The first golden eagle in Yellowstone National Park fitted with a tracking device has died of lead poisoning, likely after consuming bullet fragments while scavenging the remains of an animal killed by a hunter, officials said Monday.

Wearing a GPS unit like a backpack, the adult, female eagle had flown outside Yellowstone into areas where hunters pursue game such as elk and deer.

The death of the bird was a setback for golden eagle research in Yellowstone but not the end. Several other golden eagles at the park have been fitted with tracking devices.

“It’s a little gut-wrenching because it’s so darn hard to trap and tag an eagle, and it’s frustrating for the graduate student who’s leading the project,” said eagle scientist Todd Katzner with the U.S. Geological Survey in Boise.

Advocacy groups have called for hunters to use bullets made of copper to help prevent such deaths. Effective July 1, California will fully prohibit hunters from using lead bullets.

In Wyoming, Bryan Bedrosian of the Teton Raptor Center said he has provided opportunities for hunters to exchange lead bullets for ones made of copper, which perform just as well.

However, Bedrosian, an avid hunter and research director at the raptor rehabilitation facility, doesn’t support banning lead bullets.

“A lot of it’s a matter of awareness and willingness of people to switch,” he said.

Golden eagles are one of North America’s largest birds, with a wingspan that can top 7 feet.

Their numbers in the contiguous 48 U.S. states are steady but not as high as they could be, partly because of collisions with vehicles and wind turbines.

The female eagle, thought to be at least 5 years old, was found dead in northern Yellowstone in December, but the cause of death was only recently determined. It had ranged as far as 40 miles  from the center of its habitat.

The research over a four-month period provided valuable information about the movement of golden eagles and the threats they face, Katzner added.

Golden eagles hunt live prey during summer. Lead poisoning becomes a significant threat when they eat carrion during fall and winter, Katzner said.

“This bird died right in the period we’d expect them to be wandering widely and searching for food,” Katzner said.

The first golden eagle in Yellowstone National Park fitted with a tracking device has died of lead poisoning, likely after consuming bullet fragments while scavenging the remains of an animal killed by a hunter, officials said Monday.

Wearing a GPS unit like a backpack, the adult, female eagle had flown outside Yellowstone into areas where hunters pursue game such as elk and deer.

The death of the bird was a setback for golden eagle research in Yellowstone but not the end. Several other golden eagles at the park have been fitted with tracking devices.

“It’s a little gut-wrenching because it’s so darn hard to trap and tag an eagle, and it’s frustrating for the graduate student who’s leading the project,” said eagle scientist Todd Katzner with the U.S. Geological Survey in Boise.

Advocacy groups have called for hunters to use bullets made of copper to help prevent such deaths. Effective July 1, California will fully prohibit hunters from using lead bullets.

In Wyoming, Bryan Bedrosian of the Teton Raptor Center said he has provided opportunities for hunters to exchange lead bullets for ones made of copper, which perform just as well.

However, Bedrosian, an avid hunter and research director at the raptor rehabilitation facility, doesn’t support banning lead bullets.

“A lot of it’s a matter of awareness and willingness of people to switch,” he said.

Golden eagles are one of North America’s largest birds, with a wingspan that can top 7 feet.

Their numbers in the contiguous 48 U.S. states are steady but not as high as they could be, partly because of collisions with vehicles and wind turbines.

The female eagle, thought to be at least 5 years old, was found dead in northern Yellowstone in December, but the cause of death was only recently determined. It had ranged as far as 40 miles  from the center of its habitat.

The research over a four-month period provided valuable information about the movement of golden eagles and the threats they face, Katzner added.

Golden eagles hunt live prey during summer. Lead poisoning becomes a significant threat when they eat carrion during fall and winter, Katzner said.

“This bird died right in the period we’d expect them to be wandering widely and searching for food,” Katzner said.

People who have long been critical of a plan to put more cell towers in Grand Teton National Park are getting the opportunity to officially weigh in on the project.

Grand Teton National Park in western Wyoming seeks thoughts from the public on plans for a new network of cell towers amid questions about how the National Park Service balances public safety with the experience of wilderness.

The park currently has two cell towers as part of a system built piecemeal-fashion, with some fiber-optic lines buried without conduit and poorly mapped. The lines are vulnerable to damage, according to a Park Service analysis and proposal for nine additional towers and related equipment.

