YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (AP) — For the second time in three days, an elk has attacked someone in Yellowstone National Park.

The National Park Service says a female elk with a calf attacked 53-year-old Penny Allyson Behr, of Cypress, Texas, Tuesday behind the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.

Yellowstone officials say the elk surprised Behr as she walked between cabins. The elk followed Behr as she backed away and kicked her in the head and body.

An ambulance took Behr to a hospital in Livingston, Montana.

On Sunday, a female elk with a calf kicked 51-year-old Charlene Triplett, of Las Vegas, in the head and body behind the same hotel.

Triplett was in fair condition Tuesday.

Park officials are unsure if it was the same elk but say elk often aggressively defend their young.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) — An elk attacked and seriously injured a hotel worker at Yellowstone National Park as the animal sought to protect a nearby calf.

Park officials said 51-year-old Charlene Triplett of Las Vegas was attacked by the elk behind the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel on Sunday.

The animal reportedly kicked Triplett multiple times with its front legs, striking her head, torso and back.

She was flown to a trauma center at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. Her condition on Monday was unknown.

Park officials say it’s uncertain if prior to the encounter Triplett saw the elk or calf, which was bedded down behind some cars about 20 feet away.

Visitors are advised to use caution around elk, especially during calving season, and to stay at least 25 yards away.

CODY, Wyoming (AP) — The recent discovery of damaging zebra and quagga mussels in some Montana waters has Yellowstone National Park and Wyoming Game and Fish officials becoming more vigilant in their efforts to keep the invasive species out.

“We have pushed it more with Montana finding mussels,” said Greg Mayton, an aquatic invasive species specialist in the Cody regional Game and Fish office, of Wyoming’s situation. “It turns Montana into a high-risk state.”

Yellowstone, which is already battling nonnative lake trout in Yellowstone Lake, has ramped up awareness of the danger of invasive species in park waters, the Cody Enterprise reported.

“The bottom line, if we get aquatic invasive species in Yellowstone National Park, it will be difficult, if not impossible to remove them,” park superintendent Dan Wenk said.

Starting this year, only rubber boots will be allowed in Yellowstone because felt sole boots are virtually impossible to cleanse of mussels.

“That gets embedded in the footwear,” said Todd Koel, Yellowstone senior fisheries biologist.

Mussels can take over water bottoms and eat the bottom-dwelling food sources that many fish need to thrive, ultimately decimating populations.

They also spread to boat docks, anchors and buoys and become encrusted there and spread to beaches.

Watercraft inspection is a vital element in keeping invasive species out of Wyoming waters and that’s why there are 45 inspectors deployed at entry points around the state.

Boats can be turned away at the border if a boat flunks inspection. But if an owner is attentive, that should not happen.

“As long as you clean your boat off and drain the water, the risk is almost zero,” Mayton said.

Koel said if waters in Yellowstone become infected with mussels, “we would basically be infecting everything downstream. It’s not something we can tolerate in Yellowstone.”

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) — A northern Idaho philanthropist convicted of poaching a moose near Coeur d’Alene has been ordered to serve 30 days in jail.

The Coeur d’Alene Press reports 66-year-old John A. Huckabay was sentenced to two years in prison, but 1st District Judge Benjamin Simpson then suspended that sentence and ordered Huckabay to serve a month in jail without the chance of work release or public service release.

Huckabay lives in Coeur d’Alene and runs his family’s foundation, Huckabay Family Challenge, which has committed more than $8 million toward scholarships through the University of Washington for students who want to practice rural medicine in the northwest.

Huckabay was convicted by a jury earlier this year of not having a tag to kill a cow moose he shot in October 2014.

During the sentencing earlier this month, Simpson commended Huckabay for his role as a benefactor, but said killing an animal valued by others and the state couldn’t go unpunished. He also ordered Huckabay to serve two years of probation and revoked his hunting license for three years.

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Information from: Coeur d’Alene Press, http://www.cdapress.com

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. (AP) — The world’s largest active geyser has erupted again in Yellowstone National Park.

The U.S. Geological Survey says the Steamboat Geyser erupted early Sunday, its fifth eruption this year.

The agency says in a series of tweets there’s no indication of any volcanic activity in the park and most geysers are intermittent. But it says the string of eruptions is a good sign summer visitors will get to see some “spectacular geysering.”

Steamboat has gone dormant for as long as nine years. Its first eruption since 2014 occurred in mid-March, followed by two other eruptions in April and another on May 4.

