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

<title>Daily Cartoon 2: Wednesday, November 27, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Wednesday, November 27, 2024

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

Grizzly bears in northwest Wyoming are contentedly gorging themselves on moths far above timberline, but that won’t last and there could be trouble once the moths are gone, a retired federal ecologist says. 

“Once the moths disappear, around the end of August, bears are going to be coming down to lower elevations and looking for food that’s going to be spread far and wide,” Chuck Neal of Cody told Cowboy State Daily. 

One important source of late summer and fall bear food, wild chokecherries, had a “poor” crop this year, which could put bears in bind, Neal said. 

Meanwhile, black bears have been more visible for a variety of reasons, including hot, dry weather, Wyoming Game and Fish large carnivore specialist Dan Thompson told Cowboy State Daily. 

However, he noted that people shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that every bear they see is a “problem” bear or “conflict bear".

While it’s been exceptionally dry at lower elevations, things have looked better for grizzlies farther upslope, said Neal, who frequently hikes in grizzly country in northwest Wyoming. 

“The high-altitude meadows got plenty of rain into July,” he said. 

And that provided bears with greenery loaded with nutrients, he said. 

There has also been longstanding concern over the loss of whitebark pine, mostly due to trees being killed by pine beetle infestations. 

Grizzlies love the protein-rich whitebark pine nuts. 

Neal said the whitebark pine has bounced back at higher elevations in parts of northwest Wyoming. 

“Those whitebark pine trees that survived the beetle infestations are doing well and producing lots of cones,” he said. 

When grizzlies start moving to lower elevations, they might find various roots to dig up and eat. 

But the problem with that is, "It's something they can eat, but not something they can get fat on,” Neal said.

Likewise, rose hips might still be in relative abundance, and bears will eat them too, but they’re not particularly protein-rich, he said.

Neal said he expects “things to get busy” in terms of potential bear conflicts as grizzlies start scouring the landscape for alternative food sources going into fall. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Black Bears Everywhere"}]

It’s been a busy year for black bears in Wyoming, Thompson said. 

“We won't know until we tally up all the numbers after this fall, but we have had increased black bear activity across the state, and some obvious high-profile conflict situations that garner the attention and tend to create additional fanfare and sometimes unwanted hysteria,” he said. 

 “I've been pretty open with people that due to multiple factors heat, drought, reduced soft mast, more people in bear country – we have been getting increased sightings of bears, reports of bears in search of foods, bears just generally around,” he said. 

However, that doesn’t mean every bear spotted is a potential problem, he noted. 

“It could just be a bear being a bear in a spot that is somewhat foreign to them,” Thompson said.  

Game and Fish emphasises public education and outreach to help prevent bears from becoming conditioned to human-provided food sources, he said.

“Bears are the epitome of adaptability and will find ways to put on fat, even in years where some food sources are scarce,

 Thompson said. "But make no mistake, if you live in Wyoming you should not be surprised to see a black bear anywhere as we move into fall and hyperphagia when bears are more active."

, packing on as much fat as they can before retreating to their winter dens. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Montana Berry Crash"}]

In one of the latest human-bear conflicts in Wyoming, Game and Fish personnel 

 on July 23 in a camp on Forest Road 15 in the Bighorn Mountains.

It was the same bear that two women said tried to enter their tents, drove them out of their camp and later trashed their tents late July 5 at another campsite in the same general area. 

That bear’s behavior was probably driven by food conditioning, Game and Fish reported.

Other western states report increasing bear conflicts amid hot, dry conditions.

An uptick in bear conflicts in Montana has been seen because of failing wild berry crops, the 

It’s been one of the worst years on record for natural food sources for bears, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks  bear conflict specialist Jamie Jonkel told the Chronicle. 

Jonkel also noted that “uncontained garbage” has been one of the biggest causes of bear conflicts. 

 have become a chronic problem in Durango, Colorado, as local officials and wildlife advocates admonish people to properly secure their trash. 

