It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming, for Tuesday, May 20th. 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.
A new law that becomes active July 1 requires Wyoming agencies to investigate land transfers near critical infrastructures, such as power plants and military bases. It’s designed to curb sales in sensitive zones to foreign adversaries and the companies they own.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the Wyoming Legislature may need to back up its demand for tight monitoring of land sales around critical infrastructures with money.
“That definition critical infrastructure can be interpreted little more broadly, and different counties have different criteria about what they value, and so the surveys are coming in from the county emergency management people like what's critical in that county, and it's amounted to, like, 15% of Wyoming would would include those lands. And so the the analyst from Wyoming Office of Homeland Security was like, you know, whoa, for us to investigate land sales in these areas, and then if we have a reasonable suspicion there's a threat, we have to investigate who's involved in those land sales. This is going to take more than my office of two people, and we should stand up a streamlined software system that's going to cost money.”
The Wyoming Office of Homeland Security is now formulating its “request for proposal” description so that it can generate more detailed bids to bring before the legislature ahead of its 2026 budget session.
Read the full story HERE.
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A staffing shortage has forced the National Weather Service’s Forecast Office in Cheyenne to close its offices overnight, raising questions about the accuracy of future weather forecasts and the timeliness of warnings.
Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the change is a public safety issue, one that meteorologist Don Day told her, should transcend the politics of the moment.
“The weather just doesn't sleep. You know, just because we're asleep, the weather is still going, Flash, floods, tornadoes, those kind of things can happen anytime of the night. So we have been spoiled in America, I guess, to have 24/7 monitoring of the situation at key places across the country. Now, 52 of our 122 sites are too short staffed to maintain that, so we're spreading that resource kind of thin… the practical reality is, if weather happens too close to the Earth, if it's just a few miles above the surface of the Earth, radar can't see it. So there's a big component of our weather forecasting that relies on people on the ground to Spot Weather when it's happening. And part of that are these folks who man these offices, 24/7.”
Day said closing forecast offices overnight could lead to shortened timeframes for warnings, giving people less lead time to respond.
Read the full story HERE.
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The four elk antler arches in Jackson town square are a popular spot for visitors to take photographs. Climbing them is ill-advised and illegal, so the town of Jackson has a specific ordinance to preempt any pinnacling.
But Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that on May 13th, a drunk Montana man was ticketed for climbing one of the iconic structures.
“The Southwest antler arch, which is the main arch of the four arches surrounding Jackson town square… it's got anywhere between 10 to 12,000 pounds of antlers on it. Now it's not freestanding. There is a steel superstructure underneath it, and all the wires are wired to that. But it's not something that should be climbed, and that's why Jackson has a town ordinance that says that public buildings and structures that aren't designed to be climbed, shouldn't be climbed, and that's why it's a crime. And this guy decided that he wanted to impress some ladies that he had met that evening, and decided the best way to do that was to climb the arch.”
The arch climbed by the Montana man was the original antler arch, erected by the Jackson Rotary Club in 1953. Although the structure is designed to hold thousands of pounds of weight, police say the Montana man was lucky to climb up and come down safely, especially in an inebriated state.
Read the full story HERE.
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U.S. Sen. John Barrasso recently re-introduced legislation aimed at forcing the World Bank to roll back what the senator characterizes as anti-fossil fuel policies, in its quest to bring electricity to millions of people without power across the developing world.
Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that the "Combating Global Poverty Through Energy Development Act" would require the World Bank to eliminate prohibitions on financing coal, oil, natural gas, and civil nuclear energy projects — or face a 50% reduction in U.S. funding.
“The World Bank is this massive financial institution based in Washington, DC. It's actually a collection of banks, and it funds all kinds of infrastructure projects around the world. Here comes Senator Barrasso this week with a bill that would direct the World Bank to prioritize fossil fuels. He's worried that, in the guiding language of the bank, that they favor renewables over fossils, and has presented some legislation to try and change that. It could be good news for Wyoming if international projects need the expertise of our state's energy sector.”
Based on financial details provided in a January 2025 report, recent annual contributions from the U.S. Treasury to the World Bank appear to be approximately $1.6 billion per year.