Earlier this month scientists deployed 28 seismographs around the geyser to gather data in hopes of catching it erupting again to learn more about it.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyoming (AP) — The world’s largest active geyser has erupted four times in the last seven weeks, a spate of activity that has geophysicists excited about the Yellowstone National Park water feature.

The Steamboat Geyser, which can shoot water up to 300 feet high, erupted last Friday and continued to spew water into Monday.

Steamboat has gone dormant for as long as nine years and its first eruption since 2014 occurred in mid-March, followed by two other eruptions in April.

Geophysicist Bob Smith tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide that there is no consensus for what’s behind the geyser’s unusual activity.

Scientists last Saturday deployed 28 seismographs around the geyser to gather data in hopes of catching it erupting again to learn more about Steamboat.

BOISE (AP) — The Idaho Fish and Game Commission on Thursday approved a limited hunting season for grizzly bears in eastern Idaho just a year after the animals were removed from the Endangered Species List.

Under the plan, the Department of Fish and Game will hold a random drawing to award one Idaho hunter a grizzly tag for a hunting season running from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15.

Neither baiting nor hound-hunting are allowed, and if successful, the hunter won’t be allowed to reapply for future tags.

Grizzlies in the Yellowstone National Park region were on the Endangered Species Act list until 2017, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed federal protections.

That cleared the way for Idaho, Montana and Wyoming to allow limited hunting when the population has more than 600 bears. Last year’s population estimate for the region was 718 bears.

Wyoming is also planning a limited trophy hunt this fall.

Idaho officials are warning would-be hunters that the grizzly hunt could still be canceled because of a pending federal lawsuit.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is locked in a court battle with conservationists and American Indian tribes over the lifting of protections for a group of grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park.

Attorney Andrea Santarsiere with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said Idaho bowed to the wishes of trophy hunters in approving a hunt.

“This is a sad day for the many state residents who value our native wildlife and the critical role it plays in keeping wild lands in balance,” Santarsiere said in a prepared statement.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Visitors at a Utah state park have been dislodging dinosaur tracks imprinted in sandstone and throwing the pieces into a nearby lake, officials said.

The site lined with hundreds of the prehistoric raptor tracks has been heavily damaged in the past six months, Red Fleet State Park Manager Josh Hansen said.

Hansen recently caught a juvenile who was throwing slabs of stone into the reservoir, he told the Salt Lake Tribune. He heard two thumps into the water before docking his boat. Then he saw the person holding two toe imprints from a partial dinosaur track.

“I saved that one,” Hansen said. “He had already thrown multiple (tracks in the water).”

Many tracks are noticeable walking through the landscape, but others are not. Utah Division of State Parks spokesman Devan Chavez said his conservative estimate is that at least 10 of the larger, more visible footprints, which range from 3 to 17 inches, disappeared in the past six months.

“It’s become quite a big problem,” Chavez said. “They’re just looking to throw rocks off the side. What they don’t realize is these rocks they’re picking up, they’re covered in dinosaur tracks.”

Some of the slabs sink to the bottom of Red Fleet Reservoir, some shatter upon hitting the surface and others dissolve entirely.

“Some of them are likely lost forever,” Chavez said.

The park is considering sending a diving team to recover what it can from the lake bed. For now, it’s putting up more signs asking tourists not to touch the sandstone.

“You’d think common sense would provide guidance, but it’s not coming across in people’s mind,” said Hansen, who’s been the park’s manager since March. He’s responded to two cases in the past two weeks.

This dry and dusty desert area was once a bog filled with mud and moss. Paleontologists believe the dilophosaurus, part of the raptor family, ambushed other dinosaurs while they were resting or drinking from the swamp.

Though their three-toed footprints are not fossils, they’re treated as such under Utah code. Anyone who destroys one could be charged with a felony, though no charges have been filed recently.

Three teens were tried in juvenile court for destruction of a paleontological site at Red Fleet State Park in 2001.

“We’re going to be cracking down on it a lot more,” Chavez said.

NAMPA, Idaho (AP) — Authorities say a 19-year-old man died after drowning at Lake Lowell east of Nampa.

KTVB-TV reports paramedics and sheriff’s deputies received a report of a drowning at the lake Sunday evening.

Officials say a bystander jumped into the water to try to save the man.

Officials say after the man was pulled out of the water, CPR was performed on him in hopes of reviving him, but he remained unresponsive and was pronounced dead shortly after.

Officials believe the man may have been at the lake with friends, but have not said what may have caused him to go underwater.

The man’s identity has not been released pending family notification.

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Information from: KTVB-TV, http://www.ktvb.com/