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

<title>Hark The Herald: Sunday, December 8, 2024 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Hark The Herald: Sunday, December 8, 2024

 Remember, Christmas trees should always be regarded as deadly objects.....

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Jackie Dorothy.

Jackie Dorothy

Wildlife

Summer is Wyoming’s season for turning over rocks, poking into holes and walking with a perpetual hunch looking for snakes.

Herpalogists, the zoologists who study amphibians and reptiles, are out scouring the landscape and herping, the term used when they are actively flipping rocks and searching stream beds to find Wyoming's elusive snakes in their native habitats.

Sometimes those finds can be unexpected. The fork-tongued reptiles appear on a trail when least expected. 

Recently, a foot-long “nightcrawler” suddenly moved like a snake and slithered into the rocks, its tail disappearing into the shadows. Rather than a shapeshifter, this was an elusive rubber boa, Wyoming’s tiny constrictor snake that can look like a giant worm at first glance.

These rarely seen creatures are more common in the Cowboy State than most people realize.

“I personally don't feel that any of our snakes in Wyoming are terribly rare,” said Matt Rasmussen, vice president of the 

. “However, a lot of them are very rarely encountered because they spend most of their lives either underground or under rocks.”

Rasmussen said most of the secretive snakes in Wyoming only come out at night or when conditions are right — typically warmer, humid times. The rubber boa, for instance, showed up on a day when it had rained and then the temperatures spiked hot.

Rasmussen helped found the new Herpetological Society two years ago to teach others to herp. He said it’s possible to learn more about our state by flipping rocks and seeing what is beneath.

“That's the great thing with Wyoming,” Rasmussen said. “There is so little known about the herpetofauna — the frogs, lizards, snakes, turtles, etcetera — that live here, and so little known about their distribution.”

He said Wyoming is known for “large charismatic megafauna” such as bison, elk, moose and deer rather than the harder to find animals. As a result, no widespread surveying has been done on smaller non-game species. Wyoming Game and Fish has even asked for community members to help by reporting  rarely seen reptiles and amphibians.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Elusive, Not Rare"}]

While most people think of the more common bullsnake or venomous rattlesnake when discussing reptiles, Rasmussen said Wyoming is home to many harmless snakes.

According to Rasmussen, a few snakes, such as the colorful pale milk snake and rubber boa, could be considered rare in Wyoming. However, he believes they are just harder to find and most people are not aware of them unless they stumble across them.

“There’s the plains black-headed snake, which we really don't know much about their distribution in Wyoming,” Rasmussen said. “They're just not studied and have a limited habitat.”

This tan snake with a black head is small and feeds primarily on centipedes and ant eggs. Rasmussen cautions that when found, rather than kill the strange looking snakes that are harmless, report finding them to Wyoming Game and Fish and leave them in their habitat.

In this way, Rasmussen said, herping can be fun. He encourages people to get into the action.

“There are some other really small fossorial snakes like smooth green snakes, which live along creeks in the mountains and eat caterpillars and spiders,” Rasmussen said. “Then there's the Black Hills red-bellied snake, which is a very small snake that eats slugs, worms and snails primarily.”

People are often surprised that Wyoming is home to such a large variety of snakes. He especially likes to show off a milk snake, which is harmless and eats lizards and even baby rattlesnakes.

“It is a beautiful, almost tropical-looking animal that lives right here,” Rasmussen said. “They are just rarely encountered.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A New Snake & Frog Society"}]

Rasmussen said the new society is trying to educate the community about these fascinating creatures in the Cowboy State that don't get much attention, such as the skink, a short-legged lizard. 

“We're a group of herpetological enthusiasts who would like to spread the word, educate and do outreach about these animals,” he said.

This outreach includes presentations with live animals, field trips and a conference in November. Wyoming’s reptiles and amphibians remain a mystery, Rasmussen encourages reporting sightings on the app 

“Even if you don't know what it is, post a picture because there are tens of thousands of experts who will identify that animal,” Rasmussen said. “That's really important, especially for our herpetofauna in the state.”