Read the full story HERE.
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A wolf from Yellowstone National Park’s famed Mollie’s pack tried snatching a tiny grizzly cub on Monday, but the cub’s mother didn’t hesitate to protect her offspring, and sent the wolf running for its life.
Wildlife enthusiast Gary Gaston, who caught the action on video, told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that all three animals involved in the drama emerged without a scratch.
“He's a retired biologist who now spends his summers in Yellowstone watching wildlife… He said, This is the first, so far only bear they've observed in the grizzly bear in the Lamar Valley region of Yellowstone park that has a brand new cub of the year, a coy… and she used a footbridge to to cross Soda Butte Creek because the little ones too small to swim right now, no sooner they got across that a big old wolf came out of the brush and tried to get her cub, and she she fended this wolf off.”
Gaston said he knows of wolves killing black bear cubs, but this was the first time he’s seen a wolf try pushing its luck with a mother grizzly.
Read the full story HERE.
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There are about 4,300 coal miners in Wyoming. In 2022, Wyoming reported 25 cases of a disease called black lung among its coal miners.
But the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year decided to close 34 mine safety offices in 19 states, while placing all 25 members of a team of health workers protecting coal miners on administrative leave.
Last month, a miner named Harry Wiley filed a federal lawsuit. And Cowboy State Daily’s David Madison reports that because of Wiley’s suit, a federal judge has blocked the firings, and ordered the restoration of the program that screens miners for the disease.
“In the process of downsizing federal government, a wing of the federal agency that Robert F Kennedy oversees now, Health and Human Services, they had a service that would come out to Wyoming and screen Wyoming miners for black lung, which is a terrible condition that is caused by inhaling, year after year, coal dust and it settles in your lungs and won't get out… Well, it was cut in the current Doge cutting climate that we're in, and coal miners in West Virginia took notice to the point where one of them sued, and this is a big deal for Wyoming.”
In 2011, there were 7,039 miners working in Wyoming, and though there’s been a gradual decline in the mining workforce since, Wyoming remains the state doing the most — financially speaking — to address the problem of black lung.
Read the full story HERE.
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Thomas Chant’s family has ranched for generations in Sweetwater County, and he always knew that the woven-wire fence his grandfather installed to contain sheep was problematic for wildlife, particularly antelope.
Things came to a head during the terrible winter of 2022-2023, when a massive pile-up of wind-driven snow made it even more difficult for antelope, deer and elk to move around and find food.
But Chant told outdoors reporter Mark Heinz that a coalition of wildlife agencies and conservation groups is replacing roughly 24 miles of the old fence with wildlife-friendly fencing that’s much easier for animals to crawl under or jump over.
“The Wyoming migration initiative, the Wildlife Trust Fund, as well as Wyoming Game and Fish Department … they pulled out the old woven wire fence and then put in what they call wildlife friendly fence, which, as it applies to antelope, it's got smooth wire on the bottom so they can crawl under it… it's been up for about a year. It's been about two years since that huge die off of antelope. He says he's already seen the difference. He sees them using the fence all the time, crawling underneath it, so they've learned how to get through he says, it's awesome.”
Replacing the woven-wire fence with fencing more passable for antelope, gave the animals access to 10,000 acres of habitat that they couldn’t get to previously.
Read the full story HERE.
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The Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office in Montana airlifted a horse to safety this weekend after it got stranded in the middle of the Yellowstone River south of Billings.
Cowboy, the horse, had escaped from his owners’ property and ended up standing knee-high in the Yellowstone River. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that with no other way to get him back to shore, rescuers hitched the horse to a helicopter and carried him over the river and back home.
“Rather than lead it back to shore or get it on a boat to try to get it back. They have a helicopter that's ready to go for them. So they got a pilot, they got the helicopter out there, and in less than an hour, the helicopter was there, lifted the horse. The horse spent a minute in the air, which it was not happy about, and then it was safely landed on shore and reunited with its owners. So really quick, easy and professional rescue to get this horse back to safety.”
Officials say the rescue of Cowboy was a lot smoother and easier, thanks to the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office air support on call.
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.
