You Still Here

[{"type":"text","text":"\"What the F*@K just happened?????\""}]

Bonus vid 1 11 3 24

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

<title>Bonus Video 1: Sunday, November 3, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

"What the F*@K just happened?????"

Bonus Video 1: Sunday, November 3, 2024

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

Hunting

Arguments over grizzlies north of the border in Alberta, Canada, are remarkably similar to those in Wyoming and Montana, with some calling for the bears to be hunted again and others saying that would be a horrible idea.

The Rural Municipalities of Alberta is lobbying the provincial government to reinstate grizzly hunts, which were banned there in 2006.

Hunt advocates cite increasing conflicts with humans, as bears push farther into foothill and plains habitat — much like Montana’s expanding population of 

However, provincial authorities have stated not to expect grizzly hunts anytime soon, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. 

Grizzlies have been designated a threatened species in Alberta since 2010. At the time, it was thought there were fewer than 1,000 adults in the province.

The latest population study of Alberta’s grizzlies from 2018 suggested there could be more than 1,000 adult bears in the province, according to CBC.

Grizzlies in the Lower 48 have been under federal Endangered Species Act protections since 1975.

There is a renewed push to get grizzlies in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho delisted and possibly hunted. Wyoming Game and Fish Director Angi Bruce recently stated that her agency probably 

 over conflict management than hunters would if there was a grizzly season.  

The debate over whether to hunt grizzlies has been going on for a while, says human-bear conflict expert Kim Titchener, who lives in Alberta, in an interview with Cowboy State Daily.

“It keeps coming up. More so in areas that are the outskirts of grizzly bear habitat, where there’s a lot of livestock and agriculture,” said Titchener, the president of Bear Safety and More.

There have also been incidents of grizzlies and hunters running into each other and hunters getting mauled, she added.

There’s no evidence grizzly populations are “massively regrowing,” but bears have been showing up in new areas, Titchener said.

“These people haven’t seen a grizzly bear on their landscapes for 50 to 100 years,” she said.

That’s also what’s happening in Wyoming and Montana. Grizzlies have shown up in farmland near Powell and spotted as far south as the Kemmerer area.

In Montana, bears have wandered as far east as the Missouri Breaks.

Alberta allows hunters to apply for special tags for “problem bears,” such as those that have chronically raided chicken coops, Titchener said.

“There’s only been a few cases where we’ve allowed a hunter to do that,” she said.

And Titchener questions the effectiveness of that approach, versus having wildlife agents remove problem bears.

“It seems like the government pandering to the hunting community, and not really solving the problem,” she said.

Protecting livestock and poultry with electric fencing and livestock guardian dogs would probably be more effective, Titchener said.

She also questions the argument that allowing widespread hunting would make grizzlies more fearful of humans.

“If you kill a bear, you don’t really teach other bears. Dead bears don’t pass that information on,” Titchener said.

How much territory grizzlies reclaim could hinge upon human tolerance, she added.

“Do you want to have bears in only a very select area? Or are we going to accept that they are going to go out into lands where they once lived? That’s a choice that the public needs to make. And we can’t just hunt them back into oblivion,” Titchener said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘They Just Know’"}]

Guy Eastman of Cody participated in one of the last grizzly hunts along the British Columbia/Alberta provincial line. He killed a grizzly bear on the B.C. side in about 2007, right before B.C. followed Alberta’s lead and banned grizzly hunting.

As he sees it, Canadians had far fewer problems with grizzlies when they were hunted, said Eastman, who represents the third generation of the famous outdoor multimedia family that launched Eastman's Hunting Journal and a popular outdoors television show.

“It’s the same old story. They (Canadians) quit hunting grizzlies and now they’re having the same old problems,” he told Cowboy State Daily.

“I killed a bear on the backside of one of British Columbia’s ski areas,” he said.

And even though that was in June, there were plenty of people in the area enjoying hiking and other outdoor activities, with no bear trouble, Eastman said.

And he credits legal bear hunts at the time for that.

Eastman argues that grizzlies seem to have a different attitude when they’re hunted.

He recalled grizzlies being skittish during numerous black bear hunts in Canada, when people he was hunting with also had grizzly tags.

“Those grizzlies, because they were hunted, were super, super shy,” he said.

