CODY, Wyo. (AP) — The superintendent of Yellowstone National Park expects visitor numbers to continue to grow, but he says he’s ready for the challenge.

The park is coming off two years of record-high attendance and Superintendent Dan Wenk does not believe it has peaked yet, reported The Cody Enterprise.

Yellowstone saw 4,097,711 visitors in 2015 and had topped that number by October this year, when it reached 4,221,782. Wenk said the 2016 numbers might have been even higher if it wasn’t for early October snow and a busy fire season that closed the South Gate for a time in August.

“We have seen a steady growth and over the long term it continues to grow,” Wenk said. “We will be dealing with increased visitation into the future.”

Yellowstone opened in 1872 and is the country’s oldest national park. It was overrun by fans in summer 2015, said Wenk, causing overcrowded roads and bathrooms and lots of complaints from the public.

But Wenk said the park beefed up its staffing for summer 2016, which went more smoothly.

“We learned a lot from the summer of 2015,” he explained. “Adjustments were made and they made some of the congestion better.”

Wenk said he remains concerned about some dangerous and illegal activity at the park, including visitors putting a bison calf into a vehicle, tourists leaving footprints at the Grand Prismatic Spring and a young man stepping off the boardwalk and being killed in a hot spring.

“I was disturbed our messages weren’t getting out,” the superintendent said. “People actually knew, but they thought the risk was worth taking. We have a lot of behavior in the park where people risk their lives or the resource. You can’t protect everybody from everything.”

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) — Officials say that A BASE jumper injured his ankle after jumping off of a bridge.

Twin Falls County Sheriff’s Lt. Daron Brown said that while the jumper’s parachute fully opened Tuesday, he hurt his ankle on landing, the Times-News reported (http://bit.ly/2gjEfJb).

Brown and several paramedics in the sheriff’s office boat reached the BASE jumper near the landing zone underneath the Perrine Bridge.

Brown said that the jumper, who was not identified, walked to the boat and was put into a splint before being taken to the hospital.

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Information from: The Times-News, http://www.magicvalley.com

BUHL, Idaho (AP) — Fire officials say 15 pigs died in southern Idaho barn fire on Friday.

Buhl Fire Chief Andrew Stevens told The Times-News newspaper (http://bit.ly/2g5t45E ) that the two-story barn was fully engulfed before anyone noticed the fire early Friday morning. The pigs, mostly 40-pound weaners, were all inside the barn or enclosed in an adjacent corral.

The barn was built for livestock shelter and feed storage in 1914. Tim and Jasmine Hargrove have raised pigs in it for the past five years.

Stevens says the fire is under investigation.

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Information from: The Times-News, http://www.magicvalley.com

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Officials from across the U.S. Northwest hope it’s not too late to contain invasive mussels found for the first time in Montana.

State Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials announced Nov. 8 that larvae were discovered in the Tiber Reservoir, The Spokesman-Review reported.

During a meeting of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region coalition in Boise this week, officials from Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana and three Canadian provinces discussed the troubling development.

“It’s kind of like the nightmare you never wanted to have,” Montana State Rep. Mike Cuffe, R-Eureka, said.

Eileen Ryce, fisheries division administrator for the Montana department, said the test results were bad news, but they show the state’s detection system is working. Officials hope the infestation can be corralled before it spreads.

Officials across the region have been working to block quagga and zebra mussels from contaminating waterways as they have done in across much of the rest of the nation.

The mussels can clog pipes and cover beaches, and they travel from one part of the country mainly by hitching rides on trailered boats and other watercraft. Idaho and other states have created boat checkpoints, where fish and wildlife officials stop recreationists who are traveling with boats to check the vehicles for any sign of the mussels.

State and federal officials from the Northwest worked together to persuade Congress to allocate $4 million to use in 2016 to help Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington expand the prevention efforts designed to keep the invasive mussels out. But the states have yet to receive the money.

“Had that money been there to help double the work being done at boat check points, the originator of these mussels might have been picked up before they were in the water,” Cuffe said.

Eric Anderson, an Idaho public utilities commissioner who formerly served as a state representative, said there was a communication issue with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that resulted in the money hang-up. The Corps has interpreted the purpose of the money differently from the states, he said.

Lloyd Knight of the Idaho Department of Agriculture told the conference that the Montana discovery will lead to changes in Idaho’s boat inspection programs, including re-examining which routes should be targeted for inspection stations.

Idaho requires an invasive species sticker on boats and watercraft, with the purchase price helping fund its boat inspection program; they cost $22 for out-of-state motorized boats and $7 for non-motorized craft. The $10 cost for in-state motorized boats is included in state boat license fees.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Fourteen former Idaho Fish and Game commissioners are asking legislative leaders to replace the head of the state’s Senate Resources and Environment Committee.

