It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Thursday, May 1st. I’m Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - Brought to you by the Wyoming Community Foundation, who asks you to give back to the place you call home. “5 to thrive” is YOUR opportunity to leave a legacy for generations to come. Support the community nonprofits you care about with a gift through the Wyoming Community Foundation. Visit wycf.org to learn more.
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A dozen pronghorn were illegally shot near Kemmerer some time over the weekend, including several animals that were left wounded and suffering.
The pronghorn, which are commonly called antelope, were apparently shot sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, according to outdoors reporter Mark Heinz.
“A person or persons took it upon themselves to shoot a dozen prong horn or antelope, as people call them, and just left them laying there, including some that were wounded and still alive. Game wardens came in on Sunday and killed the ones that were still suffering… Guy Eastman… said, Yeah, that hunt area 93 where this occurred. I mean, it's a fairly well known hunt area with a high demand for legal hunting tags, which are in the fall. You know, this is just somebody killing animals for fun in the spring, including a lot of, you know, there are probably a lot of pregnant does at least there… this is probably one of the worst poaching cases we've seen in a while.”
Tips on the case may be called in to the Stop Poaching Hotline at 1-877-WGFD-TIP or through the online Stop Poaching Hotline.
Read the full story HERE.
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Gov. Mark Gordon has an optimistic vision for the future of Wyoming’s coal, particularly in the southeastern Asia countries of Japan and Taiwan.
Fresh off a trip to the region, Gordon expressed an idealistic vision that Wyoming could become a main supplier for these countries - if it can figure out a feasible export terminal from what he and President Donald Trump now call the Gulf of America.
Cowboy State Daily’s Leo Wolfson reports that developing a real trade relationship for coal in southeast Asia would be huge for Wyoming.
“What the idea there is to basically try to get some investments going to make it so that this could be a feasible option. Currently, it takes about 40 days to ship Wyoming coal through the Gulf, through the Panama Canal, over to Japan and Taiwan. With investments, Gordon believes that this could be reduced to 20 days… he pointed out that the coal that Wyoming produces is much cleaner than the coal that Taiwan and Japan and South Korea get from Indonesia and Australia. And he believes that could be a real Olive Branch, if you will, to the country's goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.”
Gordon said there’s also interest in the region in Wyoming’s nuclear, trona, carbon capture and rare earth mineral capabilities.
Read the full story HERE.
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Using tracking data from a 17-year-old girl’s earbuds and a photograph of her, the Wyoming Highway Patrol caught a 33-year-old man accused of taking the girl from her Utah hometown without her parents’ consent.
Alex Guy is now charged out of Utah County, Utah, with one count of aggravated kidnapping. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the pair were caught in Sinclair by an alert Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper.
“When she went missing, and the mother's calling law enforcement like my daughter's missing, a friend told law enforcement that the girl had been talking to 30 something man online for about three months, and the investigation allegedly uncovered that he flew up from Florida, picked her up in Utah, they rented a car, which is why troopers did not have a vehicle description, and then ended up in Wyoming… highway patrol had a photo of this girl and her last known location from some air pods. We couldn't track her phone, but we could track her air pods. And the trooper saw her leaving a truck stop with the alleged kidnapper and went ahead and took the guy into custody.”
Guy was booked into a Wyoming jail, and the girl’s mother picked her up Sunday. If found guilty, Guy is facing between 15 years and life in prison.
Read the full story HERE.
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An expert witness from Wyoming kicked off a hearing chaired by Wyoming Republican U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman to discuss, in her words, quote, “The backbone of our region's energy future.”
That resource is hydropower. And Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that
Jim Webb, the CEO of Lower Valley Energy in Afton, testified to the U.S. House Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee about the importance of hydropower to the electric utility he leads - and how cuts by the Department of Government Efficiency have reduced the workforce and has impacted his cooperative.
“He was the guest expert to answer questions about how the federal government might think about streamlining the permitting and building and development of more hydropower, and so it was interesting to hear Hageman’s enthusiasm for that. There's a lot of criticism of cuts to the federal system that regulates dams and hydropower, and we're keeping an eye on a to-be-named new hydropower project that Lower Valley Energy confirmed it was working on but couldn't provide any other details at this time.”
Discussion during the hearing turned to energy economics and Webb told the subcommittee he’s not seeing any pullback when it comes to investments in energy projects. But tariffs have slowed the supply chain.
Read the full story HERE.
