The solar eclipse will affect more than just the humans in its path. Animals, too, will notice things are amiss.

“Some animals may change their behavior patterns,” said Dr. Don Betts, veterinarian and owner at Driggs Vet. Dr. Betts has been caring for animals in the valley since the 1970s.

Don’t expect animals to get too crazy.

“The animals that are active during the day will potentially think that night has come and go to do their night things,” Dr. Betts explained. “When the eclipse goes by and it gets light again they’ll wake up and think it’s the start of a whole new short day.”

This means pets will expect to follow their evening routines.

“The dog that lays on the couch all day will want to get up and go for a walk with mom and dad maybe,” Dr. Betts said. “The cats will do their thing and be pretty much unaffected.”

Similarly, larger domesticated animals may head in to the barn for supper and then leave when it gets light again.

However, because animals will associate the eclipse with evening, don’t expect them to stare in wonder like human beings.

“On a normal day, your pets don’t try to look at the sun, and therefore don’t damage their eyes. And on this day they’re not going to do it either,” Angela Speck, director of astronomy and a professor of astrophysics at the University of Missouri, explained at a NASA news conference.

Expect the most animal confusion to be more pronounced after the eclipse.

During scientific studies of animals in Africa, researchers observed hippos begin to head towards their evening feeding grounds when an eclipse began.

“Sunlight returned before any of the herd had reached the riverbanks, and the study reported an apparent sense of confusion, even apprehension among the animals,” explains a report in Sciencing.com. “They continued in this state, seemingly, for the rest of the day.”

This confusion may impact wildlife, so experts recommend to keep your distance, especially when it comes to larger animals, such as moose.

Owners concerned about alleviating stress on their pets have some options.

“There are some drugs available,” said Dr. Betts. “There’s an herbal formulation called Stress Away. It does seem to help. You can feed them just like treats. There’s also pheromones you can spray in the air or plug into the house.”

Dr. Betts also mentioned thundershirts, tight-fitting clothing for animals designed to make them more comfortable.

“It’s like giving them a hug — they feel more enclosed and safer,” he explained.

During the eclipse, keep your eyes and ears open to the different animal behaviors.

“It will be interesting,” Dr. Betts said.

Creed Lasson was almost home from an afternoon of dirt biking when he heard a knocking noise on one of the windows.

“I thought it was my sisters just messing around,” he said. “I walked up and went, holy crap — that’s a bear!”

The cinnamon colored black bear was hitting the glass of the window to try and get out of the Tetonia residence.

Lasson, who is 18, called in for some help.

“My uncle came up and brought his gun. We went inside to try and open some doors to let it out,” he said. “By the time we did that, it had already busted through a screen window.”

Luckily, the bear did not cause too much damage.

“He tore down three sets of blinds, ate a bunch of food from our pantry and went through our garbage — that’s about it,” Lasson recounted.

According to Lasson, the bear ate some cake and brownie mix, hashbrowns that had been left on the stove, and a lot of garbage.

“The weirdest thing he ate was 10 or 15 candy canes,” Lasson said. “He ate the wrappers and everything.”

Lasson’s family called the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

“They set up a live trap and they told me if he comes back you can shoot him because he’s been causing trouble,” Lasson said. “The next day around the same time we saw him coming.”

Lasson said the bear circled the house looking for a way in.

“I went out to shoot him, but my gun jammed and he went around the back of the house and smelled the bait for the trap,” he remembered.

Lasson, who leaves on his mission this week for Houston, Texas, said the incident will stick with him.

“It was kind of more shocking than anything,” he said. “Looking in my window and seeing a bear.”

The story did not end so happily for the bear, which was euthanized by Idaho Fish and Game.

“If I had any hair, I’d be pulling it out,” said Idaho Fish and Game conservation officer Rob Howe. “It frustrates me as someone who is tasked with protecting the resource to have to remove part of it.”

Howe says there are multiple bears in the Badger Creek region that have become accustomed to humans.

“We are having a very active black bear summer,” he said. “It’s probably due to a number of factors. It’s been a long, hard winter with lots of snow. Hunters had a hard time getting out in the spring, and there are more houses in bear country.”

Howe explained that for the bears, getting used to humans and their food is a gradual process.

“I guarantee you that bear didn’t come straight down from the mountain into that house through that window,” he said. “He was hitting garbages and bird feeders — those were his gateway drugs.”

Howe added that many bears’ first encounters with human-provided food go unnoticed.

“A lot of these houses are just second homes that people aren’t around regularly. Nobody even notices it,” he said. “They get comfortable going around houses. ‘That big wooden square thing gave me a meal. What about that one?’ They get more and more brave.”