“The current equipment and services that we’ve got are outdated, they’re inadequate and they don’t serve us well, nor do they serve park visitors or our partners well,” Grand Teton spokeswoman Denise Germann said Wednesday.

Outages lasting several days have been known, Germann said.

The new towers would be built in already developed areas not far from the park’s main roads. Benefits would include boosting the range where people could call for help, directing visitors to park services and helping retain seasonal workers by keeping them in touch with friends and family, according to the Park Service.

Grand Teton plans two public meetings and will take comments from the public on its proposal by April 10. With approval, construction of the new system could begin as soon as this fall, according to Germann.

One group questions whether the Park Service gives sufficient consideration to the implications of cell service in the backcountry.

“Part of the point of wilderness is the ability to be disconnected and feel alone, but if somebody on the same trail can order a pizza, or sell stock, or chase Pokemon, that takes away from the visitor experience,” said Jeff Ruch with the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

This isn’t the first time PEER has questioned cell towers in Grand Teton. In 2018, the group obtained Park Service documents outlining the proposal and raised concern the park might put up the towers with little public involvement.

The Park Service lacks a comprehensive policy for cell facilities, Ruch said.

“Do they want to wire the wilderness?” Ruch said. “They say, ‘No, no, we don’t intend to do that, but we’re not taking any steps to prevent it.’”

Cell coverage still wouldn’t reach much of the park, Germann said.

Unlike some other national parks, Grand Teton does not have any designated wilderness, where machinery such as cars, trucks and even chain saws are prohibited by law. However, Grand Teton has over 190 square miles of recommended wilderness that includes the main summits of the Teton Range in the western half of the park.

Cell phones are already common in those areas and signs encouraging people to practice courtesy would help address any unintentional increase in cell-phone use, according to the Park Service proposal.

Park officials could require companies installing cell towers to direct coverage from backcountry areas, Ruch suggested.

The Park Service encourages people with ideas to improve the cell tower proposal to submit comments, said Germann.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Grizzly bears aren’t docile animals, but an especially aggressive attack that killed a hunting guide and injured his client is puzzling wildlife officials.

A female bear that was with its cub killed Mark Uptain of Jackson Hole and injured Corey Chubon of New Smyrna Beach, Florida, after they went to cut up an elk that Chubon shot with an arrow a day earlier.

Unlike other grizzlies that frequently startle and sometimes attack elk hunters in the Yellowstone National Park region, these bears didn’t appear to be after the meat and weren’t taken by surprise, Wyoming Game and Fish Department regional supervisor Brad Hovinga said Monday.

The attack Friday in the Teton Wilderness east of Grand Teton National Park happened in an area where Wyoming officials are trying to persuade a judge to allow grizzlies to be legally hunted for the first time in decades.

Environmentalists argue that the Yellowstone region’s grizzlies, which lost federal protections last year, are not abundant enough to sustain hunting. A U.S. judge in Montana has postponed hunts that were set to begin this month in Wyoming and Idaho while he considers that argument.

Friday’s attack shows how a hunter can carry both a gun and bear spray and still become the hunted.

“This was something that we don’t see very often or we don’t hear about very often, where a bear just comes in and attacks an individual and not in relationship to a defensive behavior,” Hovinga said.

Five Game and Fish Department employees trapped the cub with meat from the slain elk Sunday, and the mother bear charged them. Two officers shot the sow dead, and officials euthanized the cub.

“That could be somewhat different because her yearling was there and caught in the snare. Still, that was somewhat aggressive,” Hovinga said.

Officials plan DNA testing to verify the same bears were responsible for the attack but are almost positive based on Chubon’s description. At the scene of the attack, they found a used can of bear spray, which wildlife officials often advocate as the best defense — in some cases, better than a gun — against a charging grizzly.

Chubon tried to throw a handgun to Uptain during the attack but it fell short, he told WESH 2 News in Orlando, Florida.

“Somehow the grizzly let me go and charged Mark again. And that’s when I made the decision to just run for my life,” Chubon told the TV station Sunday.

He credited Uptain’s actions to fend off the bear with saving his life.

Chubon called for help from his cellphone. He was flown by helicopter to a hospital with significant scrapes and bite wounds but no life-threatening injuries.

Conflicts between grizzly bears and humans in the Yellowstone region have become more common as the species has recovered from near-extermination in the early 20th century, although fatal attacks on humans are still rare.

