spot or one at each hookup, if it’s a full-service site. RVers on the road can empty their black water tanks at fairgrounds, truck stops, and water treatment plants, usually for a fee.

Some gas stations, including Maverik, have dump stations available for free. 

They’re usually clearly marked, with lots of signage telling RVers of all stripes exactly where to back up and bail out their black water tanks.

That comes with a certain risk, as the Montrose Maverik discovered this week.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Everyone Has Stories"}]

Andrea Wood, general manager at the Devils Tower/Black Hills KOA campground, has an RV waste tank dump station at her campground. However, it’s only available to “registered campers.”

“They can reserve a water and electric site, which means they use our dump station, or they are in a full hookup site, which means they hook directly to the sewer system.”

Anyone else who asks to swing in and use their dump station is directed to the Crook County Fairgrounds in Sundance. It’s best not to take chances.

“Anyone who works at a campground will have fecal matter stories for you,” she said. “It is not a daily occurrence, but it happens with frequency, without question.”

Wood couldn’t recall a particularly “exciting” incident at the Devils Tower/Black Hills KOA campground, although there’s nothing exciting about it.

According to her, the most common problem is people “emptying their black water tanks into whatever hole they can find.”

“Not only is it inconvenient and gross, but it's a biohazard,” she said. “The cleanup is never much fun, but it's also a safety concern.”

That said, there’s a particular demographic that’s the most problematic. Nearly every incident Wood could recall involved inexperienced RVers who were “unaware” of what they were doing.

“Lots of people buy or rent campers thinking it's going to be a fun vacation thing, but they don't truly grasp the maintenance and what's required to take a rig down the road,” she said.

Sometimes, people dump their black water tanks in the first spot they find. Sometimes, they don’t even wait for a promising pipe.

“Some people don't bother to put their black water tubing into the sewer hole, and have dumped it straight onto the ground,” Wood said. “Other times, they found something alongside the road that looked like it might work for them and pumped their things into that. 

"It's always amazing to us where they choose to dump, because it's really, it's quite simple.”

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

Sniffin’s guess was that whoever was responsible for the incident was “unbelievably newbie.” They would have had to unscrew the lid to the subterranean fuel tank, insert their hose into it, and let ‘er rip.

“It’s almost unbelievable,” he said. “The whole process is so unpleasant that it's bad enough, but then doing it in the wrong place is just unbelievable to me.”

Wood shared the assessment that the perpetrator was probably a first-time or inexperienced RVer. However, she added that many RV mishaps are caused by foreign tourists who have even less experience with RVs than the average American.

“We get lots of German and French travelers that travel with Cruise America, and they are frequently very unfamiliar with the RVs,” she said. “It's just about knowing and understanding the rig that they're driving and being able to use it the way it's meant to be used, which many don’t.”

Regardless of their experience or ethnicity, the person who made the mistake in Montrose just made their vacation a lot more expensive.

Sniffin, who used to work at a gas station, knows how laborious and meticulous it is to maintain fuel tanks. Correcting the mistake at the Montrose Maverik will be costly and time-consuming.

“I can't imagine the process they're going to have to go through to clean that tank out,” he said. “The whole process of dumping fuel into a fuel tank is very antiseptic. 

"The people driving those trucks make sure not a speck of dirt or anything gets into the tanks or the hose there because that could ultimately mess up a car.”

The Montrose Maverik will have to empty and thoroughly clean the underground diesel tank, along with all the associated filters, pumps, and hoses, before refilling it.

“It's going to be very expensive,” Sniffin said. “If you make that kind of mistake, you are in an unbelievable world of hurt.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Never Never Land"}]

Most people don’t have issues emptying their RV’s black water tank. Wood thinks it’s incredibly simple.

“There's literally only one spot to do it, and all that’s there is a PVC pipe with a cap on it,” she said. “You take the cap off, put your sewer hose in there, and that's where it goes.”

Wood could believe that someone would mistake a fuel tank for an RV dump station, as incredulous as she was that anyone could get that far without realizing what they were doing. 

For her, it’s a reminder that people need to understand RVs before renting or buying one.

“If you're going to use the bathroom in your camper, that goes somewhere,” she said. “It doesn't just disappear into Never Never Land. All of that raw sewage has to go somewhere, and it’s your responsibility to do that the right way at the right spot.”

