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Mark Heinz

Wildlife

A rancher near Choteau, Montana, caught video of six grizzlies strolling across his calving lot behind his barn late Monday, and said there were as many as seven bears on his property that night.

The next morning, rancher Neal Collins said agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed as many as 10 grizzlies out of patches of brush across the road from his place.

Collins said no people or livestock were attacked by the bears on his place, and FWP used non-lethal “cracker” shotgun shells to scare off the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A ‘Herd’ Of Grizzlies"}]

Sparky Wallace, a friend of Collins who also lives near Choteau, somewhat humorously described the group of grizzlies as a “herd.”

He told Cowboy State Daily he and some of his neighbors have had encounters with multiple bears, as the number of grizzlies out on the prairie has steadily increased.  

Chad White, a bear management specialist with Montana FWP, said the bears on Collins’ property were probably a “couple of family groups that have been hanging out in the area.”

Meaning, they were likely two related adult females such as “a mother and daughter” and their cubs, White said.

The Choteau area has been busy with bear activity this spring and summer. The bears wander from the Rocky Mountain Front onto the prairie along the Teton River, which flows past Choteau. 

The bears might be feeding on green vegetation and other natural food sources, then taking shelter in brush patches.

“It may be that he (Collins) has the natural shelter for day bedding and they were traveling around the area,” White said. 

White said the FWP bear manager responding to Collins’ call told him as many as 10 grizzlies fled once the hazing stared.

FWP personnel fired cracker shells into the brush where the bears were holed up. Cracker shells fire a small explosive charge with a delayed fuse, designed to explode in the air and ward off predators such as bears and wolves.

“The six or seven bears in the family groups ran off in one direction, and two or three more ran off in another direction,” he said.

It’s not known where the other two or three bears might have come from, White added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Alarm Barks"}]

Collins said he was first alerted to the bears’ presence Monday when one of his dogs started frantically barking at about 9:30 p.m.

“We’ve got this one dog that’s supposed to be a cow dog, but she’s really not,” he said. “She was just barking, barking, barking. She barks on occasion, but not like that.” 

He said he stepped outside to investigate and saw a “flash of a bear.”

So, he immediately went back into his house, shooing the dog inside with him.

A camera he has mounted on the backside of his barn caught video and photos of the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘You Get Immune To It’"}]

Collins’ ranch is about 35 miles out on the prairie from the Rocky Mountain front.

Grizzlies are usually associated with mountain habitat. However, they were originally a Great Plains species, and were driven into the mountains as the West was settled.

Grizzlies have been growing in number and expanding their range in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in recent decades. In Montana, they’ve been pushing ever-farther onto the prairies.

Collins said his father was in his 70s before he ever saw a grizzly anywhere near Choteau. But the bears have become a common sight of late.

When asked if having the bears around worried him, Collins said, “I suppose, but you get immune to it.”

Even so, he’s not happy about the growing number of prairie grizzlies.

“There here, even though I don’t want them here,” he said.

In Wyoming, grizzlies attacking cattle is frequently listed as the leading cause of human-bear conflict.

Collins said he hasn’t lost any livestock to bears yet.

"Even so, they sure don’t help them (the cattle) even if they don’t kill them,” he said. "They move through the cattle herd and stir them up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bird Hunting Gets Wild"}]

North-central Montana is a bird hunter’s paradise. And in decades past, grizzlies would have been the furthest things from bird hunters’ minds.

That’s not the case any longer. In 2023, 

 between bird and whitetail deer hunters in separate incidents.

Those occurred in the vicinity of the Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area. It’s between Choteau and Fairfield, Montana, about 40 miles west of Great Falls.

Collins said that several years ago, a bird hunter had to shoot and kill a charging grizzly across the road from his place.

“He ended up with a scratch on his arm, because the last shot was right at the end of the gun barrel,” he said.

Wallace, a horse trainer and saddle maker, said he’s run into multiple grizzlies while bird hunting.

“I hunt ducks a lot. And even on the little prairie potholes out here, you’ve got to walk in there loaded and ready for bears,” he said.