The Spokesman-Review (http://bit.ly/2g2DumF ) reports that the commissioners sent a letter Thursday asking that Sen. Steve Bair, a Republican from Blackfoot, no longer chair the senate committee.

The commissioners wrote that their request was prompted over a dispute over reappointment of commissioners, as well as after seeing efforts to change how controlled hunting permits are allocated.

Bair said that was “their opinion” when asked about the commissioner’s letter on Friday, adding that he appreciated the commissioners’ past work and willingness to serve.

Bair has been chairman of the Senate Resources and Environment Committee since 2014. He was recently re-elected to serve a sixth term.

Legislative leaders are scheduled to select committee chairmen in December.

At 7:45 p.m. Tuesday evening, Fremont County Sheriff’s Dispatch informed the Search and Rescue Commander of a stranded treasure hunter high centered on some rocks, northwest of Split Rock, off the Red Road.

The 58-year-old man from Parker had been searching for items with his metal detector in one of the favorite areas he likes to explore on the desert. He chose to come home on a new road that he hadn’t traveled before and went over a large rock pile. His vehicle bottomed out, causing it to become high centered on the frame. Using coordinates from his 911 call, Fremont County Search & Rescue located the subject at 9:16 p.m. They were able to free his vehicle from the rock pile and lead him back to the Red Road. From there he continued home.

Fremont County Search & Rescue is a nonprofit organization relying heavily on donations from people and businesses that appreciate and desire to support their efforts. All donations are tax deductible. FCSAR consists of 100 percent non-paid volunteers.

A reminder to anyone enjoying summer recreation activities whether, hunting, fishing, camping, boating, ATVing, trail riding, biking or hiking:

 Water related activities, whether swimming, boating, skiing or fishing, require precautionary preplanning.

 Wear appropriate water safety equipment when on or near water.

 If possible avoid participating in summer recreation activities without a companion.

 Take necessary equipment and survival gear when venturing into the backcountry.

 If you have a GPS and cell phone, be sure to take them with you, but do not rely on them entirely for a safe rescue if you find yourself in trouble or stranded.

 Plan ahead. Make sure you know the area you are heading into before heading into it.

 If you find yourself in trouble, stop, take a look around you, and do not go any farther. The farther you go the more complicated and dangerous it is to get yourself to safety, also making rescue efforts more difficult and dangerous. Make mental notes in relation to any physical features or landmarks that would assist in your rescue.

 Make a plan, stick to your plan, narrow the area and most of all let someone know where you are planning to go and when you are to return.

 Fremont County Search and Rescue advises people to exercise extreme caution when navigating, swimming, fishing or any other water related activities. These activities can be extremely dangerous and quickly turn an enjoyable activity into disaster.

CODY, Wyo. (AP) — State and federal wildlife managers are considering removing Endangered Species Act protections from grizzly bears living in Yellowstone National Park.

Officials are meeting in Cody on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss post-delisting management plans. The member agencies of the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee had hoped to approve a final draft of the post-delisting management plant, but officials say it’s unclear that will happen.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed lifting the federal protections for the Yellowstone bears in March. Grizzly bears were first listed as threatened in 1975 when the Yellowstone population was estimated to have as few as 136 bears. Recent estimates say the population has now climbed above 700.

Delisting the Yellowstone bears would give more management responsibility to Montana, Wyoming and Idaho and open the door for potential hunting seasons.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — An Oregon man who died after falling into a scalding Yellowstone National Park hot spring in June was looking for a place to “hot pot,” the forbidden practice of soaking in one of the park’s thermal features, officials said.

Sable Scott told investigators that she and her 23-year-old brother, Colin, left a boardwalk near Pork Chop Geyser and walked several hundred feet up a hill in search of “a place that they could potentially get into and soak,” Deputy Chief Ranger Lorant Veress told KULR-TV in an interview.

As Sable Scott took video of her brother with her cellphone on June 7, he reached down to check the water temperature and slipped and fell into a thermal pool about 6 feet long, 4 feet wide and 10 feet deep, according to a National Park Service incident record first reported by KULR.

Park officials did not release the video or a description of it, but the report said it also chronicled Sable Scott’s efforts to rescue her brother.

Search and rescue rangers spotted Colin Scott’s body floating in the pool the day of the accident, but a lightning storm prevented recovery, the report said.

The next day, workers could not find any remains in the boiling, acidic water.

“In very short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving,” Veress said.

The report included images of several signs warning people of the dangers of the park’s geothermal features and of traveling off walkways in the area where Colin Scott died.

The National Park Service did not issue any citations in the case.

Scott was on a college graduation trip with his sister at the time of his death, which came a day after six people were cited for walking off-trail at the park’s Grand Prismatic Spring.

A week later, a tourist from China was fined $1,000 for breaking through the fragile crust in the Mammoth Hot Springs area, apparently to collect water for medicinal purposes.