“They just know (they’re being hunted),” Eastman added. “They’re incredibly intelligent. They have about twice the IQ of a black bear. They just know.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Fall Is The Worst Time"}]

Allowing grizzlies to be hunted might mitigate human-bear conflicts during the fall, which seems to be the worst time for 

During the spring and early summer, bears can feed on elk calves, he said. And at the height of summer, grizzlies are feeding on moths far above timberline, where not many people go.

“By August, the calves are too big for them to catch and the moths are gone,” he said, so that’s when the trouble really starts.

“If we started hunting them, the number of bear incidents would go down,” Eastman said.

But that would raise the question of how bear viewing would be affected, he added.

“The problem is, human nature. People want to see bears, If you want to see bears, you can’t hunt bears, because they get scared of you,” he said.

‘Grizzlies Are Reintroducing Themselves’

Grizzlies are naturally a plains species; they’ve been contained mostly to the mountains because of human settlement, Danny Kinka, senior wildlife restoration manager for the American Prairie conservation group in Montana, told Cowboy State Daily.

American Prairie has property at the south end of the Missouri Breaks, near the confluence of Judith Creek and the Missouri River.

Grizzlies have occasionally shown up there. And American Prairie likes the idea of an established subpopulation there someday, even though it’s outside of Montana’s officially designated grizzly recovery zone.

Kinka doesn’t see grizzly hunting in prairie habitat being a possibility anytime soon.

“With hunting, the goal is essentially to remove animals that might have died anyway,” he said.

Grizzlies reproduce slowly, and it would be long time, if ever, for enough of them to be established in the Missouri Breaks region for a huntable surplus population, he said.

The main debate over whether grizzlies should be hunted in Montana will probably involve the more abundant bear populations in western Montana, he said.

American Prairie remains optimistic that people will remain reasonably tolerant of grizzlies in the area, Kinka said.

“They’re coming back on their own. It’s not being imposed on anybody through government reintroduction. Grizzly bears are essentially reintroducing themselves,” he said.

Boss 1 6 22 26

<title>Just Like In Wyoming, There's A Big Argument In Alberta Over Hunting Grizzlies | Cowboy State Daily</title>

As in Wyoming, grizzlies are showing up in Alberta, Canada, in places they haven't been seen in 50 to 100 years. And just like Wyoming, their arrival has sparked emotional debate over whether to hunt the endangered species again.

Just Like In Wyoming, There's A Big Argument In Alberta Over Hunting Grizzlies

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

Andrew Rossi

Wyoming Life

Around Wyoming

Yellowstone National Park’s “first” petroglyph remains one of its most controversial. Even calling it a petroglyph could raise the ire of some archaeologists.

While Yellowstone was a significant site for many indigenous cultures that left behind plenty of artifacts, rock art was — and remains — rare in the park. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful petroglyphs in 1977."}]

To this day, archaeologists are divided over how to interpret these petroglyphs and the stories they tell. It’s a debate that’s only become more interesting in recent years.

“Not everyone agrees that it's a petroglyph,” said retired archaeologist Mavis Greer. “For me, there’s no question that it is, but who made it and when are still very controversial.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Old Faithful Petroglyphs"}]

Greer is one of the few archaeologists who has seen and studied the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

In 2011, she wrote a short paper on the site with fellow archaeologists John Greer and Elaine Skinner Hale, who was on Yellowstone’s Cultural Resource staff at the time, and even that was subject to controversy.

“I was very excited to see the site, but I don’t think (the National Park Service) was all that happy about what we wrote,” she said. “They don’t want any publications anywhere showing that this and other rock art sites have been found in Yellowstone.”

Greer didn’t discover the Old Faithful petroglyphs. A Yellowstone visitor, Nicole Cromwell, wrote a letter to park staff informing them that she’d found two petroglyphs carved into the rock near an extinct geyser in 1977.

Today, the petroglyphs are in an area that isn’t accessible to the public. Greer is one of the few who’s been able to see them.

“The petroglyphs were made when the pool was dry, and the rocks are ideal height for sitting, so this would have been a good camping area in the past,” she said.

Both petroglyphs are circular shapes with spokes and other shapes emanating from the center, resembling wheels. What the design was meant to depict has been debated for the last 49 years. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The prevailing interpretation is that these petroglyphs are wheels. "}]

Specifically, they depict the wheels of wagons or, potentially, stagecoaches carrying white Europeans into northwest Wyoming.

That was the assumption when the petroglyphs were first studied in the 1970s. 

Paul Sanders with the office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist reached the same conclusion during a 2008 survey of the site.