RV and Montrose Maverik 5 27 26

<title>RV Driver Empties Waste Tank Into Colorado Gas Station's Diesel Supply | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Colorado Maverik station can’t sell any diesel after someone dumped an RV’s waste tank into the station’s underground diesel supply tank this week. One avid RVer said the mistake is “almost unbelievable … the dump stations are very obvious."

RV Driver Empties Waste Tank Into Colorado Gas Station's Diesel Supply

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

Crime & Courts

CHEYENNE — For those wondering how a dog could pull off shooting a woman with a shotgun while stopped for gas in Nebraska, the answer is simple — it pulled the trigger.

That’s the only way a loaded, properly functioning shotgun could go off, said Arthur Huckfeldt and Ryan Allen at Frontier Arms and Supply in Cheyenne.

[{"type":"text","text":"Simply bumping or jostling a shotgun won’t set it off, said Huckfeldt."}]

“That’s impossible. The trigger has to be manipulated,” he told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday while demonstrating with a shotgun in the East Lincolnway gun shop.

If someone were to say their shotgun went off because it was knocked over or kicked around by a dog, “that someone is lying out their ass,” he added. “That wouldn’t do it.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Heard A Shotgun Blast’"}]

Huckfeldt and Allen, who owns the shop, were weighing in on the question people are asking after a Saturday incident when a dog shifting in the back seat of a truck parked at a convenience store fired a loaded shotgun.

The blast put a hole through the front passenger door of the truck, and a single pellet traveled to a nearby intersection, hitting a woman in a car parked at a stoplight.

“The owner of the truck had pulled into the convenience store to purchase merchandise,” says the Scottsbluff Police Department in a statement about the incident.

“While the passenger of the truck was standing near the front passenger side door, a dog in the back seat moved from one side of the vehicle to the other,” the statement says. “During that movement, the dog triggered a shotgun that had a live shell in the chamber, causing the firearm to discharge.”

Craig Grass owns the Short Stop gas station and convenience store, and was working when the dog fired the shotgun. He told Cowboy State Daily that he heard the blast and knew right away what it was.

“The people (who came in the truck) were in the store shopping and the wife went outside,” he said. “They thought they heard a shotgun blast, but nobody really knew for sure. Then they saw the door had a hole in it.”

The blast through the door was toward the gas pumps, Grass said, adding that he wasn’t worried pellets from the shotgun would touch off an explosion.

“The pumps are safe and really well-built,” he said. “It’s not like in the movies where you touch it and it blows up. There’s a lot of safety built into those pumps, they cost a lot and there wasn’t really any danger.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘Put It In The Case’"}]

While answering how a dog can fire a shotgun is easy — pull the trigger, remember? — there are a lot of missing variables in the Nebraska scenario, both Huckfeldt and Allen said.

The Scottsbluff Police Department didn’t respond to a Cowboy State Daily request for more information, like the breed and size of the dog, model of the shotgun, and whether the gun had a safety that was activated.

While they have no clue about those first two nuggets of information, Huckfeldt and Allen both said if the safety was on, the gun wouldn’t have gone off.

“If a 60-pound dog engaged with that trigger, it’d go off, like if it catches a claw or pad in that trigger guard,” Allen said.

[{"type":"text","text":"It would only take about 3-5 pounds of pressure, added Huckfeldt."}]

Even then, “I would think it would be really hard for a dog to shoot a shotgun,” he said. “The dog would have to have a small (paw) pad, unless it was a small dog. But that’s just a lot of conjecture.”

Both agree that what happened Saturday at the Short Stop in Scottsbluff was “very unusual.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“But Nebraska’s weird,” Huckfeldt added."}]

While it’s fun to joke about a dog shooting a shotgun, it’s only so because nobody was seriously hurt. One thing the Cheyenne gun experts said they know for sure is that if the shotgun had been stored properly in the back seat of the truck, it wouldn’t have fired.

“If you have firearms, they should be secured, put it in the case or in a rack,” Allen said. “Not haphazardly lying around in the back seat.”

He said the lesson here is, “Don’t be a dum-dum, or as my dad would say, don’t be a shithead.”

Shotgun pressure Frontier Arms and Supply 5 27 26

<title>Dog Shoots Woman With Shotgun At Scottsbluff, Nebraska Convenience Store | Cowboy State Daily</title>

For those wondering how a dog shot a woman with a shotgun in Nebraska this past weekend, gun experts say it pulled the trigger. If someone says the shotgun went off because it was knocked over or kicked around by a dog, they are "lying out their ass."