Howe said that homeowners should cut down on the attractants they leave out, like bird feed, garbage and even some fly traps.

“Bears like that smell just as much as flies do,” Howe said. “You get just as many birds visiting a house if you put out a bird bath. Store your garbage in a closed garage or a get a bear-proof dumpster. RAD has them.”

Howe underlined that the bears who get hooked on human food don’t get to enjoy a long life.

“I’m probably going to have to kill another bear that’s getting into garbages,” he said. “It’s not the bear’s fault.”

The above average rain and snow that Eastern Idaho received this year will be a game changer for anglers.

“This year is unusual,” said Dave Heib, manager of the Three Rivers Ranch fly shop in Driggs. “I’ve lived here 10 years. I’ve not seen it like this.”

Heib pointed to the mountains, where the snowpack is among the largest in 20 years.

“We have so much dense snow that will melt,” Heib said. “The water is coming.”

Snow pack translates into run-off, fast flowing water that looks like chocolate milk because of all the dirt and silt it carries downstream.

Although run-off happens every year, this year’s will likely be longer than usual.

“Normally, well before the end of June runoff is done,” said Heib. “But this year, I hearken back to the days of ‘97 and ‘07 when my brother didn’t do his first guiding trip until Aug. 2.”

That’s a long time to not be fishing. But don’t lose all hope just yet.

Because rivers fed by run-off, like the Teton, will be too swift and dirty for fish to feed, early season anglers should look for spots that are not affected — and expect there to be plenty of fish.

“There are many, many places that may not be blown out,” Heib said. “You have a lot of streams that aren’t affected by other creeks dumping mud.”

Anglers should look for spring fed creeks and rivers, among which the Warm River is a prime example.

“Two of our guides that did a trip recently saw nine to 10 adult salmon flies, which is about 15 to 20 days early,” Heib said.

Other flies have been hatching early this year, especially the caddis fly — including the Olive, Brown, and even Mother’s Day caddis — so places that are fishing well will be fishing very well indeed.

Meanwhile, there’s a big, silver lining to the cloudy water — a much better late season.

“Once all this starts flushing big time, that moves all the silt out, it could help to make a wonderful May fly and PMD year,” explained Heib. “May flies and PMDs can’t live with the silt, they’ve got to have rocky free stone.”

May flies, being a key part of the trout diet, will make for prolific fly fishing once they begin hatching.

“May flies start fairly early and they go until it starts to snow,” Heib said. “This year might be good, but my prediction — next year will be a huge May fly year, which we have not had in six, seven, eight ears.”

More water also translates to another key ingredient for happy fish — cooler water.

“When the water table is higher, we will have a much cooler water temperature later in the season,” Heib explained. “With cooler water, you have a much higher chance of catching and releasing a fish that will survive.”

This means August and early September fishing may be better than years in the past.

“Over the past five to six years, once it comes to August the water temp has become so hot we have a high mortality rate, the fishing slows down,” Heib said. “If the water temperature becomes almost bath tub, there’s no amount of releasing a fish that isn’t dangerous for it.”

More water also means more places to fish.

“The snow pack will keep the small creeks fishing good late into the season,” said Justin Mehlhaff, a local guide who also manages the Three Rivers Ranch shop in Driggs. “It might affect where some of the fish spawn. Little creeks that fish couldn’t travel up may be able to travel up this year.”

Creek tributaries to the Teton include South Leigh Creek, Teton Creek, Fox Creek, Darby Creek and Pine Creek.

August being a ways off, the impatient angler may feel inclined to take a risk or two in pursuit of a hungry fish on the South Fork of the Snake.

“Early season on the South Fork is not for the faint of heart and not for anybody that doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Heib said. “That’s where most people die every year. … It’s highly recommend for travelers that want to take float trips early season—take a guide. I’d rather save my life than catch a fish.”

Those dangers are only amplified by the amount of water being let out of the Palisades Reservoir, which has matched springtime records.

“The Palisades Reservoir matched the ‘86 record with how much water was let out by the third week in March,” Heib said. “They are doing damage control, they know what’s coming.”

Any time of year on the South Fork can be dangerous.

“The hazards change with the water levels,” explained Mehlhaff. “What could have been hazardous at high levels at low levels will not be hazardous, and vice versa.”

One thing is certain, it will be a great summer.

“Most outfitters believe it will be the longest, greatest year we’ve had in the last 10 years,” said Heib. “We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

Those thinking about looking for a place to stay for the eclipse can think again.

Traditional options in the valley have been booked for a while, in many cases for years.