Many archaeologists don’t even believe it’s Aboriginal rock art. They think the “wheels” were carved by white Europeans rather than any of the tribes associated with Yellowstone.

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer doesn’t agree."}]

“There are lots of wagon wheels in rock art across the northern plains, and none of them are similar to what's at Old Faithful,” she said. “I believe they were made by Native Americans before first contact with Europeans.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Shields And Status"}]

Greer believes the petroglyphs depict the shields of indigenous warriors, a common image on rock art panels throughout North America.

Most petroglyphs are believed to have had spiritual or ceremonial significance to the tribes and individuals that created them. According to Greer, shields fall under the umbrella of ceremonial art.

“The design of the petroglyph was whatever was on the actual shield,” she said. “There had to have powerful symbols on their shields, and they would often make petroglyphs of their shields where others could see that they had that power.”

Shields would have been unique to each individual, and covered with images, designs, and colors representing their personal power and position. 

[{"type":"text","text":"That’s why shield petroglyphs are so common, but none are the same."}]

“It’s a geometric-type design that was used by a lot of different tribes,” Greer said. “They were very ornate and colorful, and depicted powerful animals, spiritual helpers, and other things that helped them not get shot.”

Greer believes shield petroglyphs need to be interpreted through the lens of intertribal warfare. Shields were important status symbols for men in indigenous tribes.

“They had a lot of conflict between tribes because that was a way that men got status in their tribe,” she said. “In order to gain any status, you had to have engaged in something that showed you were brave and an outstanding warrior.”

In that sense, a shield petroglyph was like a self-portrait. It was a one-to-one depiction of the shield its artist used in battle, down to the same designs and colors.

While most of the color has vanished in the hundreds or thousands of years since they were carved, the intricate and unique designs and symbols remain.

“The design of the petroglyph is whatever design was on the actual shield that they were using when they were out in a battle,” Greer said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Which Wheel Or No Wheel?"}]

There are legitimate petroglyphs depicting the wagons of European settlers. 

, one of Wyoming’s most renowned petroglyph sites.

The confirmed wagon petroglyph at Castle Gardens is one of the reasons Greer cited for why she doesn’t believe the Old Faithful petroglyphs depict wagon wheels.

For one thing, the circular designs at Old Faithful are very intricate and asymmetrical. The wheels on wagon petroglyphs are much simpler, emulating the spoked design of an actual wagon wheel.

Also, Greer isn’t aware of any petroglyphs of wheels without wagons. It’s something she researched for her 2011 paper.

“Wheels, by themselves, are even less common in rock art than complete wagons or vehicles,” she said. “The only possible single wheel we found is at Newspaper Rock in eastern Utah, and its identification is based only on its circular form with rays, not any historical association with a wagon or other items, (so) there is no evidence that it’s a wheel.”

For Greer, it’d be highly unlikely to find a petroglyph depicting a wagon wheel without also depicting a wagon. Meanwhile, it’s quite common to find isolated shield petroglyphs.

“When these wheels are compared with the Old Faithful figures, they both are round with spokes or rays,” she said. “The similarities end there.”

There is another type of wheel that had great spiritual and ceremonial significance to indigenous tribes: medicine wheels. 

Medicine wheels, like the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in the Bighorn Mountains, were usually constructed in sacred areas.

While the Old Faithful geyser basin could easily have been a sacred area deserving of a medicine wheel, Greer doesn’t think that’s a likely explanation for the petroglyphs.

“When viewed from a stylistic perspective of cultures in the northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountains, a shield design is a better explanation.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Who, When, Why"}]

So, if the Old Faithful petroglyphs weren’t depicting wagon wheels, and they weren’t made by a European, who made them? When were they made?

[{"type":"text","text":"Those questions, according to Greer, are much harder to answer.  "}]

“There are just too many tribes that were traveling through Yellowstone in the last thousand years,” she said. “Even with a lot of investigation, I don’t think anyone would be comfortable saying its Shoshone as opposed to the Crow, Blackfeet, or Kiowa. 

"The Cheyenne and Arapahoe were there, too. Any one of them could have made those petroglyphs.”

Determining the age of the petroglyphs would also be difficult, but that’s another reason why Greer believes they aren’t depicting wagon wheels. They look too old.

“The petroglyphs are in a geologic situation where if a European had made it, it would look a lot fresher than it does,” she said. “It looks like it's been there for some time.”

Greer didn’t have enough data to give an approximate age range for the Old Faithful petroglyphs, but she’s confident that they’re too old to be wagon wheels. 