In 2017, wildlife managers tallied 273 conflicts between humans and grizzly bears in the region spanning northwest Wyoming, southeast Montana and eastern Idaho. Almost two-thirds of those involved attacks on cattle.

Wildlife officials killed at least nine grizzlies last year due to livestock attacks. Hunters acting in self-defense killed 15 grizzlies.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A debate over whether the Yellowstone ecosystem’s grizzly bear population can thrive while being hunted will be put to the test this fall after Wyoming officials on Wednesday approved the state’s first grizzly hunt in 44 years.

The hunt, approved 7-0 by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, could allow as many as 22 grizzlies to be killed in a wide area east and south of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.

Hunt proponents and opponents made last-minute pleas before the commission, which held several public meetings on the hunt around the state and tweaked the hunt rules in response to some previous comments.

“Even with a hunting season, I believe there are going to be plenty of grizzly bears on the landscape for people to photograph and come and see,” Todd Stevie with the Sublette County Outfitters and Guides Association told the commission.

Environmentalists and nature photographer Tom Mangelsen, a Jackson Hole resident whose famous images include a salmon leaping into the gaping jaws of an Alaskan brown bear, doubted that.

“Killing grizzlies for fun, when there is ample scientific evidence that the population is not growing, food sources have already been diminished, and the further effects of climate change is unknown, is preposterous,” Mangelsen told the commissioners.

Hunt opponents made up a majority of the two dozen or so people who spoke up at the live-streamed commission meeting in Lander, a town of about 7,600 at the outer reaches of the ever-expanding range of Yellowstone-region grizzlies.

The region also includes parts of Montana and Idaho and is home to some 700 grizzlies, up from 136 when they were listed as a threatened species in 1975. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed federal protections for grizzlies in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem in 2017.

Montana has not yet allowed grizzly hunting. Idaho will allow one grizzly to be hunted this fall. Hunting has been ongoing in Alaska where grizzlies and their minimally differentiated brown bear and Kodiak bear relatives are common.

“We heard from the people of Wyoming, they were supportive of this. It’s pretty clear the science supports this,” said Wyoming Game and Fish Department spokesman Renny MacKay.

If legal challenges don’t intercede, hunting will begin Sept. 1 in the mountains and basins populated by relatively few grizzlies farthest from Yellowstone and Grand Teton. Hunting in a zone closer to the parks would begin Sept. 15 and end in all areas by Nov. 15.

As many as 12 grizzlies could be killed in the zone farther from the parks. Closer in, the limit is 10 and hunting would be stopped once 10 males or one female are killed, whichever happens first.

No more than one grizzly hunter at a time will be allowed in the closer-in zone to help ensure nobody accidentally exceeds the quota.

If demand for licenses is high, hunters might wait years for their chance. A computer program will randomly draw names of license applicants who would then pay $600 for a resident grizzly license and $6,000 if they live elsewhere.

Names will be drawn until 10 hunters have paid for their licenses and certified they’ve taken a firearms safety course. Each license will be valid for a 10-day window of opportunity.

If approved, hunting could account for a sizeable portion of grizzly deaths in the region this year but not likely the biggest. Of the 56 known and suspected deaths of Yellowstone grizzlies in 2017, 40 were caused by people including 19 killed by elk hunters and others in self-defense.

Environmentalists told the commission Wyoming has little leeway to allow hunting without exceeded mortality thresholds it agreed to as part of taking over management of the bears from the federal government.

“This proposal will set grizzly bear recovery back by decades. With all the threats the Yellowstone grizzly bear continues to face, it is irresponsible,” Bonnie Rice with the Sierra Club told the commission.

Not just hunters but ranchers, whose sheep and cattle often fall victim to roaming bears in western Wyoming, welcomed the opportunity for hunting to keep grizzly numbers in check.

“I know ‘management’ seems to have gotten a dirty name. But that’s the way we have to do it if want these animals to continue in the state,” said Charles Price, a rancher and former Game and Fish commissioner. “Hunting must be part of the management system.”

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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Grand Teton National Park has inappropriately prevented the public from learning about tentative plans for more than 50 miles of fiber-optic cable and new cellphone towers at 11 locations in the majestic preserve in Wyoming, an environmental group says.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility says it obtained a document through the Freedom of Information Act detailing the plan at the foot of the Teton Range.

The group’s executive director, Jeff Ruch, said Friday there’s been a pattern of national parks such as Yosemite and Great Smoky Mountains allowing new towers with little or no public notice.