Herd of grizzlies 2 6 30 26

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

<title>Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Montana rancher Neal Collins said a camera on his barn captured a "herd" of seven grizzlies on his property Monday night. The next morning, agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed 10 grizzlies out of brush across the road from his place.

Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property

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

Andrew Rossi

Public Safety

When does a reckless act in Yellowstone National Park qualify as child endangerment? It’s a question many people are asking after recent events in the park.

A photo circulating on social media shows a man carrying a child off the boardwalk in one of Yellowstone’s thermal basins. The photographer, Babi Lama, said he witnessed the incident near Grand Prismatic Spring.

"Dude is HOLDING HIS CHILD while walking around the thermal pools at Grand Prismatic Spring," he wrote. "What the hell is wrong with people?"

Yellowstone visitors of all stripes are routinely cited for 

 If any of these incidents involve a child, can the perpetrator be charged with child endangerment?

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

Greg Jackson is a former deputy chief for the U.S. Park Service’s Division of Law Enforcement, Security and Emergency Services in Washington, D.C. During his career, he was presented with several situations where a child endangerment charge was merited.

“I’ve done it before,” he said. “There are a lot of things that parents do that are placing children in danger but aren't necessarily obvious to them at the moment.”

After viewing the photo of the child-carrying man in Yellowstone, Jackson had several questions that would have factored into any citation.

“Generally, (Yellowstone) tries to prevent people from walking into hazardous areas,” he said. “I’m guessing there’s some system of warning people of the risk of that area that I can’t see in the photo.”

 posted throughout Yellowstone’s thermal areas. Boardwalks are the designated pathways to keep people safe.

Jackson also added that those same warnings are handed to every visitor, attached to the map they receive when entering the park.

“In a case like this, you’d attempt to document all the warnings that person had regarding the hazards, not just what may be apparent in the photo,” he said. “I’d want to know what signs were there. Is the area labeled as a geyser field or a thermal feature?”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Child Endangerment?"}]

Wyoming Statutes Title 6. Crimes and Offenses 6-4-403 lays out the legal parameters and ramifications regarding the abandonment or endangerment of children. It specifies that no parent, guardian or custodian of a child shall “knowingly or with criminal negligence cause, permit or contribute to the endangering of the child's life or health by violating a duty of care, protection or support.”

That’s where citing a Yellowstone visitor for child endangerment can become tricky. In Jackson’s view, those charges usually come when there’s more overt malice rather than simple ignorance.

“It depends on how obvious the danger is,” he said. “If you're obviously exposing your kid to what most reasonable people would see as a reasonable danger, (child endangerment) would be on my list of reasonable actions.”

Jackson said the difficulty with child endangerment charges, in this context, would be “articulating the circumstances” to justify the citation. That case could be easier to do in Yellowstone, given the uniqueness of the environment, he said.

“Most people don’t walk around on boardwalks,” he said. “The fact that there are boardwalks and sulfur-smelling steam coming out of the ground indicates something unusual is going on in Yellowstone. That, to me, indicates there’s something worthy of caution.”

However, Yellowstone’s unique environment might make it more difficult to charge someone with child endangerment.

“If it's a person who has absolutely no clue that the ground around them is hazardous, then I don't think that charge would be reasonable,” he said. “I think most reasonable people would say there’s a reasonable danger, but someone could genuinely not perceive that danger.”

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

Jackson recalled issuing charges for child endangerment and disorderly conduct during his time at Lake Mead in the southwest U.S. There, issuing those citations and charges was more clean-cut.

“There were a lot of boating regulations that had to do with safety,” he said. “It's fun to ride on the bow of a boat, but when you fall off the bow, go under the boat and into the propeller, that stops being fun.”

Jackson regularly cited parents for letting underage children pilot or ride on certain spots of watercraft that were prohibited. However, the decision to cite someone for child endangerment was “a bit of a judgment” that erred toward humanity over legality.

“You tend to give parents the benefit of the doubt, somewhat,” he said. “From a human standpoint, you want to believe that nobody in their right mind would intentionally endanger their own child.”

Jackson couldn’t say whether the Yellowstone visitor in the photograph was intentionally endangering his child, but he doubted it.