Grizzly food 8 10 26

<title>Scarce Food Sources Could Put Bears In A Bind As They Seek Protein For Hibernation | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Grizzlies are stuffing themselves with moths at higher elevations, but once the moths are gone food supplies could get scarce as bears move to lower elevations seeking protein for hibernation, one ecologist says. A poor chokecherry crop is one concern.

Scarce Food Sources Could Put Bears In A Bind As They Seek Protein For Hibernation

Kerry Drake

Business & Tourism

The addition of Cheyenne to a proposed Colorado passenger rail project has longtime boosters in both states more confident than ever the service will happen.

The reasons for such optimism over bringing passenger rail service to Wyoming are two-fold. 

First, the Front Range Passenger Rail district is hopeful it can build an effective infrastructure, unlike inherent problems that doomed previous efforts.

Meanwhile, the economic case for Cheyenne officials and residents to go all in on the proposed Colorado rail system is stronger because the benefits to the capital city taking advantage of increasing Front Range population appear clear.

Still, while signs for FRPR success in Colorado are encouraging for starting in 2029, supporters say, both the district and Cheyenne officials agree expansion to the north won’t happen unless Wyoming develops a funding system to support it.

Wyoming and South Dakota are the only two contiguous states with no passenger rail service. Wyoming hasn’t had service since the Pioneer route was discontinued in 1997, though Amtrak serves Laramie, Rock Springs and Evanston with buses. 

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

Never Say Never, a Cheyenne group determined to make it happen, has been meeting with FRPR officials for the past three years. It also is trying to solicit interest from state lawmakers, the Wyoming Department of Transportation and the City of Cheyenne.

One member of the group, Michael Rudolph of Cheyenne, was a NASA engineer who worked on the 2020 Mars rover project. His job was finding bugs in the software that directs the precise movements of the camera that serves as the eyes of the vehicle.

“If we can go 140 million miles to Mars, we ought to be able to go 45 miles from Cheyenne to Fort Collins,” quipped Steve Borin, a regional business developer and the founder of Never Say Never.

“Cheyenne is listed as a potential future extension, but Colorado has no political incentive to push north,” added Borin, a regional business developer. “Their taxpayers are not paying for Wyoming’s benefit.” 

Once the initial phase is up and running between Denver and Fort Collins, he said, Cheyenne must use its resources to join the FRPR district. 

“If we don’t, all we’re going to get is a bus ticket to the border,” Borin said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Colorado Project Optimism"}]

James Flattum of the FRPR district is clearly hopeful. 

“I think there’s a strong consensus that a future connection to Cheyenne is full of potential,” he said. “When you look at the distance between Fort Collins to Cheyenne, it’s really reachable.”

Another positive aspect, he added, is that north of the Denver suburb of Westminster all of the existing track to be utilized is owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

“We have such a strong working relationship with them,” Flattum said. 

Oddly, the downturn of Wyoming’s coal production and moving it by train is working in Cheyenne’s favor.

“What has changed in the world over the last 20 years is there are significantly fewer coal trains running on this alignment,” Flattum explained. “BNSF’s strategy is to send those trains on a different alignment to Nebraska from Denver.”

A major milestone was reached in the FRPR’s plans, he added, when the group recently released its delivery plan, a document intended to show the full picture of its short- and long-term vision.

“We’ve got to make sure that we’ve got a ‘spine’ in Colorado that really connects our core centers and this kind of first act that we’re contemplating,” Flattum said. “And the more successful we are in securing a reliable and frequent service here in Colorado, the easier and quicker it’s going to be for us to expand to Wyoming, and south to Trinidad, Colorado, and perhaps Albuquerque, New Mexico.”  

Flattum said FRPR is taking an incremental approach to keep costs low, starting with three trains a day between Fort Collins and Denver over the next three years using revenues voters approved in 2024.

The FRPR Board will make a decision by the end of August whether to pursue a sales-tax initiative for Colorado’s general election in November.

“We’d be able to fund up to 10 trains a day between Fort Collins and Denver, and then eight trains a day to Pueblo with a 0.333% sales tax,” Flattum said. 

