NEWS BRIEFS

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

By Benjamin R. Bombard

For bears, two strikes and you’re out of here!
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-A cattle-killing bear was relocated from the Cody area to Togwotee Pass on Saturday. The bear, a repeat offender, killed a calf early last week, prompting a rancher to alert Wyoming Game and Fish. After it killed another one of the rancher’s calves, WGF personnel, led by Bear Management Programs Supervisor Mark Buscino, caught the bear in a standard box trap, stuck it in the ursine-equivalent of a paddy wagon and shipped it off to a remote location in the Absaroka Mountains.

“After [the bear killed] the first one, we took a wait-and-see sort of approach,” Bruscino said. “After the second one, [the rancher] felt he would like some help.”
Buscino said that he and his team relocate 10 or more livestock-killing bears a year. Each is radio-collared and ear-tagged so their whereabouts can be tracked.

“We try to put as much wild country and distance between where [the bear] was caught and where it’s released,” Bruscino said. He added that if bears start to display chronic livestock-killing behavior they are either sent to zoo or euthanized.

Understaffed Music on Main needs vols
Volunteers are desperately needed over in Teton Valley to accommodate larger than expected crowds at Victor’s “Music On Main” concert series. Jeff Potter, the executive director of the Teton Valley Foundation, said the crowd of roughly 3,500 people that showed up last week for Big Sam’s Funky Nation was much bigger than the 2,500 people the foundation expected. “Now that we’ve seen a crowd that size, we have a better understanding of what capabilities are versus what we really need,” Potter said, after sending out an email on Tuesday pleading for volunteers to help with the “serious demand on concessions and other basic services from the crowds.”

Music on Main needs help with all kinds of services, including setting-up and breaking-down the event, checking IDs and wristbands, making sure people are recycling properly, and beer and wine concessions. Volunteers receive a coupon for two free beverages and one slice of Tony's Pizza for each shift they work, and volunteers who commit to work four shifts receive a free “Staff” T-shirt.

VPOTUS visits Y-stone
America’s second-in-command, VP Joe Biden, visited Yellowstone National Park yesterday to check in on 14 construction projects within the park that are being funded by $12 million in federal stimulus funds. The VPOTUS also spoke to a crowd of 100 Park employees, their families and contractors. He told them about the redemptive qualities of nature and the personal solace he and his sons took in the natural wonders of the park when they visited it after the death of his wife and daughter in 1974.

Biden and his granddaughter Naomi chilled in Y-stone the rest of the day before making their way down to some big gouge in the Earth down in Arizona. JHW


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NEWS BRIEFS | Planet JH News Article: General News

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