“Sometimes, people will throw caution to the wind and cross a line for a once-in-a-lifetime experience or photo-op,” he said. “They become so enthusiastic with their exuberance of getting their children an up-close experience of a geyser that they don’t appreciate the danger. This incident looks fairly benign.”

The “worst thing” Jackson could imagine is a parent or guardian who recognizes and doesn’t care about the dangers to which they’re subjecting their children. While it’s not unheard of, he considered that scenario and mindset exceptional.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Clear And Present Danger"}]

Overall, Jackson could see a case for charging parents with child endangerment or negligence for their actions in Yellowstone, but understands why park rangers might forgo such a charge.

“A child endangerment charge is going to depend on what the law says,” he said. “If they’re placing the child in danger, you're going to have to articulate that there was some danger and the person being cited was responsible for placing the child in that situation.”

In this instance, Jackson didn’t have enough information to say whether a child endangerment charge would have been appropriate.

“Was there danger? Yes. Was it apparent to the adult? I'm not sure. They might have been completely oblivious to the danger in that particular spot,” he said.

Child endangerment might stick more easily when it comes to wildlife offenses. Jackson’s seen plenty of people approach wild animals for photo-ops or try to get them to take food out of their hands.

“I never cited anybody, but I warned people that animals with big pointy things growing out of the top of their heads can really hurt their kid,” he said. “If you’re exposing your kid to an obvious danger, and the threat can be easily perceived, then there’s definitely a case to be made.”

Grand Prismatic guy holding kid 6 30 26

<title>Man Caught Carrying Child On Dangerous Yellowstone Grand Prismatic Thermal Pools | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Yellowstone visitors near the popular Grand Prismatic Spring were outraged Sunday watching a man carry a child on dangerous thermals pools. "What the hell is wrong with people?” said a visitor who got a photo of the incident.

Man Caught Carrying Child On Dangerous Yellowstone Grand Prismatic Thermal Pools

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

A Gillette woman was screaming, clutching her leg and suffering seizure-like convulsions in the middle of a parking lot early Friday morning after police say her ex-boyfriend deliberately drove his pickup into her, ran over her knee and sped away.

By the time officers caught up with Kristopher Paxton a short time later, police say he insisted he hadn't hit her.

[{"type":"text","text":"Then detectives showed him surveillance video."}]

Paxton watched the video twice before admitting to investigators the collision "could have been a moment of black-out rage," according to an affidavit of probable caused filed in his case.

Later, when detectives asked why he accelerated toward the woman, he offered another explanation.

"I think it may have been just blind aggression," he told investigators, according to the affidavit.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bar Fight"}]

The confrontation began hours earlier at Gillette's Fireside Bar, the affidavit says.

Police say Paxton and the victim had dated for about a year but were no longer together.

That night, another man drove the woman home from the bar after she asked for a ride, according to the affidavit. Not long after arriving at her apartment, she heard pounding on her doors and windows.

[{"type":"text","text":"The affidavit says Paxton had shown up demanding his belongings."}]

Witnesses told police the former couple shouted profanities at one another outside the apartment while the woman repeatedly told Paxton to leave.

[{"type":"text","text":"At one point, investigators say, Paxton climbed back into his truck."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Standing in front of the vehicle, the woman refused to move."}]

According to the affidavit, she told police Paxton warned, "If you don't f***ing move, I'll run your ass over."

Witnesses say he first backed up, turned the wheels so the truck pointed directly toward her, then accelerated.

The pickup's front bumper struck the woman in the torso. She fell to the pavement, and the truck's front left tire rolled over her right knee before Paxton drove away, wrote investigators wrote.

[{"type":"text","text":"A witness immediately called 911."}]

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

[{"type":"text","text":"When officers arrived, they found the woman on the ground screaming."}]

"My leg, my right leg," she cried repeatedly, according to the affidavit.

Police wrote that she writhed in pain, sobbed uncontrollably and began displaying seizure-like convulsions before she was transported by ambulance to a hospital.

Investigators later obtained surveillance footage from a nearby apartment.

[{"type":"text","text":"The affidavit says the video captured nearly the entire confrontation."}]

It shows Paxton arriving at the complex, arguing outside, reversing his truck, accelerating into the woman, knocking her to the ground, reversing again and driving away.