That is expected to generate about $295 million annually.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bedroom Community?"}]

The Front Range continues to grow and housing costs also are rising fast. Fort Collins is considerably more expensive than Cheyenne.

“As Denver's metro expands northward, Cheyenne becomes an increasingly attractive bedroom community — if the commute is solved,” Borin said. “Without rail, it stays out of reach for anyone working in Fort Collins.”

According to a Never Say Never fact sheet, the cross-border commuter market already exists at a meaningful scale:

• Approximately 7,100 Colorado residents commute into Wyoming for work — nearly three times the number going the other way.

• About 1,600 workers from Larimer and Weld counties (Fort Collins/Greeley) commute specifically to Laramie County each day by car.

• Roughly 20% of Cheyenne's workforce commutes from outside the city, including northern Colorado.

Borin said a University of Wyoming economist has noted that Wyoming's economy would be stronger if those Colorado commuters lived in Wyoming.

“They’d spend their paychecks on Wyoming mortgages and groceries instead of Colorado ones,” Borin said.

Never Say Never claims that by spending between $300 million to $400 million on infrastructure, Wyoming would get about $1.4 billion back over the next three decades in tax revenue and economic activity.

“The mechanism is not a subsidy,” Borin said. “It's removing the coordination barrier — cross-state planning, zoning authority — that only the government can remove, then letting market forces do the rest.”

Borin maintained that “the window to act cheaply is now.” He estimated land near a future Cheyenne station can be acquired today for $10,000 to $20,000 per acre. After a rail announcement, he predicted, it will cost five to 10 times more. 

“A $2 million to $4 million land acquisition today is the most asymmetric public investment Wyoming could make — small downside, very large upside, and it keeps all of its options,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Loving The Depot"}]

Flattum said the FRPR is impressed with Cheyenne’s preservation of its historic Union Pacific Depot. He said it’s an example of how forward-thinking Cheyenne is.

“Whenever we come up and visit, the depot gives us a huge amount of inspiration,” the FRPR official said. “How cool would it be if we can work together to bring trains back to this station?

“Really, all you’re going to have to do is build a connector track to get to the station facility,” Flattum added. “If Cheyenne specifically wants in, whatever is going to be possible under Wyoming law and Wyoming politics, if they pass funding as well, we do have a very realistic path in terms of engineering and project execution.”

He described expansion to Wyoming as "very doable, but it’s really going to have to come down to voters in the Cheyenne metro area — do they fundamentally want it?”

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

Passenger Rail Colorado Amtrak 5 5 24

<title>Colorado-Wyoming Passenger Rail Can Happen If Cheyenne Provides Funding Support | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Leaders of a project to provide passenger rail service between Colorado and Wyoming say it can happen if Cheyenne does its part with funding support approved by voters. “If we can go to Mars, we can go 45 miles from Cheyenne to Fort Collins,” said one supporter.

Colorado-Wyoming Passenger Rail Can Happen If Cheyenne Provides Funding Support

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Wyoming Life

Sunday morning, I threw some clothes in a bag and headed east, Sturgis-bound.

For hundreds of miles, Wyoming unspooled beneath a great blue sky, the prairie rolling toward the horizon through cattle, sagebrush and long stretches of nothing at all, until the earth began to rise and the plains folded themselves into the dark, pine-covered ridges of Meade County.

[{"type":"text","text":"Motorcycles seemed to materialize out of thin air."}]

One became three. Three became 20. Packs merged with packs until the highway itself appeared to be migrating toward Sturgis, chrome flashing in the sun and the low thump of exhaust echoing off rocky bluffs.

I left the interstate for an old highway where limestone walls rose around the road, waterfalls spilled from cliffs and disappeared into the trees, and the air seemed to change as the prairie vanished behind me.

[{"type":"text","text":"I had crossed into the primal kingdom of the Black Hills."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"A crow cawed from somewhere above, and a shiver ran down my back."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Too late to turn back now."}]

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

For most of the year, Sturgis is a South Dakota town of close to 7,000 people. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Then August comes."}]

, transforming the place into a temporary city of chrome, leather and humanity, with Main Street as its pulsing center. I was told about half-million people were there Sunday.