He also pointed out that some Wyoming snakes are on the protected list, including the midget faded rattlesnake. They made the list, according to Rasmussen, because people were capturing them and they became popular in among owners who like to keep small venomous snakes as pets.

Rasmussen said awareness is the best protection for Wyoming’s elusive reptiles and he is excited to prove to residents that we don’t have rare snakes, only secretive ones.

Snakes of Wyoming 6 27 26

<title>Many Of Wyoming’s Seldom-Seen Snakes Aren’t That Rare, They Just Like To Hide | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming's bright orange pale milk snake, rubber boa and plains black-headed snake are elusive, but not as rare as most people think — they just like to hide. Most of the state's secretive snakes only come out at night or when conditions are right.

Many Of Wyoming’s Seldom-Seen Snakes Aren’t That Rare, They Just Like To Hide

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

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

The first time Farmstead Cider went after old apples in Jackson Hole, it was just for the flavor. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It soon became about the bears. "}]

Every fall as apples drop and ferment in the backyards and ghost orchards of Jackson Hole, grizzlies and black bears do what comes naturally. They follow their noses straight into trouble — calorie-rich fruits that taste oh-so-good when you’re a bear desperate to fatten up for winter. 

The first harvest, though, was all about the homesick wives, Farmstead Cider’s co-owner Orion Bellorado said. They had grown up on the East Coast, where apple harvests are a big deal. 

“We started harvesting the apples in our neighborhood off of peoples’ trees that were kind of derelict,” he said. “And they were tiny, so we pressed a bunch of juice and made some cider out of it.”

The party was great and word soon got around. 

“Someone from the county found out about it and said, ‘Hey, you should really put in for this community grant to start a business,” Bellorado recalled. “‘Because we’ve really been having issues with bears.’”

That was in 2016, and the business has been going ever since, bottling 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of native-yeast cider a year and selling it across Wyoming as well as other states such as Washington and Montana. 

In the process of climbing into backyards and abandoned orchards, Bellorado stumbled onto a bigger realization. Wyoming is curiously — if quietly — rich in apples across the state.

“They are everywhere,” he said. “I mean, Lander was called Apple Town before it was called Lander. It’s full on part of this interesting tidbit of our culture and our history that’s really been left behind.”

That history is being rediscovered thanks to a project called the Wyoming Apple Project. Through it, researchers have been cataloguing a hidden network of heritage and volunteer trees that have somehow survived a century or so of drought and neglect. Researchers say these hardy survivors might point the way to a new kind of apple economy in one of the harshest fruit-growing climates in America.

You wouldn’t know it from today’s landscape of hay bales and cattle, but Wyoming was once thick with apples. Homesteaders brought apple seeds to plant in their new homes, carving out orchards that were just as essential as a root cellar to their survival.

Apples meant sauce, butter, cider, vinegar and livestock feed. They were essential calories, but also comfort — the kind that could be stored up through a long, hard winter.

By the early 1900s, experimental orchards and private growers had tested at least 218 named apple cultivars across Wyoming, including 11 that were Wyoming-bred. 

Among the most ambitious of the early apple pioneers was an experimental fruit farm in Lander, which trialed 175 different cultivars under superintendent John Steinbrecht, who also developed 10 of the 11 Wyoming-bred cultivars. 

Not far away from Steinbrecht was Lander orchardist Ed Young, who planted a prodigious 3,000-some apple trees in 1882 — an act of faith in a place better known for blizzards than fruit blossoms.

At the time, Wyoming was held up as a national example of what’s possible on the frontier. 

“A lot of those early settlers, such as Ed Young, and their success in growing apples was used in news articles back east, to bring hope to people thinking about moving West,” University of Wyoming graduate and plant physiologist Jonathan Magby told Cowboy State Daily. “It helped show them that you can successfully inhabit this remote location of the United States.”

