BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Researchers will begin trapping grizzly and black bears Sunday in Yellowstone National Park.

The trapping is an effort to gather data on the protected grizzly bears as part of long-term research required under the Endangered Species Act.

The bears will be baited, trapped and anesthetized so biologists can attach radio collars and collect scientific samples.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/2pFfj3L ) biologists the trapping will take place in remote locations that are not near hiking trails or backcountry camping. The Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team says signs warning the public will be posted around the perimeter of trapping areas.

Trapping will continue through July 30.

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Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Montana game wardens are investigating the poaching of 37 snow geese that were found southeast of Helena near Canyon Ferry Reservoir.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials say the birds were discovered last week on land off U.S. Highway 12 north of Winston. They were believed to have been shot with a shotgun or rifle between April 21 and 23.

Wardens say the geese may have been dumped on the property.

The waterfowl hunting season ended in January and the limit for snow geese in season is 20.

Anyone with information is asked to call Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

HYRUM, Utah (AP) — Two teenage boys stuck in the muddy, chilly waters of a northern Utah lake yelled about the Utah Jazz until they received an assist from rescuers trying to locate the boys’ voices.

Cache County Sheriff’s Lt. Brian Locke says the boys accidentally fell into Hyrum Reservoir south of Logan, Utah, on Saturday when the bank collapsed under them while they were fishing. The teens, both from Davis County, were unable to climb out of the water because the bank was slick and muddy.

Locke says one of the teens was able to use a cellphone to call for help. Rescuers used rough coordinates from the cellphone to get to the area but asked the boys to yell “Utah Jazz!” until the rescuers could zero in on their spot.

The boys were in the water for about an hour but did not need medical attention.

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — The population of non-native mountain goats is growing prolifically in the Teton Range in Wyoming, while the number of native bighorn sheep is in noticeable decline, a biologist says.

Counting bighorn sheep from a helicopter over the past three years, Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist Aly Courtemanch has tallied no more than 57 bighorns in the Tetons, a considerable drop from counts of 96 in 2008 and 81 in 2010.

“We’ve always said we believe the population was stable at about 100 to 125 sheep, but it seems like these recent counts indicate that it’s dipped,” Courtemanch said.

Factoring in sheep that she missed from the helicopter, Courtemanch figures there’s likely 80 or so sheep inhabiting the Tetons.

Meanwhile, an aerial count found 43 mountain goats — an exotic species introduced by Idaho decades ago to be hunted.

“The fact that we saw almost as many goats as we saw sheep is concerning,” Courtemanch told the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Bighorn sheep and mountain goats inhabit the West, including Colorado, Montana and Idaho, but mountain goats generally live in different terrain than bighorn sheep.

However, in the Tetons, one goat was seen within a couple hundred yards of the sheep, Courtemanch said.

The closeness is worrisome for managers because Teton Range goats have tested positive for strains of bacterial pathogens that can be deadly in bighorn, triggering potentially catastrophic pneumonia outbreaks.

Transmission among the two species has not been documented, nor is their relationship to one another well understood, at least in the Tetons.

Grand Teton National Park has been working on a management plan to rid the Tetons of mountain goats, but wildlife biologist Sarah Dewey said she couldn’t say right now when the plan might be completed.

Courtemanch said more research in the years ahead will reveal whether invading mountain goats are partly to blame for the bighorn decline.

“We don’t know if the drop in sheep numbers we’re seeing is a direct effect of the mountain goats being there,” said Courtemanch, who studied the herd for her University of Wyoming master’s thesis. “There’s a lot of pressures on that sheep population, and mountain goats might be one of those.”

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — The population of non-native mountain goats is growing prolifically in the Teton Range in Wyoming, while the number of native bighorn sheep is in noticeable decline, a biologist says.

Counting bighorn sheep from a helicopter over the past three years, Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist Aly Courtemanch has tallied no more than 57 bighorns in the Tetons, a considerable drop from counts of 96 in 2008 and 81 in 2010.

“We’ve always said we believe the population was stable at about 100 to 125 sheep, but it seems like these recent counts indicate that it’s dipped,” Courtemanch said.

Factoring in sheep that she missed from the helicopter, Courtemanch figures there’s likely 80 or so sheep inhabiting the Tetons.

Meanwhile, an aerial count found 43 mountain goats — an exotic species introduced by Idaho decades ago to be hunted.

“The fact that we saw almost as many goats as we saw sheep is concerning,” Courtemanch told the Jackson Hole News & Guide (http://bit.ly/2oxzt2g ).