Somewhere near the entrance, a 66-year-old Louisiana man was waiting to show me the ropes.

Manny Myers was sitting in a low-slung, tricked-out trike customized down to the smallest details, his gray beard hanging down his chest in two long braids and not one but three packs of Marlboro Blacks riding in the pocket of his sleeveless orange shirt.

The Pantydropper — the name of this wild beast — was painted with ghost flames and built around a 350 V8 car engine sitting obscenely exposed in front of us.

The name is a nod to the toll, but "You get a free ride," he told me with a smirk, because he knows my aunt.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"It goes zero to 100 in a second,\" he said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"This was not reassuring."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Biker, Not An Enthusiast"}]

Manny has been coming to Sturgis for 50 years. His first rally was when he was 16, after hitchhiking from California, but his love affair with motorcycles began more than a decade before that.

[{"type":"text","text":"He was 5 when his father got a Honda 305 and began taking him for rides."}]

Manny remembers there wasn't much talking, just his father in front of him, the road rolling beneath them and Mother Nature whispering into his little ear.

[{"type":"text","text":"One day, Manny looked at his father."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Dad, are we bikers?\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"No, son,\" his father told him. \"We're enthusiasts.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Five-year-old Manny thought about that for a minute."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"You might be an enthusiast, Dad, but I'm a biker.\""}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Sixty-one years later, not much has changed."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"We climbed aboard."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Winding Turns"}]

Manny took the wheel first, steering us away from Sturgis and onto the old highways that twist through the Black Hills.

The Pantydropper was impossible to ignore. The exposed V8 growled in front of us as Manny worked the turns, his two gray braids lifting in the wind and a Marlboro Black burning between his lips. 

Motorcycles were everywhere, traveling alone and in packs, and riders waved as they passed.

[{"type":"text","text":"Manny waved right back."}]

For a while, I was content to sit beside him and watch the world go by, the road winding between walls of pine and rock as he handled the trike with ease.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then, without warning, he pulled onto the shoulder and scooched over."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Your turn.\""}]

The mini ape-hanger handlebars felt awkward in my hands, and The Pantydropper was harder to steer than I expected, requiring actual muscle to wrestle around the curves.

[{"type":"text","text":"But it had a windshield and seatbelts, so I hit the gas."}]

I was terrified, but I didn't want to let my new friend down, and "bikers don't like pussies," he had told me earlier, so there was that.

We passed the Boars Nest, where people crowded an outdoor deck strung with star-spangled bunting and flags.

Then we zipped around another corner and there, rising unexpectedly from the trees, was a 60-foot stone bust of Abraham Lincoln.

[{"type":"text","text":"The Great Emancipator stared at us solemnly."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"The trees became a blur."}]

Beside me, Manny smoked his cigarette, totally unconcerned that a reporter he had met only hours earlier was now piloting his baby through the Black Hills.

Laughing like little kids, our hair whipping wildly in the wind, I began to understand.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Ah, Shit'"}]

It was about 4 p.m. when we decided to turn around and head back toward Sturgis, but this time when I hit the throttle nothing happened.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Ah, shit,\" Manny said."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Apparently, a wire had come loose."}]

The Pantydropper could still idle, so we began creeping down the highway at 2 mph, and before long a procession of motorcycles and cars stacked up behind us.

[{"type":"text","text":"Manny considered the problem."}]

Then the sprightly senior climbed out of his seat and scrambled onto the front of the trike, one leg on the hood and the other still in the cab, until he was hanging halfway out of the machine.

[{"type":"text","text":"From there, he began operating the throttle by hand."}]

His Marlboro Black was still burning from his lips, bobbing above the exposed V8 engine.

Suddenly, we were hurtling angrily down the highway again, The Pantydropper roaring like a demon from Hell with Manny clinging to the front while I steered.