She believes the petroglyphs are older than the first wagon wheels in western North America.

“My only thought is that they were created pre-contact,” she said. “That's not saying much, because the contact period for this area starts in 1800, but it’s something.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not So Open Secrets"}]

The Old Faithful petroglyphs remain the best-known petroglyphs in Yellowstone National Park, but even they aren’t common knowledge to the typical tourist. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Anyone who wants to see them can’t."}]

“It's in an area of the park where you cannot go without a ranger,” Greer said. That makes it easier to keep the location secluded.”

While there’s plenty of accessible information on Yellowstone’s archaeology, petroglyphs, and other indigenous rock art are rarely mentioned. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Greer believes that’s simultaneously deliberate and accidental."}]

Greer is aware of other Yellowstone petroglyphs and rock art panels discovered within the last two decades, but information about them is scarce. 

That’s partly because they’re inaccessible to most tourists and scientists.

“I think most archeologists thought there was rock art in Yellowstone, but nobody had gone out there and really searched for it before,” she said. “Doing a rock art survey in the park is not a simple thing. You’d need money, horses, and a camping crew to find those places.”

Greer also believes the National Park Service has a vested interest in restricting what gets published about these sites, at least until they’re better understood. 

From what she’s heard, the newly discovered sites are more fragile than the Old Faithful petroglyphs.

“The new sites have been paintings rather than petroglyphs,” she said. “That’s just the nature of the rock that they're dealing with. 

"On limestone and even types of granite, they're more likely to have paintings than petroglyphs.”

Greer’s 2011 paper on the Old Faithful petroglyphs is still the most recent scholarly work on any rock art in Yellowstone, and it’s “still controversial,” according to Greer.

“That one’s been known for a long time, and I wouldn't say there are a lot of people who think it's a confirmed petroglyph yet,” she said.

The ultimate takeaway is that there’s much more to learn about the history of indigenous tribes in Yellowstone, and the known and yet-to-be-discovered rock art will deepen our understanding of the park’s place in human history.

“There's been a lot of work on indigenous use of Yellowstone prior to and even after the coming of Europeans,” she said. “The history of the park goes back thousands of years, and these rock art panels show us there’s still so much to discover and learn.”

Yellowstone Petroglyph 2 6 21 26

<title>50 Years Of Controversy Over Yellowstone's Only Known 'Petroglyph' | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Yellowstone's “first” petroglyph remains controversial. Some archaeologists don't buy it. While Yellowstone was a significant site for indigenous cultures rock art was rare. That changed with the discovery of the Old Faithful "petroglyphs" in 1977.

50 Years Of Controversy Over Yellowstone's Only Known 'Petroglyph'

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

Clair McFarland

Law Enforcement

Crime & Courts

Sound surveillance technology has gone largely unnoticed and un-debated in Wyoming while residents clash over video-surveillance license plate reader cameras, like Flock.

ome Wyoming law enforcement agencies use microphone surveillance systems in Cheyenne to detect gunshots, authorities have confirmed.

Gunshot detection sensors are acoustic detection systems built to alert authorities to gunfire and help them locate it. 

ShotSpotter, a prevalent system brand, relies on an artificial intelligence algorithm and network of microphones to identify gunshots.

Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak said his office uses that tech in just one place: the local courthouse.

The Cheyenne Police Department has used shot detection technology and “the microphones can be deployed on our mobile observation platforms at large community events, or in hot spots for crime,” said agency spokeswoman Alexandra Farkas in a Friday text message.

The surveillance video cameras have been far more controversial so far, as Wyoming law enforcement agencies use license plate cameras in at least 

In the audio surveillance world, the prominent brand Flock is now transitioning to train its high-powered microphones to listen for ambiguous sounds like screaming and human distress rather than just gunshots, according to 

[{"type":"text","text":"State of Surveillance calls that expansion “mission creep.”"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Kozak said he hadn’t heard of microphones doing that yet."}]

Kozak in his Friday phone interview said that when he was chief of police for Cheyenne, the agency used the microphones at the huge Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo to locate any gunfire on site quickly.

As for Kozak’s newer role as sheriff, the courthouse is the only place he uses the sound technology, he said.

“(If there are) any shots within the building, it alerts deputies what part of the building,” he said.

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

 a man revving his motorcycle until it pops, prompting a visit from a police officer who said the noise sensors “triangulated” the sound.

Cowboy State Daily has not yet confirmed whether the video depicts a real police encounter.