Grand Teton spokesman Andrew White said the park sought public comment last summer at the outset of planning to add new cellphone towers to the two that are already in the park.

It’s the latest skirmish over how much tech should be allowed to intrude on some of the most stunning and wild places in the U.S. Parents may cringe when youngsters take more interest in their smartphones than spectacular landscapes, but nobody denies cellphone coverage makes national parks safer.

“We’re not against cell towers per se,” Ruch said. “We want to make sure they don’t needlessly sacrifice park values such as serenity, soundscape and viewsheds.”

Grand Teton is one of the busiest national parks, receiving more than 4.8 million visits in 2016. Cellphone coverage in developed areas of the park is unreliable because equipment is outdated and has been installed in piecemeal fashion over the past 20 years, according to the notice.

The group claims the document shows Grand Teton officials have made at least preliminary plans for 55 miles (89 kilometers) of fiber-optic cable and new cellphone towers in the park and neighboring John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway between Grand Teton and

The plans provided to the public thus far have been vague, and park officials are required by law to involve the public more than they have, Ruch said.

The group filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging the National Park Service has failed to respond to its request for additional public records related to the Grand Teton cell towers.

White declined comment on the lawsuit and the document obtained, citing agency policy not to comment on litigation.

In the document shared with The Associated Press, a San Diego-based real estate appraisal firm told a potential client it received a contract from Grand Teton in December to evaluate the potential rental rates for telecom companies at the proposed cellphone towers in the park.

Cellphone towers already exist in the park at Jackson Hole Airport, the only commercial airport located in a national park, and Signal Mountain.

If approved, 80-foot, single-pole towers could go up at Signal Mountain and 10 other locations between Moose, where park headquarters is located, and Flagg Ranch in the Rockefeller parkway, according to the document.

“If what fragmentary documents we have are correct, Grand Teton is on the verge of the biggest single addition of wireless equipment of any national park in the country,” Ruch said.

Grand Teton officials have been receiving right-of-way applications for fiber optic cable and wireless communications facilities since 2013, the park service said in last summer’s notice of planning for more cellphone facilities.

Improved cellphone service would improve emergency services, park administration, concessionaire operations, scientific research and public education, the notice said.

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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — How does a bighorn sheep say “cheese?”

Some charismatic critters caught by motion-detecting wildlife cameras seem to know how to strike a pose. But it’s not just show business. As these devices get ever smaller, cheaper and more reliable, scientists across the U.S. are using them to document elusive creatures like never before.

“There’s no doubt — it is an incredible tool to acquire data on wildlife,” said Grant Harris, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Remote cameras have photographed everything from small desert cats called ocelots to snow-loving lynx high in the Northern Rockies.

Harris cited photos of javelinas, pig-like desert mammals, and coatimundi, members of the raccoon family, taken at higher latitudes in recent years. That could mean global warming is expanding their range northward, he said.

Other scientists deploying remote cameras include researchers with the Wyoming Migration Initiative, who use global positioning to map the movements of elk, mule deer and antelope in and around Yellowstone National Park. They only have so many collars to track animals, meaning there’s a limit to the GPS data they can gather, said Matthew Kauffman, a University of Wyoming associate professor and initiative director.

“You see one animal migrating, you don’t know if it’s migrating by itself, if it’s migrating with a calf, or if it’s migrating with 40 other animals,” Kauffman said.

Remote cameras — which can be left in the backcountry for days, weeks or even months — help fill in blanks by showing how many animals are on the move over a given period, he said.

Where to position them requires careful forethought. Clustering several around a watering hole, for instance, might produce many images but not a thorough profile of a population. But a purely data-driven approach might not yield any useful photos.

“There’s this tension between subjectivity in where you put your camera and where it’s statistically sound,” Harris said.

Sometimes smart-alecky humans turn up among the images. “I’ve seen people moon cameras, and that’s always funny,” he said.

Remote video can also reveal details about animal behavior, including the mewling sounds of migrating mule deer. And live-streaming cameras for everything from bison in Saskatchewan, Canada, to the underwater kelp forest off California’s Channel Islands are always popular.

As with all human intrusion into nature, remote cameras have downsides. Animals such as wolverines and bears have been known to attack them, though whether out of curiosity or aggression is hard to say.

Also, remote cameras have become popular tools to help hunters scout for game, prompting a debate over fair-chase ethics. Then there’s the whole subjective thing about going into nature to get away from it all, including surveillance cameras.