Wyoming’s apples at that time came from everywhere — Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Canada and even Russia. Several nurseries were involved in seeing which varieties could stand up to Wyoming’s brutal mix of cold, drought and wind, including 

At one point, at least 70 out-of-state nurseries and 20 in-state nurseries across 11 Wyoming cities were selling apple stock to Wyoming growers.

Then, slowly, the state forgot about its apples.

Wyoming’s agricultural identity shifted solidly toward cattle and general row crops. Many orchards were abandoned. Irrigation ditches shifted. Families moved away or sold off land.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Winters kept coming. "}]

And the apple trees that had been left behind continued growing. They became part of an unintended Darwinist experiment — one where only the fittest would survive. 

What’s left of the apple trees that once dotted Wyoming are now the toughest of the tough. Trees too full of Wyoming grit to give up and die.

Among the most interesting is a gnarled apple tree in Lander. Its limbs curl up to the sun like an insect on its back, and its trunk is so hollowed out, one wouldn’t be surprised to find a hobbit — or some other creature of legend — sleeping inside.

Somehow, though, this ancient tree is still alive, still leafing out, still stubbornly insisting on producing apples, despite a century or so in a place that routinely tries to freeze them to death.

Wyoming is not a state known for hardy trees. It is, after all, among the coldest and driest of states in the Lower 48. And apple trees aren’t known for being especially long-lived, either. Most never see a 100th birthday.

That makes this particular apple tree special. It’s passed a 100-year stress test, one where Wyoming wind and drought are separating the true pioneers from the pretenders.

To Magby, the Lander tree is far more than a curiosity. It’s a symbol of what Wyoming apples once were, as well as what they could be again. 

These survivors could help develop ever more hardy Wyoming stock, making apples a potential new and viable agricultural commodity. Because of that, the tree’s tissue was pulled and grafted onto new stock, so it can keep growing for another 100 years.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Like A CSI Detective"}]

Magby has been searching out all the old heritage apple trees of Wyoming using DNA finger-printing techniques more often associated with crime shows like CSI. 

So far he’s sampled 510 trees at 91 locations in 19 cities, from Lander and Sheridan to Buffalo and Casper, to figure out which trees match known cultivars and which might be lost or forgotten varieties. So far he’s found more than 150 unique genetic fingerprints that don’t match anything in old reference collections. 

Some of those varieties show up in multiple towns, suggesting they are long-lost cultivars that no longer exist anywhere else. hey are a living link to an era when Wyoming was serious apple country.

Two varieties that keep showing up, meanwhile, are Wealthy and Haralson, both bred in Minnesota. They are roughly one-third of all the identified surviving trees in his data set.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Charming History"}]

Magby doesn’t see Wyoming apples as a charming historical footnote. He believes these survivors are pointing the way to a viable agricultural commodity for the state, one that could lead to more products that are made in Wyoming, such as Farmstead Cider in Jackson Hole. Making products in Wyoming — referred to as value-added products — is a better bang for the buck. It keeps most of the economic value chain in-state.

Apple cider production makes a lot of sense in Wyoming, alongside the growing microbrewery scene, Magby said. People also just enjoy fresh produce that’s been grown in Wyoming, whether that’s an apple or other fruits.

“We take pride in anything that’s been produced in Wyoming,” Magby said. “So I’d love to see someone take a strong stance of producing and backing development of cultivars and revamping testing of grape and pear varieties and other small fruits, just to provide that diversity, not just in fresh food products, but also diversity of economies.”

Bellorado is already living that future at Farmstead Cider, thanks to bear-safety grants that helped launch a business to haul apples out of backyards and ghost orchards. 

Now, instead of attracting trouble, those apples are a useful and delicious product in a growing business. It’s more joy to the human world, all from abandoned, pioneer apple trees.