Dog Shoots Woman With Shotgun At Scottsbluff, Nebraska Convenience Store

Leah Veress

Outdoors

[{"type":"text","text":"“Leah, get up. The horses got out.”"}]

I burrowed my head deeper into my sleeping bag against the cold, feigning sleep. Outside my synthetic-filled cocoon, my tentmate was shuffling around, unzipping her sleeping bag.

In the distance, a creek was roaring, and horses were whinnying, and dull bells were ringing.

“You put the bells on the mares,” Matt, a contractor who grew up locally, explained to me the previous day. “They’re the trouble makers. If they get out, the rest will follow.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Like a queen bee, I had thought."}]

Suddenly, I was fully awake. Shit, the horses got out! Deep in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, dozens of miles from the nearest road, two days into a five-day trip, the horses and mules were our only way to pack out our camp.

I threw open my sleeping bag, pulled on my jeans, grabbed my headlamp and bear spray, and crawled out of the tent.

Despite the darkness, camp was alive with motion. Tent doors flew open, riding clothes were thrown over sleepwear, and saddles were slung on the remaining horses. I clicked my headlamp to the highest setting, blinking hard to adjust my eyes to the low light and shake the sleep from my mind.

Two horses and two mules came into view, tethered to trees by their lead ropes. That left eight animals missing. Lights scanned like spotlights as horses whinnied and the mules brayed, casting an eerie, wail-like sound into the darkness.

As Matt and Antonio, a seasonal outdoors worker, mounted their horses to track the escaped equestrians, the outfitter turned to me.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Stay here and watch the animals in case any trouble comes.”"}]

Two days earlier, our posse of five mules, seven horses, an outfitter, two contractors, a nurse, an outdoorsman, and a reporter embarked on an extended weekend pack trip.

New to horseback riding, having taken a multi-year hiatus from the backcountry, and largely unfamiliar with my companions, I was immediately overwhelmed with a deep appreciation for their company, keen to learn as much as I could.

Most members of the group had worked for the outfitter at one point, spending a summer taking dude rides or a fall guiding hunts in the Absaroka-Beartooth. Cumulatively, they had more than a century of experience. With no dudes on this particular trip, they were afforded a unique opportunity to let loose, exchanging banter and stories freely.

Food packed into Yeti coolers and Milwaukee Packouts, tents and personal items loaded onto mules, horses saddled, bridled, and ready to go, we set out on the 20-mile ride into camp around 11 a.m., three hours after our target departure time.

“I hope you all brought headlamps,” Hazel, a life-long outdoorswoman and practicing nurse, joked.

As the miles wore on, I got to know Cherokee, the 10-year-old paint I was riding.

The cadence of her stride set the pace of my day. As we passed lakes and paralleled streams, the reflection of the sunlight glimmered with every step she took.

I watched as her ears twitched and tail swooshed, shooing away early-season mosquitoes. I noticed the way her sides flared out as we rode up ridges, and the snorts she released to clear the dry, dusty air from her nostrils.

I sneezed in tandem. I learned to anticipate the way she leapt over streams, favoring dry land for the muddy trail most of the other animals trudged through.

As we rode in, the outfitter narrated, sharing personal and historical anecdotes about the route. He had been riding in these mountains twice as long as I had been alive. His stories chronicled the time Teddy Roosevelt spent in the wilderness, the history of resource extraction in the area, and childhood stories that echoed with the ring of universal human experience.

He led a string of five mules with one hand, and the reins of his paint gelding Cabaret and a Coors Banquet in the other. Every time the string would stall, he’d kick up Cabaret.

“I’m not even upset about the mules stopping,” he said. “I’m just pissed it’s spilling my beer.”

Packed in the panniers were three boxes of wine, and two 30-packs of Coors.

Matt rode ahead of the group, scouting the path where the trail fell out. When my borrowed Stetson hat blew off my head for the umpteenth time, and I started rolling my saddle getting back on after retrieving it, he looped back, ensuring everything was OK. He rode this way the whole trip, scouting and keeping everyone together, offering me horsemanship tips over the five days.

By the time we arrived at camp, nestled between a mountain ridge and a swollen creek, the sun had started to descend, and the air temperature fell.

