KETCHUM, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho Fish and Game Commission is considering several changes to hunting rules, including allowing the use of bait to hunt wolves.

The department is proposing the rule change in response to requests from hunters who want to use bait for hunting wolves outside of the black bear seasons.

Under current rules, wolves can be killed by hunters when they are attracted to bait set out for black bears, where hunting seasons are open for both black bear and wolf. But big game rules do not allow use of bait specific to hunting wolves, the Idaho Mountain Express reported Friday.

The Department of Fish and Game is seeking public comment on the proposed changes until July 26.

If the rule goes into effect, Idaho would be the only state in the country to permit wolf baiting, according to the Tucson, Arizona-based activist group Center for Biological Diversity.

Andrea Santarsiere, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, called the proposal “shameful and unethical.”

“Since wolves lost Endangered Species Act protection, Idaho has grown increasingly aggressive in how and where it permits their hunting and trapping,” Santarsiere said. “In the absence of federal oversight, Idaho is doing everything it can to decimate Idaho’s wolf population.”

The state’s estimated wolf population rose to a high of 856 in 2009, dropped to 684 by 2013, then rose again to 786 by the end of 2015, according to the Department of Fish and Game.

The state hasn’t produced an estimate since 2015.

Another proposed rule would restrict the use of trail cameras and similar unattended devices for hunting all big game. Also restricted would be the use of electronic two-way communication devices, such as cellphones and radios, as an aid to hunting.

Department of Fish and Game spokesman Mike Keckler said the commission will review the comments it receives on those and several other proposed rules during its meeting July 27 in Bonner’s Ferry. He said decisions may be made at that time.

OSGOOD — An Osgood family had quite a surprise Saturday evening when a moose suddenly showed up in their yard and stayed for nearly two hours.

The male moose entered the Gebarowskis’ backyard on 3167 North through a small gap in their wooden fence around 5:30 p.m.

“This is the first time since 1999 that we have seen a moose in our area,” Jodi Gebarowski told EastIdahoNews.com in a Facebook message. “There’s a canal that runs back (behind the house) and lots of fields so he came in from the canal.”

The animal wandered around the Gebarowski’s yard and made himself at home. He sat down on the grass for a while and then ate some leaves off a tree.

The family called the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to report the moose. When deputies arrived, they spooked the animal and he ran out through the front yard to some nearby fields.

Gebarowski said while they often see deer in their neighborhood, this moose encounter is something they’ll remember for a long time.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho wildlife officials have issued a fish salvage order for the lower Big Lost River in central Idaho that’s expected to run dry.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game said Friday it has suspended limits on the number of fish that can be caught as well as size limits on the section of the river below the Moore Diversion.

The order runs through Aug. 31 and also allows anglers to use seines and dip nets to catch fish.

Anglers are required to have a valid fishing license.

Officials say high water in the spring caused an unknown number of fish to move below the Moore Diversion.

Officials say that section of the river will go dry this summer and fish will be stranded and die.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) — Visitation to Yellowstone National Park during June is down 4.8 percent from a year ago but is still the second-busiest June on record in the nation’s first national park.

The National Park Service counted more than 803,000 visits last month. In June 2016, the park welcomed over 838,000 visitors, a record for the month.

During the first six months of this year, the park has hosted about 1.3 million visits, down 5.5 percent from the same period in 2016.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Colorado woman is dead and five other people are injured after a nighttime explosion on a houseboat along the Utah-Arizona border, authorities said Thursday.

A generator exploded about 10 p.m. Wednesday as a large group that included about 20 other people vacationed on a privately owned boat on Lake Powell, authorities said.

Kirsten Meyer, 52, of Castle Rock, Colorado was killed and four other people were flown to hospitals in Grand Junction, Colorado, and Salt Lake City in critical condition, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area spokeswoman Mary Plumb said.

They suffered broken bones, burns and facial injuries, she said. A fifth person, a boy, suffered minor injuries and was treated and released from a clinic at Lake Powell.

Someone was trying to start the generator in the Crystal Springs Canyon area when it suddenly exploded, Sheriff Rick Eldredge of San Juan County, Utah, said in a statement.

The boat was anchored on shore in the area without road access, Plumb said.

The National Park Service and sheriff’s office are investigating.

Identities of the people involved weren’t immediately released.

The man-made Lake Powell is one of the largest reservoirs in the U.S. and is a popular destination for recreation. At nearly 200 miles (322 kilometers) long and with more than 1,900 miles (3,058 kilometers) of shoreline and nearly 100 major side canyons, it attracted more than 3 million visitors last year.

WARD, Colo. (AP) — A teen staffer at a Colorado camp fought off a black bear after waking up Sunday to find the animal biting his head and trying to drag him away.

The 19-year-old woke up at around 4 a.m. to a “crunching sound” with his head inside the mouth of the bear, which was trying to pull him out of his sleeping bag as he slept outside at Glacier View Ranch 48 miles northwest of Denver, said Jennifer Churchhill, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman.

The teen punched and hit it and other staffers who were sleeping nearby yelled and swatted at the bear, which eventually left, she said.

The staffer, identified only as Dylan, was treated briefly at a hospital and released.

The teen told KMGH-TV that the bear dragged him 10 to 12 feet before he was able to free himself.

“The crunching noise, I guess, was the teeth scraping against the skull as it dug in,” said the teen, who teaches wilderness survival at the camp owned by the Rocky Mountain Conference of Seventh Day Adventists.