But for New York City, vehicle exhausts and 

 aren’t false positives: they’re targets. 

 saying the city’s hidden “noise cameras” led to $1.7 million in fines in recent years for things like motorcycle roars, honking horns and blasting music.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Full Scale In Bigger Cities"}]

Gunshot detection sensors are more prevalent in bigger cities, where police not only have a dispatch center but a real crime center for tracking immediate threats and incidents as well, Kozak said.

The sheriff said he recently visited Mesa, Arizona, where he worked prior to 2006, and watched that city’s real crime center track incidents through city cameras.

“If it’s a high-risk call like a shooting or drive-by, something like that, they’ll dispatch drones,” said Kozak.  “They’ll push a button, the drone goes up, responds to the call” and captures images of whoever is leaving or in that area.

“The future is kind of crazy: what’s coming for policing,” said Kozak.

Campbell County Sheriff Scott Matheny and Fremont County Undersheriff Mike Hutchison both said their agencies don’t use the microphones.

Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr, whose office oversees an area already populated with camera surveillance, did not respond by publication to a Friday voicemail.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Flock Critic"}]

Rep. Daniel Singh, R-Cheyenne, who has been a vocal critic of the many Flock-brand surveillance cameras in Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily that the microphones aren’t as offensive since they’re narrowly focused on picking up the sound of gunfire rather than tracking individuals’ movements. 

But policymakers should still be proactive about putting safeguards around any new surveillance technology people, he said.

Singh co-chairs the Legislature’s Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology and Digital Innovation Technology. He said the committee is scheduled to consider digital surveillance privacy policies at its next meeting, set tentatively for July.

“The difference with the Flock camera is the information is identifiable, right? So you have your specific license plate or specific vehicle or what-have-you,” said Singh. “But the microphone, it’s de-identified. … You just know something loud is over there.”

On the topic of mission creep and policy, Singh said, “Well unfortunately, usually policy is reactive, but that “we should try to take a proactive approach to figure out where your rights ought to be protected, instead of learning from trial and error.”

Singh noted how pervasive the government’s surveillance efforts have grown already.

“Should the government be able to hear you in your own home?” asked Singh. “The government has already allowed itself to listen in on this conversation between you and me, if they decide I’m a threat to national security. But in the privacy of your own home, is that the direction you want to let it slide? I don’t think so.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Ensure They Don’t Make Us Less Free"}]

Robert Frommer, senior attorney at the Institute for Justice and one of the attorneys urging stronger Fourth Amendment protections with respect to surveillance video cameras, told Cowboy State Daily that his organization hasn’t been as concerned with the microphones because their role is more limited — so far.

But they’re not without issues, he added, noting that he’s heard of false positives and 

. Mission creep is another concern, he said

The city of Chicago announced in 2024 it was ending its contract with SoundThinking, which is 

’s parent company. That was after the systems were criticized for 

“Technologies like Shot Spotter are sold as keeping us safe,” said Frommer. “But it’s the job of courts and legislatures to ensure that they don’t make us less free.”

Loud pipes Mix Collage 19 Jun 2026 10 35 AM 204 6 19 26

<title>We Know Surveillance Cameras Are Being Used, But So Are Surveillance Microphones | Cowboy State Daily</title>

While Wyoming debates surveillance cameras, what's gone largely unsung and un-debated is sound sensor technology. Law enforcement authorities in Cheyenne say they are using noise sensors to detect gunshot sounds. Some worry it could lead to "mission creep.”

We Know Surveillance Cameras Are Being Used, But So Are Surveillance Microphones

Courts

RIVERTON — A 33-year-old Lander man faces up to 42 years in prison and fines in connection with the Wednesday evening Riverton crash in which two people died.

Micheal Odom was already on probation for DUI, police interference, and reckless driving convictions out of Campbell County when the truck he was driving sped through Riverton’s busiest 30 mph thoroughfare at more than 75 mph, Fremont County deputy attorney James Weck told the Lander Circuit Court on Friday.

A Lander man faces homicide charges and up to 42 years in prison in connection with a Wednesday Riverton crash that killed two people. “I’m terribly sorry about what happened,” he said in court on Friday. “I’ve just been fighting addiction my whole life.”

Bonus Video 1: Sunday, November 3, 2024

In case you missed it

More in You Still Here

Today In Sports: Tuesday, June 23, 2026

You Still Here? Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Today In Crime: Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Today In Trivia: Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Most read