But to answer that original question: A bighorn sheep that looks like it’s smiling probably isn’t saying “cheese” but sniffing pheromones and other scents in what’s called a flehmen response, said Harris.

In other words … bleats us.

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CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — How does a bighorn sheep say “cheese?”

Some charismatic critters caught by motion-detecting wildlife cameras seem to know how to strike a pose. But it’s not just show business. As these devices get ever smaller, cheaper and more reliable, scientists across the U.S. are using them to document elusive creatures like never before.

“There’s no doubt — it is an incredible tool to acquire data on wildlife,” said Grant Harris, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wildlife biologist based in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Remote cameras have photographed everything from small desert cats called ocelots to snow-loving lynx high in the Northern Rockies.

Harris cited photos of javelinas, pig-like desert mammals, and coatimundi, members of the raccoon family, taken at higher latitudes in recent years. That could mean global warming is expanding their range northward, he said.

Other scientists deploying remote cameras include researchers with the Wyoming Migration Initiative, who use global positioning to map the movements of elk, mule deer and antelope in and around Yellowstone National Park. They only have so many collars to track animals, meaning there’s a limit to the GPS data they can gather, said Matthew Kauffman, a University of Wyoming associate professor and initiative director.

“You see one animal migrating, you don’t know if it’s migrating by itself, if it’s migrating with a calf, or if it’s migrating with 40 other animals,” Kauffman said.

Remote cameras — which can be left in the backcountry for days, weeks or even months — help fill in blanks by showing how many animals are on the move over a given period, he said.

Where to position them requires careful forethought. Clustering several around a watering hole, for instance, might produce many images but not a thorough profile of a population. But a purely data-driven approach might not yield any useful photos.

“There’s this tension between subjectivity in where you put your camera and where it’s statistically sound,” Harris said.

Sometimes smart-alecky humans turn up among the images. “I’ve seen people moon cameras, and that’s always funny,” he said.

Remote video can also reveal details about animal behavior, including the mewling sounds of migrating mule deer. And live-streaming cameras for everything from bison in Saskatchewan, Canada, to the underwater kelp forest off California’s Channel Islands are always popular.

As with all human intrusion into nature, remote cameras have downsides. Animals such as wolverines and bears have been known to attack them, though whether out of curiosity or aggression is hard to say.

Also, remote cameras have become popular tools to help hunters scout for game, prompting a debate over fair-chase ethics. Then there’s the whole subjective thing about going into nature to get away from it all, including surveillance cameras.

But to answer that original question: A bighorn sheep that looks like it’s smiling probably isn’t saying “cheese” but sniffing pheromones and other scents in what’s called a flehmen response, said Harris.

In other words … bleats us.

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Follow Mead Gruver at https://twitter.com/meadgruver

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — National parks in the U.S. will sharply drop the number of days they allow visitors to get in for free, a move that was criticized by opponents of the parks’ plan to raise entrance costs at other times of the year.

After waiving fees 16 days in 2016 and 10 days in 2017, the National Park Service announced Tuesday that it will have four no-cost days next year. They will be Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan. 15), the first day of National Park Week (April 21), National Public Lands Day (Sept. 22) and Veterans Day (Nov. 11.

This year’s free days included all of Veterans Day weekend and the weekends surrounding National Park Week. All of National Park Week and four days over the 100th anniversary of the Park Service were free in 2016.

The Park Service charges weekly entrance fees of $25 or $30 per vehicle at 118 of the 417 national parks. The Park Service has proposed raising the cost to $70 at 17 busy parks mainly in the West, including Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Zion.

The agency estimates the increase would generate an additional $70 million to help address backlogged maintenance and infrastructure projects. Opponents, including attorneys general from 10 states, say the higher costs could turn away visitors and might not raise that much money.

The Park Service didn’t explain why it was cutting back on free days. An Interior Department spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The days that we designate as fee-free for national parks mark opportunities for the public to participate in service projects, enjoy ranger-led programs, or just spend time with family and friends exploring these diverse and special places,” National Park Service Deputy Director Michael T. Reynolds said in a statement.

A group opposed to raising fees criticized the change.

“Not everyone can book a helicopter or charter a boat when they want to visit our national parks,” said Jesse Prentice-Dunn with the Denver-based Center for Western Priorities in a release. “America’s parks must remain affordable for working families.”

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