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Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert is calling for DOGE to step in and re-evaluate any and all congressionally approved funding for the Front Range Passenger Rail project, a project that Cheyenne has been looking at tying into.
Representative Boebert says the project is too expensive and that many of her constituents feel the project is a misuse of taxpayer money. But Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean spoke to the Cheyenne representative who serves on the Front Range Passenger Rail District’s board, who said the project would be primarily funded with state money, not federal funds.
“They aren't seeking federal funding. They don't really have a plan to seek federal funding. The guy I talked to with Wyoming, who's representing Wyoming interests on their Committee, said, you know, Wyoming might look at federal funding, if there's any available. Obviously, those would be congressionally approved funds. And if they're not going to Wyoming, then they would be going to some other state, presumably. So, you know, why wouldn't you put your name in the hat for those funds?”
The Front Range Passenger Rail Project was conceived by Colorado as a way for motorists to beat traffic on Interstate 25, alleviating congestion from Fort Collins to Pueblo. Cheyenne officials have shown interest in extending the line northward, if built, for commuters.
Read the full story HERE.
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A federal judge’s rejection of a lawsuit, in which a Rock Springs couple accused their local school district of helping their daughter change her gender identity without their knowledge, has revived an old feud between different factions of Republican leaders.
Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which is a group of Republican Wyoming legislators that emphasizes socially conservative policies, is also vowing to reform the state’s judicial branch - although it recognizes that it can’t change the federal judiciary, from which the controversial ruling emerged.
“The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is saying, Look, we know we cannot affect federal judges because we're state lawmakers, but it is time for judicial reforms. And so they're saying, to the extent we can affect the judicial branch by reforming state judge appointments, they're looking at possibly having the state senate confirm judges that the governor appoints… So in order to tinker with that system at all, Freedom Caucus lawmakers, or any lawmakers, would have to get the voters on board, they'd have to get the constitutional amendment to the ballot box and get the voters to pass it.”
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus in a social media post on Tuesday blamed former House Speaker Albert Sommers for the Willeys’ court loss, saying the Willeys could have been able to sue in state court if a bill had passed which sought to ban the teaching of concepts like gender transition in kindergarten through third grade. But in a Wednesday interview with Cowboy State Daily, Sommers said he refused to introduce that bill because it was unconstitutional, as it violated Wyoming’s rule of having just one topic per bill.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Trump administration announced Wednesday it’s dropping federal charges the U.S. Forest Service was pursuing against fifth-generation ranchers in South Dakota — including a Wyoming native — over a fence that had been on their ranch for 75 years.
The ranchers, Charles and Heather Maude, were served indictments by a Forest Service agent in full tactical gear, to notify them of the federal charges they were facing over a seemingly minor issue involving their property’s abutment with the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.
Cowboy State Daily’s Sean Barry reports that the dismissal of the Biden-era case against the ranchers was celebrated at a press conference in the nation’s capital Wednesday.
“These people were facing years in prison, up to 10 years in prison and a quarter of a million dollar fine over something they had been doing for five generations… This isn't a civil case or a civil fine. This was heavy handed criminal charges against a fifth generation cattle ranching family who, according to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, they had been having their cattle graves on these federal lands since the establishment of the US Forest Service all the way back in 1910.”
Heather Maude, who grew up on a ranch in northern Niobrara County, expressed gratitude on behalf of the family for the work of Wyoming and South Dakota elected officials who intervened.
Read the full story HERE.
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The inevitable removal of the aging LaPrele Dam near Douglas stirred up lively debate last fall — but now that the dam has been demolished, farmers who relied on it for irrigation water must adapt.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz spoke to one local farmer who said that natural flow through LaPrele Creek will provide some irrigation water, but it likely won’t be nearly enough.
“I talked to one of the farmers there, who's also a member of the irrigation district, said that, you know, a lot of us saw this coming. So we switched our crops. In his case, he switched from alfalfa over to grass hay, which is a less thirsty crop… but the the bottom line is, at least for the next few years, farmers below that old LaPrele dam site are going to have to get creative and maybe do with quite a bit less irrigation water than they used to get out of the reservoir behind the dam, which, again, out of safety concerns, was demolished this winter.”
The 130-foot-high dam was built in 1909 and was originally intended to have a 50-year lifespan. The highest hope is to have a new “rolled compacted concrete” dam built by 2028.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for tuning in - I’m Wendy Corr, for Cowboy State Daily.
