Episode Details

It's time to take a look at what's happening around Wyoming, for Wednesday, September 18. I'm Wendy Corr, bringing you headlines from the Cowboy State Daily newsroom - brought to you by ServeWyoming - Wyoming's center for volunteerism and AmeriCorps service for the last 30 years! For volunteer opportunities, visit ServeWyoming dot org"

So far this archery hunting season, three grizzly bears have been shot — and two killed — by bowhunters wielding handguns in self-defense.

Wildlife observers and hunters told Cowboy State Daily's Mark Heinz that there will be more conflicts between grizzlies and hunters.

"It's this pattern that keeps repeating itself… Last year, we had virtually the same number of encounters, or bad encounters, between archery hunters and grizzlies in pretty much the same areas… Montana and Idaho…. seem to be the hot spots, but there's no reason to think that this won't happen in Wyoming, because we've got a lot of archery hunters going into grizzly bear country in Wyoming."

The trouble is, in order to be successful, bowhunters have to do the opposite of what is considered safe behavior in the backcountry. Hunters have to be quiet and try to mask their scent, and they use game calls to imitate the sounds of cow elk - which could be just as likely to draw in a hungry grizzly as it would a bull elk.

Read the full story HERE.

Just as wildland firefighting crews have turned a corner on getting control of the stubborn Short Draw Fire that started about 30 miles north of Gillette and burned into Montana, Mother Nature has thrown them another wrinkle - coal seams.

The fire has burned about 35,000 acres in the northern Powder River Basin, and also has ignited a coal seam beneath the ground, according to Cowboy State Daily's Greg Johnson.

"If anybody knows that area, the Powder River Basin… There are coal seams all over the place. There are many coal seam fires that burn and just kind of smolder for years. So that's a different kind of firefighting than they have to do… They have to dig them up, try to bury them, whatever they can do to try to get the coal seam out. Sometimes they can't."

Overall efforts to fight the Short Draw Fire are showing progress. The fire's size has remained stable at a little over 35,000 acres, and fire lines continue to be built around it. Containment as of Tuesday morning was at 65%.

Read the full story HERE.

If politicians would get out of the way, carbon capture could be commercially viable in just a few years.

That was what operations manager Jim Ford said during a tour of the Integrated Test Center at the Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Dry Fork station coal plant.

Cowboy State Daily's Leo Wolfson was part of a larger group organized by Governor Mark Gordon's office for this tour. He reports that this high-tech facility will only be useful for carbon capture if the coal industry continues - but the current administration has dictated that coal-fired power plants in the Powder River Basin are to be shut down by 2041.

"There's kind of an awkward dance that some of these groups are doing with the EPA and the federal government. As far as on one hand, the federal government is kind of encouraging this technology, but on the other hand, they're kind of shutting down coal. And those two things kind of have to go to hand in hand."

Wolfson reports that the tour was set up to help the public understand what's developing in the fie