As we dismounted and started to untack the stock, the outfitter walked over to me, his back bent permanently 10 degrees forward from a lifetime of riding, and showed me how to take off the bridal, the cinch, and the breast collar, hands on autopilot from decades of repetition.

“Always unbuckle from the left,” he said, looping and tying the cinch strap like a necktie. “And put your saddle blanket upside down on top of the saddle so it can air out.”

I nodded, making mental notes I later translated to my journal. In this same way, I learned how to tie the quick-release knot necessary to tether her lead rope to a tree (always at neck height or higher), and how to bridle and saddle Cherokee.

Any time I faltered, someone was there to help, offering demonstrations and heuristics.

Once the horses were brushed, untacked, and put to pasture behind an electric fence, camp was erected, illuminated by our headlamps.

Orange, yellow, and green tents stood in the conifer forest like presents under a Christmas tree, packed close enough together to provide perceived protection in grizzly country, but spread apart far enough to create a semblance of privacy.

By the time I crawled into my sleeping bag, the day had stretched over 18 hours. Stomach full of chili reheated over a camp fire, legs and back sore from riding, and my heart happy to be in the backcountry with good company, I drifted off to sleep.

Over the next three days, we cooked all of our meals over an open fire: Corn, potatoes, steak, eggs, hot dogs, pasta, Jiffy Pop. Blue and white enamel cookware was charred black by the soot and washed with murky water retrieved from the creek.

By day three, we had built a second ring. One for talking around, one for cooking over.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Less pressure on the chefs,” the outfitter said."}]

Stumps, cut from felled trees with hatchets, rocks, and a single REI pop-up chair surrounded the talking ring, each a chamber for smoke roulette.

As conversation drifted from shared memories to political beliefs and everything in between, laughter permeated the air, infectious and heavy. Hours passed this way, with the campfire burning steadily, fueled by a seemingly never-ending pile of deadfall, blanketing our dust-covered clothes in a comforting aroma of smoke.

As the week lumbered on, we trekked to nearby lakes, waterfalls, and ridgelines, riding single file, weaving through the landscape like a condensed centipede.

With no cell service and limited charging opportunities, our phones transformed from universal tools into cameras and jukeboxes. Temporarily entirely relieved of the worries and responsibilities a tower connection carried, I contentedly diverted my attention to the people, animals, and space immediately around me.

As we explored the mountains, valleys, meadows, and waterways, I found myself overwhelmed by gratitude. Gratitude for the head on my shoulders and the earth beneath my feet. Gratitude for the people around me, their humor, banter, and willingness to share their wilderness experience and expertise with me.

On day three, we rode to an alpine lake, dipping into willow-blanketed meadows full of bear claw-marked trees, before climbing to snow-covered lodgepole stands. For lunch, we ate sandwiches: PB&J, bologna, turkey, Velveeta, and drank filtered river water.

I watched as Larry, who had moved to Montana from New Hampshire a decade ago and never looked back, and the outfitter fished for cutthroat, one brandishing a spin rod and the other a fly rod.

“I’ve caught eight,” Larry touted, less than a minute after hitting the water.

“That’s OK, pal,” the outfitter called back, holding his spin rod. “One of these days we’ll teach you to count.”

As they fished, Hazel and Antonio read, lazily sprawling out on dried grass.

“I hope there aren’t ticks up here,” Hazel said, resting her book on her lap, pages spread, spine up.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Don’t say that word,” said Antonio, half-joking."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“Tick, tick, tick,” she taunted."}]

I laughed and rested my back against a felled tree, settling my weight into the dirt below. As ants crawled up my arms, I watched them, making no motion to swat them away. I pulled open my journal and started to sketch the lake.

My pen traced the contours of the landscape, filling the page with ink. I reveled in the warmth the unobscured sunshine cast on my face. Closing the book, I tilted my face upward, and drifted off to sleep.

Despite cold evening temperatures, late nights, and early mornings, the trip brought some of the best rest I had experienced in months. Between being lulled to sleep by the steady roaring of the creek, eating hearty, fire-cooked meals, drinking fresh water, and filling fleeting moments with laughter, this experience felt like a turning point.

[{"type":"text","text":"Exactly the direction I was pivoting toward, I still don’t know."}]

Before this trip, I had spent fewer than 10 cumulative hours on horseback. It had been years since I had been in the backcountry, and even longer since I had felt this level of adoration for the wilderness. Here, I was surrounded by people who made the outdoors their life, and stock that knew these mountains like the back of their hooves.