Bighorn sheep and mountain goats inhabit the West, including Colorado, Montana and Idaho, but mountain goats generally live in different terrain than bighorn sheep.

However, in the Tetons, one goat was seen within a couple hundred yards of the sheep, Courtemanch said.

The closeness is worrisome for managers because Teton Range goats have tested positive for strains of bacterial pathogens that can be deadly in bighorn, triggering potentially catastrophic pneumonia outbreaks.

Transmission among the two species has not been documented, nor is their relationship to one another well understood, at least in the Tetons.

Grand Teton National Park has been working on a management plan to rid the Tetons of mountain goats, but wildlife biologist Sarah Dewey said she couldn’t say right now when the plan might be completed.

Courtemanch said more research in the years ahead will reveal whether invading mountain goats are partly to blame for the bighorn decline.

“We don’t know if the drop in sheep numbers we’re seeing is a direct effect of the mountain goats being there,” said Courtemanch, who studied the herd for her University of Wyoming master’s thesis. “There’s a lot of pressures on that sheep population, and mountain goats might be one of those.”

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Information from: Jackson Hole (Wyo.) News And Guide, http://www.jhnewsandguide.com

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) — Yellowstone National Park is accepting public comment on a proposed project to reconstruct a segment of the East Entrance Road from Fishing Bridge to Indian Pond.

The proposed road reconstruction project would include work on about 3 miles of road, associated parking areas and turnouts, Fishing Bridge and Pelican Creek Bridge.

The project would make the road compliant with engineering safety standards, widen the road to the standard of 30-feet, repair or replace the deteriorated bridges, restore wetland functions and improve roadway and parking efficiency.

Public comments will be accepted until May 26.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — An appeals court has ruled that U.S. government officials don’t have to take immediate action to protect a pine tree that is a source of food for threatened grizzly bears.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in its order Friday that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s ability to protect species through the federal Endangered Species Act is limited by “practical realities,” such as scarce funds and limited staff.

The whitebark pine is in decline amid threats of disease, the mountain pine beetle, wildfire and climate change.

The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2011 said that protections for the high-elevation tree were warranted, but precluded by other priorities. Two conservation groups sued to force the government to immediately list the whitebark pine as an endangered or threatened species.

Canada listed the tree as endangered in 2010.

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Yellowstone National Park managers are asking employees to help change the workplace culture after a report found evidence of sexual harassment within the park’s maintenance division, superintendent Dan Wenk said.

The park has increased training and made sure employees know where they can go to report misconduct, Wenk told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (bit.ly/2pm51p0) on Wednesday.

Park managers will be considering other moves to address sexual harassment.

“They include personnel actions. They include organizational realignments. They include changes in policies and procedures,” Wenk said. “We will be taking action.”

No disciplinary action has yet been taken, Wenk said.

The Interior Department released a report earlier this month that found male supervisors and staff in the maintenance division created a work environment that included unwelcome and inappropriate comments and actions toward women. The allegations were raised last year by a former park employee.

Wenk said he reviewed the interview transcripts in the investigation.

“While the report said the problems are not systemic throughout Yellowstone National Park,” Wenk said, “I also know they’re not limited to one unit of Yellowstone National Park.”

The park held an all-employee meeting about the issue this week, he said.

“I told employees that we can’t change the culture of Yellowstone by edict. We have to have everybody’s help,” Wenk said.

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Information from: Bozeman Daily Chronicle, http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com

CHEYENNE, Wyoming (AP) — Wyoming will hold a wolf hunt for the first time in four years this fall now that a federal court has lifted endangered species protection for wolves in the state, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department said Wednesday.

Planning is now underway for the hunt in northwestern Wyoming, which will probably be similar to the state’s last wolf hunting seasons in 2012 and 2013, officials said.

In 2013, the department allowed hunters to kill as many as 26 wolves in an area outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and northwest of the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Hunters who were among the 2,153 who purchased licenses that year got 23 wolves. Another wolf killed that was killed illegally also counted toward the 2013 quota.

The upcoming wolf hunting season will not “change in terms of quotas very much. People shouldn’t expect that that’s going to change because they were removing a lot of wolves while they were under federal control,” said game and fish spokesman Renny MacKay.

During the two-year period that wolves were brought back under federal control in Wyoming, wildlife managers continued to kill wolves that preyed on livestock and caused other problems.

The tightly regulated hunting season only applies to wolves’ core territory in the greater Yellowstone area. Elsewhere in Wyoming, where wolves aren’t nearly as numerous, unregulated hunting will take place year-round: Wolves there may now once again be shot on sight by anybody without a gun.