Apples Ian Mc Gregor co owner of Farmstead Cider Courtesy Photo 6 27 26

<title>Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming was once thick with apples. In fact, it was a top apple producer. Now those forgotten apple trees are being rediscovered by small cider houses. "They're everywhere," said one cider house owner. "Lander was called Apple Town before Lander."

Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Hunting

Many hunters would be happy shooting just one buck pronghorn big enough to make the Boone and Crockett Club record books. Larry Hicks of Baggs has bagged 16, including 14 from Wyoming.

The key was figuring out how to consistently and accurately “field judge” whether a buck is one for the books, he told Cowboy State Daily.

In other words, he had to tell by looking at pronghorn, commonly called antelope, through binoculars or spotting scopes, and then decided on sight which bucks had trophy-class horns.

“After 20 years of trying, I finally got to the point where I cracked the code” for spotting record book antelope, he said.

Hicks’ accomplishment is phenomenal, prominent outdoorsman Guy Eastman of Cody told Cowboy State Daily.

“He’s got everybody I know beat,” said Eastman, who represents the third generation of the famous outdoor multimedia family that launched Eastman's Hunting Journal, along with a television show and YouTube channel.

Hicks, who serves as a Republican Wyoming state senator, regards antelope as a Wyoming icon.

“We so under-value antelope,” he said. “We are tremendously blessed in Wyoming."

Antelope live in several Western and Southwestern states, but Wyoming has the most abundant populations. So, there’s plenty hunting opportunity here, Hicks said.

Moreover, antelope hunting is highly accessible. It doesn’t require the expensive gear, time and physical effort of backcountry elk hunting, he said.

“If you’ve got a two-wheel-drive pickup and a .30-06 with a four-power Weaver scope on it, you can go antelope hunting,” he said.

And while the absolutely huge monster bucks come from New Mexico and Arizona, the sheer number of antelope in Wyoming means there are more trophy-sized bucks by volume here, Eastman said.

“Statistically, Wyoming is the best place to kill a Boone and Crockett (B&C) record book antelope buck,” he said.

"If you remove New Mexico from the list, we have more B&C antelope bucks than all the other states combined,” Eastman said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"By The Numbers"}]

The B&C record books are considered the gold standard for fair-chase trophy hunting.

Animals are scored by inches. For antlered or horned game, scores are compiled from numerous length and circumference measurements taken at different spots on the horns or antler racks.

For antelope, that includes measurements of the horns’ overall length, plus circumference at four spots on each horn. 

Also taken into account is the size of the prong protruding from the front of each horn — for which the species is formally named.

Green score, gross score and net score are also terms to bear in mind.

Green score refers to initial measurements taken right after the animal is killed, and the horns might still contain some moisture. 

An official score can’t be taken until after a mandatory 90-day drying period, during which there might be some shrinkage.

The gross score is the compilation of all the measurements after the drying period. What really counts is the net score, which is calculated after deductions are made for any asymmetry in the horns.

B&C has awards record books, which are issued every few years, and then the all-time records book.

An antelope’s net score must be 80 inches to qualify for the awards records, and 82 inches for the all-time records.

Hicks’ trophy antelope so far include three awards record bucks and 13 all-time record bucks.

His largest buck so far scored 87 inches net, 88 inches gross. He shot it in Carbon County in 1999.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘The Golden Square’"}]

While antelope can be found just about anywhere in Wyoming, the best place to find B&C trophy bucks is in the “golden square” at the heart of the Red Desert country in Carbon, Sweetwater and Natrona counties, Hicks said.

It’s thought that about 90% of a buck’s horn growth takes place during their first three years. Bucks have to be roughly 5 years old before they start to hit true trophy sized, Hicks said.

The peak years for antelope in Wyoming were from about 2000 to 2008, he said. There were several mild winters during that period.

However, a harsh winter during the last year of that streak knocked the herd back, he said.