In this company, in a camp surrounded by sage, pines, glacier lilies, shooting stars, bears, deer, bison and wolves, I found comfort. It was their confidence, good nature, and competence in the backcountry that kept me calm as I stood watch in camp after the horses broke down the electric fence and disappeared into the night.

Nestled next to a Douglas fir tree, keeping a careful eye on the four remaining animals, I watched as the sky slowly turned forget-me-not-blue against the gray mountain ridges and valleys.

Beside me, I heard a snap. I jerked my head up, my headlamp catching the eyeshine of Wrangler, a 12-year-old bay quarterhorse. As her head lurched toward me, I groped at the air, missing her lead. She beelined down the trail, and across the creek, following the other escapees to a meadow that lay beyond.

[{"type":"text","text":"The outfitter’s words echoed in my head."}]

Resigned to my watchpost, I waited. The symphony of chaos continued around me, swirling like a storm cloud. Horses and mules snorted, pawing the ground anxiously as the creek our camp shouldered roared, angry and swollen with spring rainfall and runoff.

Slowly, color returned to the earth as first light careened down the ridgeline into camp. As I flicked off my headlamp, the faint ring of bells returned, followed by the clomping of hooves against dirt and rock.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We got ‘em,” said Matt, leading a string of mules."}]

I checked my watch. 5:36 a.m. Just like that, it was all over, less than 40 minutes after it began.

“We should let them loose to graze,” the outfitter joked, signifying that the danger had passed.

For the remainder of the trip, the livestock were tied up at night. In this way, I learned that horses sleep standing up.

“If they’re confident they’re safe, they’ll sleep lying down,” Larry told me. “They’re prey animals, and they always want to be ready to run.”

He kept his horses in a corral on his property. He said it took them months to feel comfortable enough to sleep laying down.

By the time we rode out on the final day, the coolers and packouts were lighter. Clothes were saturated with dust, grease and smoke. Animals were well-grazed on native grasses that blanketed the meadow serving as their temporary pasture.

Anticipation for the trip’s commencement rested heavy on everyone’s chests.

The ride out took more than 10 hours, culminating in a steep climb back to the outfitters. Tired, sweaty, and hungry, we untacked the animals, moved them to the corral, unpacked the mules, loaded our cars, hugged goodbye, and dispersed, like ashes in a campfire pit.

[{"type":"text","text":"The names of the horses have been changed to protect their identity."}]

Horses 1 5 26 26

<title>'Tonight The Horses Sleep Standing Up': Lessons From Five Nights In The Absaroka-Beartooth… | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Suddenly, I was fully awake. The horses got out! Deep in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, dozens of miles from the nearest road, two days into a five-day trip, the horses and mules were our only way to pack out our camp.

'Tonight The Horses Sleep Standing Up': Lessons From Five Nights In The Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

When Erin Grey spotted the newborn bison calf alone in an alleyway at the Terry Bison Ranch outside Cheyenne earlier this month, something immediately felt wrong.

[{"type":"text","text":"The umbilical cord was still attached — and still wet."}]

“We were like, ‘Where is the mom?’” said Grey, the ranch’s general manager.

Grey tried repeatedly to guide the calf back to her mother in the herd. But a 3-year-old bull named PJ kept forcing the calf away. At one point, Grey said that the bull even tossed the newborn a foot or two into the air.

Every time the calf got near her mother, PJ pushed her back out into the alleyway.

“It was definitely different,” Grey said about watching the herd actively reject the newborn calf.

Bison cows are typically fiercely protective mothers. But in rare situations — particularly when there is competition from older calves or yearlings — a mother may reject a newborn.

Grey realized that was exactly what was happening, and in this case being encouraged by the bull PJ.

For hours, ranch employees tried everything they could think of to reunite mother and baby. They moved mom into a pasture away from the rest of the herd and released the calf nearby. The mother ran right past her calf.

They loaded the calf into the back of a pickup and drove her directly to the mother again. They lifted the baby from the truck to the ground. The mother walked the other way.

After rejected by mom and tossed aside by a jealous bull, a newborn bison named Koa found an unlikely family at a Wyoming ranch, where rescuers work around the clock to keep the tiny bison alive. “Koa has a very strong spirit,” said one of her rescuers.

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