Deputies located Paxton and his blue 2007 GMC Sierra a short time later. Officers noted the smell of alcohol on him, along with bloodshot, watery eyes.

He admitted drinking fewer than two alcoholic beverages that evening and agreed to perform standardized field-sobriety tests. Police wrote they did not develop probable cause to arrest him for driving under the influence.

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

During questioning, detectives asked Paxton whether he had hit the woman with his truck.

[{"type":"text","text":"\"Not to the best of my knowledge,\" he replied."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"After investigators pressed him again, Paxton changed his answer."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"\"I'm not saying I didn't,\" he told them."}]

Detectives then played approximately 39 seconds of surveillance video twice.

Even after watching the footage, police say Paxton claimed he had no memory of the collision.

Based on witness interviews, surveillance footage and the victim's injuries, investigators concluded Paxton intentionally used his pickup as a deadly weapon.

He was arrested without incident and booked into the Campbell County Detention Center.

Paxton is charged with aggravated assault and battery, and misdemeanor leaving the scene of an accident resulting in injury. If convicted of the felony aggravated assault charge, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

[{"type":"text","text":"A judge set his bond at $100,000 cash or surety."}]

Gillette police 5 31 23

<title>Gillette Man Blames 'Black-Out Rage' After Running Over Ex-Girlfriend With Truck | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Police say a Gillette man first denied hitting his ex-girlfriend with his pickup, running over her and speeding away. After detectives showed him surveillance video, police say he told them it "could have been a moment of black-out rage."

Gillette Man Blames 'Black-Out Rage' After Running Over Ex-Girlfriend With Truck

What first appeared to be an ordinary construction delay on a lonely stretch of highway west of Casper quickly turned into one of the 

 many of those involved had ever witnessed.

By the time emergency crews reached U.S. Highway 20/26 near mile marker 58 Friday afternoon, two people were dead, seven others had been injured, and strangers were comforting survivors, checking on children, searching for fire extinguishers and handing out bottled water.

On Monday, the Natrona County Coroner's Office identified the two people killed as James Faris Cox, 74, and Susan Horn Cox, 69, of Golden, Colorado.

"That was my aunt and uncle killed in the wreck Friday," their nephew Lee Wolfe told Cowboy State Daily. "They were on the way to their house in Ennis, MT. They lived in Golden, CO."

[{"type":"text","text":"He said the couple was traveling alone."}]

"It was just my aunt and uncle in their truck, no survivors," he said. "My two cousins and their families were heading up there at a different time thankfully."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Semi, Multiple Vehicles Involved"}]

The Wyoming Highway Patrol said the crash involved multiple vehicles, including a semi-truck.

"Two confirmed fatalities. Seven injured. Seventeen people involved, two flown by helicopter, the others were taken to Wyoming Medical Center by ambulance," Wyoming Highway Patrol spokesman Aaron Brown said. "This is still an active investigation." 

As of Monday afternoon, investigators had not released a preliminary cause of the crash, and no criminal charges had been filed.

The Natrona County Coroner's Office said it is investigating the fatalities along with the Wyoming Highway Patrol and Natrona County Sheriff's Office.

[{"type":"text","text":"Krista Nethercott of Jackson never saw the crash itself."}]

She had been traveling toward Casper with a neighbor after taking her son to enroll in college when traffic suddenly came to a stop.

[{"type":"text","text":"At first, she assumed the delay was caused by nearby road construction."}]

"There were these pylons on the right-hand side that kind of tell you there's construction," she said. "But there wasn't anything alerting you to slow down. There wasn't a flagger."

After waiting several minutes, she said she couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

She stepped out of her vehicle and walked toward the front of the traffic backup.

"That's when I could see there were cars on both sides of the road," she said. "I was like, 'Oh my goodness.'"

Nethercott said she immediately ran toward the wreckage to make sure someone had called 911 and to offer whatever help she could.

She said she told him, "I'm a funeral director. I'll help you. I'm not scared to see death." 

Working with another bystander, she checked on the occupants of one of the most severely damaged vehicles — the Coxes' pickup.