Outside of the wolves’ core habitat, they are classified as predators of livestock, like coyotes.

The shoot-on-sight provision in effect for most of the state has been particularly bothersome to wolf advocates who want to know the state will maintain a viable population.

The state decision to plan for its next wolf hunting season came after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday put wolves back under the state’s control.

The decision lifted one in 2014 by a federal judge who had sided with environmentalists concerned Wyoming’s plan would not require it to maintain a minimum number of wolves in the state.

A three-judge panel of the court ruled in March that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adequately took into account concerns raised about Wyoming’s wolf-management plan. Environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council declined to appeal.

Instead they plan to focus on stopping efforts in Congress to keep wolves off the endangered list and prohibit legal efforts to keep wolves listed.

“Congress needs to stop meddling with species protection and allow the law work the way it was intended. And that means allowing the courts to review decisions, and make decisions, and allow the agencies to use the best available science to determine whether a species needs protection,” NRDC attorney Rebecca Riley said.

The 2014 ruling put wolves back under federal control in Wyoming days before that year’s wolf hunt was scheduled to begin.

The game and fish department plans to draft this fall’s wolf hunt for the state Game and Fish Commission to consider over the summer. The commission will hold a series of public meetings around the state on wolf hunting before voting on the plan in time for hunting this fall, MacKay said.

The fish and wildlife service would not need to sign off on the plan. Wyoming remains pledged to maintain at least 100 wolves, including 10 breeding pairs, outside Yellowstone and the Wind River Indian Reservation. The state currently has about 400 wolves.

About 5,500 wolves, many descended from wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s, now inhabit the continental U.S. states, where they were once hunted to near extinction.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming will hold a wolf hunt for the first time in four years this fall now that a federal court has lifted endangered species protection for wolves in the state, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department said Wednesday.

Planning is now underway for the hunt in northwestern Wyoming, which will probably be similar to the state’s last wolf hunting seasons in 2012 and 2013, officials said.

In 2013, the department allowed hunters to kill as many as 26 wolves in an area outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks and northwest of the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Hunters who were among the 2,153 who purchased licenses that year got 23 wolves. Another wolf killed that was killed illegally also counted toward the 2013 quota.

The upcoming wolf hunting season will not “change in terms of quotas very much. People shouldn’t expect that that’s going to change because they were removing a lot of wolves while they were under federal control,” said game and fish spokesman Renny MacKay.

During the two-year period that wolves were brought back under federal control in Wyoming, wildlife managers continued to kill wolves that preyed on livestock and caused other problems.

The tightly regulated hunting season only applies to wolves’ core territory in the greater Yellowstone area. Elsewhere in Wyoming, where wolves aren’t nearly as numerous, unregulated hunting will take place year-round: Wolves there may now once again be shot on sight by anybody without a gun.

Outside of the wolves’ core habitat, they are classified as predators of livestock, like coyotes.

The shoot-on-sight provision in effect for most of the state has been particularly bothersome to wolf advocates who want to know the state will maintain a viable population.

The state decision to plan for its next wolf hunting season came after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday put wolves back under the state’s control.

The decision lifted one in 2014 by a federal judge who had sided with environmentalists concerned Wyoming’s plan would not require it to maintain a minimum number of wolves in the state.

A three-judge panel of the court ruled in March that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adequately took into account concerns raised about Wyoming’s wolf-management plan. Environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council declined to appeal.

Instead they plan to focus on stopping efforts in Congress to keep wolves off the endangered list and prohibit legal efforts to keep wolves listed.

“Congress needs to stop meddling with species protection and allow the law work the way it was intended. And that means allowing the courts to review decisions, and make decisions, and allow the agencies to use the best available science to determine whether a species needs protection,” NRDC attorney Rebecca Riley said.

The 2014 ruling put wolves back under federal control in Wyoming days before that year’s wolf hunt was scheduled to begin.

The game and fish department plans to draft this fall’s wolf hunt for the state Game and Fish Commission to consider over the summer. The commission will hold a series of public meetings around the state on wolf hunting before voting on the plan in time for hunting this fall, MacKay said.

The fish and wildlife service would not need to sign off on the plan. Wyoming remains pledged to maintain at least 100 wolves, including 10 breeding pairs, outside Yellowstone and the Wind River Indian Reservation. The state currently has about 400 wolves.

About 5,500 wolves, many descended from wolves reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s, now inhabit the continental U.S. states, where they were once hunted to near extinction.

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