An absolutely brutal winter hit the heart of Wyoming’s antelope country in 2022-2023. That sent trophy buck numbers plummeting, Hicks said.

The herds are still in recovery mode, and although there aren’t as many bucks that are old enough yet to be huge, “they’re out there,” he said.

Eastman agreed that overall numbers are down. This past mild winter, however, with abundant food for antelope probably contributed to robust horn growth.

Buck antelope shed the black outer sheath of their horns in October and November, and they grow back over the winter, Eastman said.

“The numbers might be down, but I think the quality of the bigger bucks this fall is going to be nuts,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mass Matters"}]

To the untrained eye, a buck’s trophy quality might be all about the length of the horns, Hicks said.

When it comes to judging horn length in the field, consider that the top of a buck’s ears is about 7 inches, he said.

So, a buck that has as much horn above the tips of his ears as below them might be entering trophy territory, Hicks said.

But those circumference measurements, or mass of the horns, it what really adds up, he said.

That can be devilishly difficult to judge in the field, Hicks added. A quarter-inch at each of the four circumference points on a buck’s horns can add an additional 2 inches to the score.

However, “trying to determine a quarter-inch difference through binoculars at 400 yards is extremely hard,” Hicks said.

“I tell novice hunters to look for a lot of black,” he said. Or in other words, signs of real mass in the horns. “Our antelope in Wyoming tend to have shorter antlers, and more mass."

As are as horn length in Wyoming goes, “16 inches is rare, 17 inches is really rare, and 18 inches is unheard of,” Hicks said.

Extremely mild winters with plentiful feed are what produces world-record setting monster antelope bucks in Arizona and New Mexico, Eastman said.

“There was a movement at one time to recognize them as their own subspecies, because they’re so ridiculously huge,” Eastman said. "Their horns will be 18, maybe 19 inches long, they’re just insane.”

The biggest antelope of all time came from the southwest and was in the neighborhood of 97 or 98 inches, Eastman said.

“As far as I know, no antelope has ever broken 100 inches, but they’ve come close,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wyoming Antelope Are Tough"}]

Even so, Wyoming’s antelope have bigger bodies than their southwestern counterparts, Eastman said.

“Our bucks are big, horse-headed animals built for the winters," he said.

Wyoming antelope can survive conditions ranging from 50 degrees below zero in the winter, to over 100 degrees at the height of summer, he said.

“Pound-for-pound, they are the toughest animals in North America, in my opinion,” Eastman said.

Hicks said antelope are perhaps his favorite animals. Even when it’s not hunting season, he loves watching them.

“I invented distracted driving,” he said. “I’ve probably spotted 100 or more B&C trophy book-class Wyoming antelope bucks, just alongside the highways.”

Antelope meat gets a bad rap, but Hicks thinks that’s unfair.

The key is to “make a clean kill” and get the meat cooled off as soon as possible.

“If it’s a really hot day, I’ll get the meat off the bone and into a cooler right away,” he said.

When it’s handled correctly, antelope is some of the best wild game there is, Hicks said.

And he still hopes to add to his collection of record-book bucks.

“The good Lord willing, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department still providing the opportunity, I’m going to hunt antelope until the day that I can’t walk out of the house,” he said.

Larry Hicks Antelope 4 6 27 26

<title>Wyoming Hunting: Larry Hicks Is King Of Trophy Antelope With 16 Record-Book Bucks | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Larry Hicks of Baggs has bagged 16 record-book trophy antelope bucks, including 14 in Wyoming. “After 20 years of trying, I finally got to the point where I cracked the code for spotting record book antelope," Hicks said.

Wyoming Hunting: Larry Hicks Is King Of Trophy Antelope With 16 Record-Book Bucks

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

Andrew Rossi

Around Wyoming

The Fry family lost their 14-year-old corgi Lola on May 16. She was wandering near her home along Wyoming Highway 50 south of Gillette when she disappeared without a trace.