"The gentleman was immediately deceased," she said. "The lady probably lived a couple minutes."

[{"type":"text","text":"She said both appeared to have been wearing seat belts."}]

The truck was crushed so badly, she said, that she believed rescuers ultimately would need the jaws of life to remove the couple.

"If the woman had lived longer, I don't think this gentleman and I could have ever taken her out of the vehicle," she said. "That's how crushed it was."

Despite witnessing the aftermath firsthand, Nethercott said she has no idea what caused the collision.

"I don't know if the semi-trailer didn't slow down and ran into people, or if somebody was trying to pass too many vehicles. I couldn't ascertain that at all. It was just mass metal and cars," she said. 

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

The crash occurred about 45 miles northwest of Casper, and Nethercott estimated it was roughly 30 minutes before ambulances and fire crews reached the scene.

"It seemed like it was a long time to see paramedics," she said. "But considering you're out in the middle of nowhere, I don't think they could have gotten there any quicker."

Long before emergency vehicles arrived, however, strangers had already organized themselves.

Nethercott estimated around 10 people got out of their vehicles and immediately began helping.

One man walked the line of stopped traffic asking whether anyone had a fire extinguisher. Another, who identified himself as working at a pediatric clinic, examined a young child who remained safely strapped into a five-point car seat while the boy's injured father tried to comfort him.

Others brought camping chairs for survivors to sit in while Nethercott handed out bottled water from her vehicle.

"There were people left and right getting out of their vehicles and trying to find anything that could be used," she said. "Whether it's water, an emergency medical kit or a fire extinguisher."

[{"type":"text","text":"The scene itself was almost impossible to comprehend."}]

"There was debris all over the place," she said. "Food, toilet paper, paper towels ... it looked like somebody had been camping. There was glass everywhere, bumpers everywhere."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'The Wyoming Way'"}]

The Natrona County Fire District described responders arriving to "a very chaotic scene" involving multiple damaged vehicles, a large debris field, numerous victims and a large bystander presence.

The response included firefighters from the Natrona County Fire District, ambulances from Mills Fire Department, Banner Wyoming Medical Center and Evansville Fire/EMS, Wyoming LifeFlight, Guardian Flight, the Natrona County Sheriff's Office, Wyoming Highway Patrol, WYDOT crews, dispatchers and road construction personnel.

[{"type":"text","text":"Fire officials said 17 people were directly involved in the crash."}]

In a statement, the department singled out the motorists who stopped to help before first responders arrived.

"Crews would like to send a heartfelt thank you to all the bystanders who assisted victims immediately after the crash, while waiting for help to arrive, as well as while responders were on-scene, offering shelter during the passing of a thunder cell, emotional support and minor patient care," they wrote. 

[{"type":"text","text":"\"The true spirit of the 'Wyoming Way' was in full force this day.\""}]

Nethercott said, "There were people left and right getting out of their vehicles and trying to find anything that could be used. They didn't sit around and wait for somebody else to do it."

[{"type":"text","text":"The moment she has replayed most, however, involved Susan Cox."}]

Although there was little anyone could do medically, Nethercott said she wanted to make sure the woman did not spend her final moments alone.

"We told her help was coming,” she said. "We don't know what happens when people are unconscious, but we wanted her to know somebody was there."

Only after that did she turn her attention to survivors who still could be saved.

Among those survivors is Kensi Van Patten. A 

 campaign organized on her behalf says she suffered serious injuries in the crash and faces a lengthy recovery while her family copes with mounting medical expenses. 

The fundraiser asks for donations to help with medical costs and lost income during her recovery.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol, Natrona County Sheriff's Office and Natrona County Coroner's Office continue to investigate the crash. 

Double Fatal Crash Go Fund Me 6 29 26

<title>Witnesses Describe Chaos, Compassion After Wyoming Crash That Killed Colo. Couple | Cowboy State Daily</title>

An older Colorado couple have been identified as the two people killed in a Friday multi-vehicle crash west of Casper. "We made sure she wasn't alone,” said a Jackson woman who was among those who stopped to help the couple and others hurt in the crash.

Connie June Brecke, 76