MOOSE, Wyo. (AP) — Wildlife managers in Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming say they had to euthanize a red fox that was exhibiting bold behavior because people had been feeding it.

The National Park Service says the fox had to be killed because of concern for human safety.

Feeding park wildlife is illegal.

Grand Teton Superintendent David Vela says he hopes this case will serve as a cautionary reminder to not feed wildlife and to secure food sources that might attract wildlife.

Vela encouraged park visitors to immediately report incidents of animals being fed.

Biologists have documented increasing numbers of habituated and food-conditioned foxes in the park.

Some foxes have been observed begging for food in developed areas and harassing ice fisherman on Jackson Lake.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah avalanche experts are warning backcountry skiers to be extra cautious due to a thin early season snowpack that is the lowest in four decades.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a weather gauge near the top of Little Cottonwood Canyon east of Salt Lake City shows that fewer than 50 inches of snow had fallen by Jan. 1. That’s the lowest total for that date since 1977.

Drew Hardesty, a forecaster with the U.S. Forest Service’s Utah Avalanche Center, says the thin early season snow can quickly become weak, sugary-like snow that breaks.

Nobody has died in an avalanche this winter but Hardesty is warning backcountry skiers to use extra caution.

Hardesty says avalanche deaths exceeded the yearly average of 2.8 in each of the last three winters when the snowpack was less than 100 inches by Jan. 1.

___

Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A 35-year-old Utah man has died in an avalanche in southwestern Wyoming.

Officials with the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center say Brennan Walpole of Spanish Fork, Utah, was with a group of 15 to 18 riders when the slide was triggered at about 1 p.m. Friday.

Avalanche Center Director Bob Comey tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide that the group was able to dig Walpole out of the snow after 8 to 10 minutes, but he was unconscious. They began CPR, sent an emergency alert using a satellite messenger and a search and rescue responders arrived by 3 p.m. Walpole was flown to the hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho, where he died.

Two other snowmobilers were partially buried, but escaped without injury.

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — Two snowboarders were killed in separate weekend accidents in northwestern Montana.

Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry says 22-year-old Conner Heidegger of Rollins died Saturday when he intentionally jumped off a cliff while boarding out of bounds near a ski area near Lakeside. Curry says Heidegger and his friend had been snowboarding at Blacktail Mountain and were heading toward their vehicle when they spotted the cliff.

Also Saturday, 28-year-old Scott Robert Hornstra of Alberta died at Whitefish Mountain Resort after falling into a tree well — an area with little or no snow around a tree.

Curry says Hornstra’s friends reported him missing when he did not meet them at the bottom of a run. His body was found at about 2 a.m. Sunday.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Kayakers discovered a body along the Greenbelt near the Diversion Dam off Highway 21 in Boise, Idaho.

KBOI-TV reports that the Ada County Sheriff’s Office says the body was found shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday about 100 yards east of the dam.

It appears the man had been deceased for several days.

His personal belongings were found nearby along the Greenbelt.

Detectives found no obvious signs of foul play. The investigation is ongoing.

LA BARGE, Wyo. (AP) — A group of more than 20 people stopped and helped rescue elk that plunged through the ice on a frigid reservoir in western Wyoming.

The rescuers began using chain saws and other tools to cut the ice to reach the elk Friday morning at Palisades Reservoir. The ice proved too thick — up to 2 feet (less than a meter) — so they lassoed the elk to help them to shore, Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist Gary Fralick said.

They saved about a dozen cow elk and calves after about 45 minutes, the Casper Star-Tribune reported .

“Without that many people helping, many more elk would have died,” he said. “People were trying to pull elk out of the water while people were sawing through ice to make a pathway to the shoreline. It was a big team effort to try and get them out of the ice.”

Two exhausted calves were taken by backhoe to a nearby elk feedground. The calves were later seen standing up.

About 30 elk fell through and died at Palisades two years ago. Fralick said it was the first time in 25 years with the department he could remember so many elk being saved.

Montana will conduct a second special deer hunt — this one along the Canadian border — as wildlife officials scramble to gauge the prevalence of a newly-found disease that’s fatal to deer, elk and moose.

State wildlife commissioners approved the hunt Thursday. Officials said they expect to issue about 335 licenses for hunters to harvest 135 mule deer in the Chester area.

Killed animals will be tested for chronic wasting disease.

The neurological disease first showed up in southcentral Montana this fall and near Chester on Dec. 4

In neighboring Wyoming, it’s caused a 21 percent annual decline in mule deer populations. Researchers say it could drive the species to localized extinction.

Another special hunt is already under way in Carbon Count just north of the Wyoming border, where officials set a quota of 200 white-tailed deer and 200 mule deer.

BOISE (AP) — A Meridian man caught a fish at a western Idaho lake that broke the state’s weight record.

KBOI-TV reports Dave Gassel recently pulled from Lake Cascade a largescale sucker weighing 9.04 pounds.

The previous record was 8.42 pounds, and the heavyweight also was caught at Lake Cascade.

Idaho Fish and Game officials say largescale suckers typically stay in the deeper areas of the water.

Suckers can be found in most rivers and lakes in Idaho that are connected to the Snake River. The U.S. and Canada are home to 60 species of suckers.

BOISE (AP) — Idaho wildlife officials say a trapper reported finding a wolverine dead in a trap in east-central Idaho.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game in a news release Tuesday says the Idaho trapper reported finding the adult female wolverine inadvertently caught in his trap in Lemhi County on Dec. 8.

Idaho has not allowed a hunting or trapping season for wolverines since 1965.

Wolverines were wiped out across most of the U.S. by the 1930s. In the Lower 48 states, an estimated 250 to 300 wolverines survive in remote areas of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington state.

Fish and Game spokesman Roger Phillips says the trapped wolverine will be mounted for educational purposes and kept at the agency’s office in Salmon.

MISSOULA, Montana (AP) — Work to restore grizzly bears to the North Cascades Ecosystem has been stopped by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s office, a national parks official told a Montana newspaper.

But Zinke spokeswoman Heather Swift told The Associated Press Tuesday that Zinke did not direct a stop work order on the environmental review. Swift didn’t provide further details.

North Cascades National Park Superintendent Karen Taylor-Goodrich told the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee last week that her staff had been asked to halt work on its environmental review, the Missoulian reported.

She said the order also stalls discussions with Canadian wildlife managers who oversee a similar grizzly recovery process in British Columbia.

“We were in the process of evaluating public comment,” Taylor-Goodrich said of the stop order. “We’re in year three of the process and all the public scoping has been done. The draft EIS went out for public review in spring and we’ve received about 127,000 comments.”

A park spokeswoman in Washington state on Tuesday referred all questions to the Interior Department.

The National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been considering four options to restore the grizzly population, including taking no action.

Three alternatives seek to restore a population of about 200 bears, by relocating animals to 9,800 square miles of mostly public land in and around North Cascades National Park and letting them breed. The options differ in the number of bruins initially released and the time expected to get to that goal, ranging from 25 years for the expedited option to 60 to 100 years for the other two alternatives.

Supporters of the proposals to bring back the population say the population won’t recover without help and their return would increase the biodiversity of the ecosystem.

Others say the animals should recover naturally, while some worry about potential increased dangers to recreationists and livestock and opposed the move over potential impacts to communities, ranchers, farmers and others.

Federal officials have noted that grizzly bears would be relocated in remote areas. They would likely come from areas in northwestern Montana or south-central British Columbia.

They were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975. In the North Cascades, the population is estimated to be fewer than 20 animals, according to Fish and Wildlife Service.

A federal 1997 plan designated the North Cascades as one of five grizzly bear recovery zones. The others are in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.