Nearly a month later, Lola turned up in a Facebook Classified post in Wisconsin, more than 1,000 miles away.

“I got a call at 8:15 a.m. and just cried," Kimberly Fry told Cowboy State Daily. “By 10 a.m., my husband, dad, and a family friend were on the road and drove all night to get her from Wisconsin.”

Lola is frazzled and lost a little weight after her strange journey, but is doing fine otherwise. Fry’s children, 7 and 3, were overjoyed to have the family dog back home.

Nevertheless, Fry is still trying to parse out what happened. She believes her corgi was stolen and abandoned by the people who stole her, making their reunion a miracle.

“You try not to give up faith,” she said. “After a month of hell, it’s very surreal to have her back.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'My Newspaper Dog'"}]

 but she’s a bit of a handful in her old age. After all, she’s at least 98 years old in dog years.

“She’s deaf, her back leg shakes because of a partially torn ACL, and she’s on a sensitive dog food diet because of heart issues,” Fry said. “But she’s the sweetest thing ever.”

Fry called her corgi “my newspaper dog” because that’s how she 

 found her. It’s a reminder of just how old she is.

“Someone put an ad in the newspaper that they had puppies for $150,” she said. “We don’t really have newspapers anymore.”

Lola’s routine has been spending most of her time outdoors on the family ranch. Fry said she hangs out with the sheep, horses and chickens, and has been happy “doing her thing” for years.

Then, in her old age, Lola suddenly started to “see people,” as Fry put it.

“Two years ago, she decided she was lonely and walked a mile to visit the neighbors and their cats,” she said. “She’s just a friendly old dog.”

That’s why the Fry family wasn’t immediately concerned when Lola wasn’t home one night. It was the first night of an agonizing ordeal for the family.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Lola Lost"}]

On the morning of Saturday, May 16, Fry’s 

-year-old daughter was taking Lola to her kennel when the dog slipped out of her collar.

“It's common for ranch people to have their dogs' collars pretty loose,” Fry said. “She made it into the kennel but without her collar.”

With Lola in her kennel, the family went into town at 1 p.m. When they returned home at 2 p.m., Lola was gone – the kennel’s door hadn’t been fully shut.

Nobody panicked. They figured Lola was off visiting someone and would be back soon. It was only when it got dark that the family started getting worried.

“My husband looked a little that night, but there was no sign of her,” Fry said. “We figured she’d be back tomorrow. She never came back.”

By Monday, the Frys figured someone must have taken Lola to the pound. When they called that morning, Lola wasn’t there.

That’s when, according to Fry, “the real panic started.” She started posting about Lola in every Facebook group she could, asking for any sign of her missing corgi.

“On Tuesday, we searched with a lady who had a tracking dog,” Fry said. “We found that she had gone to the neighbors, and someone had seen her near the highway on Sunday.”

On Wednesday, they searched with another tracking dog, thermal scopes, and a drone. No sign of Lola.

Fry feared the worst, but the evidence didn’t add up. That was simultaneously hopeful and dreadful.

“If she had passed away, the tracking dogs would have smelt her,” she said. “We were set on (the explanation) that someone had picked her up.”

If so, they weren’t reaching out. Fry tearfully recalled the long wait for any information.

[{"type":"text","text":"“You never want to give up,” she said."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'I Have Your Dog'"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"One week. Two weeks. Three weeks."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Still no sign of Lola."}]

Both of Fry’s children celebrated their birthdays without their corgi. Fry gave herself an emotional break from posting about Lola, but started again in mid-June.

[{"type":"text","text":"On June 14, Fry got a call. It was a woman from Wisconsin."}]

When Gillette's Kimberly Fry got a phone call at 8:15 a.m. that someone had found their 14-year-old corgi in Wisconsin, she started crying. An hour later, her family was on the road and drove more than 1,000 miles straight to get their rescued dog.

Hark The Herald: Sunday, December 8, 2024

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