[{"type":"text","text":"It was going remarkably well."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Until I saw flashing lights."}]

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

[{"type":"text","text":"A South Dakota state trooper was behind us."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"We pulled over."}]

Manny climbed down from the front of the trike, and the trooper approached.

[{"type":"text","text":"He looked at both of us with complete horror."}]

He asked Manny to go sit in the patrol vehicle for a minute, then turned his attention to me.

[{"type":"text","text":"It slowly dawned on me what was happening."}]

He appeared to want some reassurance that I knew this strange, double-braided man, that I was OK and that I had willingly climbed aboard.

[{"type":"text","text":"I assured him I had."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"I was, in fact, there voluntarily."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"I was a journalist."}]

The explanation did not make the situation sound any more reasonable. If anything, it seemed to affirm for both of us the peculiar lunacy of a reporter hunting for a good story.

I don't know what Manny said inside the trooper's car, but somehow he talked his way out of a ticket and came back with an idea.

We rigged a jumper cable to the lever he'd been pulling, creating a makeshift throttle he could operate from inside the trike.

Then we fired up the horses, reins in hand, and off we went, me still steering while Manny worked our homemade throttle, winding our way back through the Black Hills toward the gathering thunder of motorcycles in Sturgis.

[{"type":"text","text":"Manny was cackling."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Hell-Raiser To Helper"}]

Having survived our run-in with the law, we crested a hill and spotted a sign advertising $20 steaks.

[{"type":"text","text":"We pulled in, and he told me what Sturgis was like a half-century ago. "}]

It was rougher then, with fewer rules and considerably more danger. These days, he considers much of it a tourist trap.

The old outlaw mythology is still everywhere — leather, loud bikes, nearly naked bodies and enough skulls and flames to decorate the gates of Hell — but now it shares Main Street with families on vacation. During the day, little kids weave through the crowds while motorcycles rumble past despite women walking around wearing almost nothing. 

Manny has watched Sturgis go from a place your mother might warn you about to a place where somebody might bring their mother.

[{"type":"text","text":"Manny has changed, too."}]

There was a time, he said, when he came to Sturgis mostly to "fight and drink."

Today, the old hell-raiser has become something of a helper. He told me he spends much of his free time trying to make the world a better place, and when he comes to Sturgis now, he isn't looking for the trouble that once drew him here.

[{"type":"text","text":"He just wants to ride."}]

He gets up early and cruises the old highways while the rest of the rally is still sleeping off the night, following the roads wherever they take him, much as he did as a little boy riding behind his father in the hills of California. 

His trikes draw attention everywhere they go. People stare from the roadside. Riders turn their heads as they pass. Strangers wave, and Manny waves right back, like the unofficial mayor of Sturgis greeting "the peasants".

[{"type":"text","text":"Eventually, we climbed back into The Pantydropper and rolled toward town."}]

We ended up at "The Beach," a little sandpit where bikers gather to do burnouts. One man revved and revved until his tire blew apart.

[{"type":"text","text":"I climbed out of the death trap, grabbed my things and waved goodbye."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"It was getting dark, and Sturgis was just waking up."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Goodbye, my sister in the wind,\" Manny called after me."}]

Kolby 3 wheel sturgis 2 8 10 26

<title>Sturgis 2026: Climbing Into A 3-Wheeler Called The Pantydropper Was Not A Good Idea | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Climbing into a three-wheeler called "The Pantydropper" with a 50-year Sturgis veteran who boasted "it goes zero to 100 in a second," ended up with me at the wheel and the flashing lights of a South Dakota patrol car behind us.

Sturgis 2026: Climbing Into A 3-Wheeler Called The Pantydropper Was Not A Good Idea

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Tourism

Will Grant still has the two horses, Chicken Fry and Badger, that he rode across Wyoming in the summer of 2019 when he retraced all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail. 

Cowboy and journalist Will Grant rode all 2,000 miles of the Pony Express trail on horseback. He said the trip gave him a newfound respect for Wyoming weather. Mosquitoes in Jeffrey City are bad, while South Pass can be freezing cold even in July. 

Daily Cartoon 2: Wednesday, November 27, 2024

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