“We’re rented out to a [Pomona College] graduating class from the sixties. They decided to have it as their college reunion,” said Ken Rider, Grand Targhee Resort’s marketing director. “They originally contacted the resort in 2010. These guys were planners.”

Rider added that although the resort’s vacation rentals and mountain lodges were all booked up, they were looking into launching some camping options for the public.

Similarly, the Teton County Fairgrounds has been booked since September, 2015.

“We were contacted a year and half ago by a group of Japanese scientists that wanted to rent out the fairgrounds,” said Fair Board Treasurer Patty Petersen. “They’ve been on top of it. They’re staying in Teton National Park and rented hotels there. There’s about 300 of them. They expect to be there at 5:00 AM.”

Petersen added that the back half of the Fairgrounds was still open, and the board was considering organizing public camping.

“We realize that property would be very useful to the valley,” she said.

Other hotels have reported being booked for a long time.

“We’ve been booked since 2015 for a family reunion,” said Nancy Nielsen, owner of the Pines Motel in Driggs. “I’m not even sure that they knew about the eclipse.”

Other tourist-related industries are beginning to get their plans in place. Some valley restaurants are even forming an association to help prepare for the event.

“We have set up an association to figure out how we’re going to overcome this,” said Ron James, a local caterer. “One of the big challenges is feeding all these people, we’re not going to know how many there will be… We have been working with US Foods, who have agreed to strategically locate trucks with additional products in case we need them.”

James said the fledgling association would be having their next meeting at the new Incubator Kitchen in Driggs March 9, at 2:00 pm.

“We need to come together as a group to plan and strategize on how we are going to handle the influx of visitors that will be in our valley during this time,” James said. “Although it will be a time of testing it will also be a time for us to shine as a food community.”

Alan Allred, the county’s eclipse coordinator, is one of the faces behind the new restaurant association.

“We started at the committee meetings looking at what businesses could do. One of our concerns is how to feed the surge and the role the restaurants were going to play,” he said. “We realized we had no restaurant association. So we thought we’d try to get all the restaurants together to form an association to talk about the eclipse primarily but to have the opportunity for the association to extend beyond the eclipse.”

As part of an outreach effort, the Wildwood Room in Victor has been sponsoring an evening event called Eclipse and Chips. There have been two Eclipse and Chips to date. The next is scheduled for Tuesday, March 14 from 6 to 8 pm.

Although it may seem like all hope is lost for finding anywhere to stay over the Eclipse, new options may soon present themselves—especially since the county has updated its temporary use permit process to make it easier for valley residents to make their own arrangements.

The county now has a general information form that guides event planners through what they need to have in place for their event to be in compliance with local, state and even federal laws.

“There are 10 standards in the ordinance that relate to parking, sanitation, public safety, signage and trash,” explained Teton County Prosecutor Billie Siddoway. “Rather than just asking the applicants to provide a narrative of what they plan to do to cover the ordinance, we’ve gone through and broken the requirements out into 10 questions that are pretty basic.”

The form asks event planners to provide details, such as how many vehicles will be there, what physical structures will be put in place, which neighbors will be impacted, how trash will be stored and removed, and what other permits will be needed.

The form also makes some suggestions—for instance having two uniformed security officers for events handling 100 people or more, and having at least one toilet facility for every 160 guests.

Alan Allred, the county’s eclipse coordinator, this week updated local officials on the problem of sourcing Porta-Potties for the valley.

“The Porta-Potty issue remains to be a critical one because it’s not easy for the community to respond,” he said. “You can’t just reach out and say you want two Porta-Potties. They’ll give you 2,000 or 200—but not two.”

The other main issue is having the facilities cleaned.

“The problem still remains not getting Porta-Potties, but having them serviced,” explained Allred. “Tetonia and Driggs will both refuse Porta-Potty fluid, because they don’t like the chemicals in them. They will also shut down the RV cleanouts, because it dumps right into the sewage system. Rexburg is also closing their sewage facilities to RVs, and so is Rigby. The only place will be Idaho Falls, after that you’re going to Utah.”

Allred concluded that he was hoping Porta-Potties could probably be locally sourced and maintained on the basis that the new equipment could pay for itself from just the one eclipse event.

“Our idea now is to just find somebody who will go out and buy Porta-Potties and have them in the county after the event so we don’t have to go out to Rexburg or Idaho Falls,” he said. “That’s being met with a favorable response.”

There are limits to what the county can dictate on the issue of Porta-Potties.

“We don’t have the authority under our current statute to make a hard and fast rule [about Porta-Potties],” Siddoway explained. “I think our primary concern is public safety… and anything that’s going to interfere with vehicular traffic.”