Dylan and the other staffers were near teepees where 12- and 13-year-old campers were sleeping. None of them were hurt.

Black bears aren’t usually aggressive but have attacked several people in the West in recent weeks.

A woman and her dogs were attacked on Tuesday after they apparently surprised an adult bear and her cub in a huckleberry patch in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

Last month, black bears killed two people in Alaska in separate attacks.

Sixteen-year-old Patrick “Jack” Cooper of Anchorage was killed after he got lost and veered off a trail during a mountain race south of Anchorage. Mine contract worker Erin Johnson of Anchorage died and her co-worker was injured in a mauling about 275 miles northeast of Anchorage.

Black bears will defend their young and have been known to paw and bite tents with food inside. After the Colorado attack wildlife officers did not find any food that would have attracted the bear so they have set bear traps in the area and plan to continue a search for the bear with scent dogs on Monday.

The bear’s behavior was so atypical that any bear found in the traps in the next few days will likely be euthanized and officials will test later to see if it was the same bear involved in the attack using DNA evidence, Churchill said.

DENVER (AP) — Denver will be the new home for the nation’s largest outdoor recreation trade show.

At a press conference with Colorado’s governor and Denver’s mayor, the director of the Outdoor Retailer trade show, Marisa Nicholson, announced Thursday that the show would be held in the Mile High City starting in 2018.

The retailers are leaving Utah after 20 years. Political differences with Utah leaders, including their opposition to the Bears Ears National Monument, sparked the move.

The show decided to leave after Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed a resolution calling on federal officials to rescind the monument that President Barack Obama designated on 1.3 million acres of land in southeastern Utah considered sacred to Native American tribes.

The organization’s biannual events attracted an estimated $45 million in annual direct spending to Utah.

JACKSON, Wyoming (AP) — Searchers in northwestern Wyoming are looking for a 21-year-old Georgia man who went missing after he and several others were thrown from a raft into the Snake River south of Jackson.

Teton County Sheriff’s Lt. Matt Carr says Oliver Woodward was last seen late Tuesday afternoon in the water in the Snake River Canyon, about a mile south of Hoback Junction. Four others were able to get to shore.

The search for Woodward began Tuesday evening and continued Wednesday.

Woodward is 6 feet tall. He was wearing green board shorts, but was not wearing a life jacket.

DEVILS TOWER, Wyo. (AP) — The number of people who climb an unusual rock formation in northeast Wyoming during June is on the rise despite the concerns of American Indian tribes who hold the place sacred.

Devils Tower is nearly 900 feet tall from base to summit. Devils Tower National Monument was the first U.S. national monument and many know the volcanic feature for its role in the 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Devils Tower is a popular target for climbers but also culturally significant to at least 25 tribes in the region. In the mid-1990s, climbers, the tribes and National Park Service officials agreed to a compromise that put the tower voluntarily off-limits to climbing during June.

The number of people climbing Devils Tower in June fell from 1,200 to just 167 in June 1995. Lately the number is back up, reaching 373 in June 2016, Wyoming Public Radio reported (http://bit.ly/2sbn6Xi).

A steady increase in June climbing over the past five years isn’t tied to the growing number of people visiting Devils Tower, monument superintendent Tim Reid said.

“It’s safe to say that largely, the bulk of June climbing is done by relatively local or regional climbers who for whatever reasons find it personally acceptable to climb in June,” Reid said.

It’s painful when climbers ignore the closure, said Waylon Black Crow Senior as he chaperoned Lakota youth from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

“We see them climbing up there,” said Black Crow. “And all we can do is watch.”

Recent June climbers included commercial guide and lodge owner Frank Sanders, who said he knew not everyone agreed with his decision to climb then.

“The tower’s not for one person, or one group of people, or one month, or one day, or one week,” said Sanders. “It’s for all of us.”

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Information from: KUWR-FM, http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/wpr/

DEVILS TOWER, Wyo. (AP) — The number of people who climb an unusual rock formation in northeast Wyoming during June is on the rise despite the concerns of American Indian tribes who hold the place sacred.

Devils Tower is nearly 900 feet tall from base to summit. Devils Tower National Monument was the first U.S. national monument and many know the volcanic feature for its role in the 1977 film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

Devils Tower is a popular target for climbers but also culturally significant to at least 25 tribes in the region. In the mid-1990s, climbers, the tribes and National Park Service officials agreed to a compromise that put the tower voluntarily off-limits to climbing during June.

The number of people climbing Devils Tower in June fell from 1,200 to just 167 in June 1995. Lately the number is back up, reaching 373 in June 2016, Wyoming Public Radio reported (http://bit.ly/2sbn6Xi).

A steady increase in June climbing over the past five years isn’t tied to the growing number of people visiting Devils Tower, monument superintendent Tim Reid said.

“It’s safe to say that largely, the bulk of June climbing is done by relatively local or regional climbers who for whatever reasons find it personally acceptable to climb in June,” Reid said.

It’s painful when climbers ignore the closure, said Waylon Black Crow Senior as he chaperoned Lakota youth from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

“We see them climbing up there,” said Black Crow. “And all we can do is watch.”

Recent June climbers included commercial guide and lodge owner Frank Sanders, who said he knew not everyone agreed with his decision to climb then.

“The tower’s not for one person, or one group of people, or one month, or one day, or one week,” said Sanders. “It’s for all of us.”

___

Information from: KUWR-FM, http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/wpr/