With the grizzly bear population in Eastern Idaho removed from federal protection, Idaho Fish and Game will host meetings in Idaho Falls and Boise regarding a proposed fall hunting season.

Idaho Falls

• April 17, 6:30 p.m.
• College of Eastern Idaho
• 1600 S. 2500 E.
• John Christofferson Multi-Purpose Building Cafeteria, Building #3

Boise

• April 19, 6:30 p.m.
• Riverside Hotel
• 2900 W. Chinden Blvd.

The current proposal is to offer a single tag for one grizzly bear for the fall season of 2018. The meetings will be held to discuss the proposal and gather public input. They will involve a presentation and then an open house format to gather information and take comment. Comments will be gathered at the meeting and also online at idfg.idaho.gov starting April 16.

Hunting is part of the grizzly bear conservation strategy and consistent with the management of bears in the greater Yellowstone area outside of the park and in eastern Idaho. Grizzlies in north Idaho remain under federal protection.

Fish and Game is managing grizzly bears and proposing a hunting season based on an agreement with Montana and Wyoming. Idaho has the smallest portion of land in the grizzly’s range outside of Yellowstone National Park, and the hunting opportunity will always relatively small compared to the other states.

The Fish and Game Commission has directed department staff to include public involvement for grizzly bear hunting proposal.

Driggs native Tucker Hibbert closed out one of the most successful seasons of his career and took claim to his 11th Professional Snocross Championship at the ISOC National Snocross season finale in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

In his 18th professional snocross season, Hibbert had a remarkable run, winning 11 of the 17 finals and 27 of his 34 qualifying races. With year-end championship points awarded in both qualifying rounds and finals, he set his season focus on winning every time he was on the track. It was a smart and successful strategy as he secured the championship early with a 108-point margin over second place.

Hibbert and his team — including Alta, Wyoming, resident Garth Kaufman — were honored with two special awards at the year-end banquet. His father and crew chief, Kirk Hibbert, was awarded Mechanic of the Year while Tucker tallied the most votes by snocross fans to take home Fan Favorite Rider.

With another snocross season behind him, the multi-sport athlete will shift his focus to his summer passions — motocross and cross-country mountain bike racing.

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A Wyoming wildlife rehabilitation center may consider turning away any storks carrying baby owls that show up for a while.

The Teton Raptor Center in Jackson Hole took in 19 owlets last week from the three separate clutches, broods of young owls, within 24 hours. All the baby owls were from Idaho.

The nonprofit center never housed more than 18 injured, orphaned or ill birds of prey at one time, and it suddenly had 27 raptors on its hands.

“It’s not uncommon to get clutches, but it is uncommon to get three at once,” Teton Raptor Center Rehabilitation Director Meghan Warren said. “This is a record breaker in many ways.”

The rush of baby owls started with a call last Thursday from the Idaho Fish and Game Department, which acquired a six-bird clutch displaced when a hay bale was moved. The next day two more barn owl clutches were recovered in the Idaho Falls area and sent to the center in Wilson.

Staff at the center planned to transplant the owlets into eight or nine other known barn owl nests in the region. For obvious reasons, dumping 19 of the little owls onto one pair of adults isn’t a good option.

“What we’ll do is we’ll put these babies into a few different nests,” Warren told the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Barn owls are a particularly good species for fostering parentless young because they typically stagger laying eggs and then simultaneously raise young of various sizes. One of the Teton Raptor Center’s current clutches, for instance, includes owlets ranging from 2 ounces to 1 pound, Warren said.

“In not too long, the older ones are going to be starting to fly, and they’re not going to stay in the nest box,” Warren said. “If we can’t find nests, what we’ll do is we’ll raise them here. We’ll give them lots of opportunity to practice hunting on wild mice, but once we let them go, they’re on their own.”

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A National Park Service report says a 23-year-old Utah man who lost his life guiding kayakers on Yellowstone Lake last summer spent at least 30 minutes in the cold water before being pulled out by rescuers.

Timothy Conant, of Salt Lake City, was trying to assist a client who had overturned while on a June outing when he rolled his own kayak into water estimated to be about 43 degrees (6 Celsius).

The Jackson Hole News & Guide reports that Conant remained in the water as two other guides towed the client to shore. When one of the guides went back for Conant, he was floating motionless.

Conant was pronounced dead after resuscitation efforts failed to revive him.

His death was the first fatality in Yellowstone Lake in 20 years.

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

JACKSON, Wyoming (AP) — A 30-year-old skier was critically injured after falling over 1,000 feet when a snow ledge he was standing on gave way in northwest Wyoming.

Search and rescue volunteer Tim Ciocarlan says the incident occurred late Tuesday morning in a backcountry area outside the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

Resort officials say Bryce Newcomb of Jackson was preparing to ski down to meet others when the cornice gave way.

Ciocarlan tells the Jackson Hole News & Guide that Newcomb was unconscious when emergency responders arrived just before 11 a.m.

Newcomb was flown to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho, where he was listed in critical condition Wednesday morning.

RATHDRUM, Idaho (AP) — Officials in the northern Idaho city of Rathdrum are hoping a new designation will attract a new kind of tourists: Monarch butterflies.

The city is the first in the state to receive the Monarch City USA designation from the nonprofit group by the same name based in Maple Valley, Washington.

“The mayor (Vic Holmes) remembers the time when the monarch came through here, but it doesn’t anymore,” Leon Duce, city administrator, told the Coeur d’Alene Press . “He asked the Parks Department to look into this and, when the city council heard about this, it felt that it would be a good thing for the city to do.”

To get the designation, cities plant milkweed and nectar plants within their boundaries to attract and aid the iconic orange and black butterflies. The cities also may hold monarch festivals or other events. So far, 11 cities, villages and schools in eight states have become members of Monarch City USA. A lifetime membership costs $50.

Data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service show that nearly a billion monarch butterflies have vanished since 1990. The milkweed and nectar plants they rely on are decreasing across the country.

Rathdrum city administrator Leon Duce said city officials sought the designation after looking into whether milkweed is a noxious weed. Duce says they learned the plant category includes many flowering and native wildflowers.

“We didn’t want to be spreading weeds, but it turns out that there are a lot of flowering plants under the milkweed category,” he said. “Nobody wants to start spreading weeds. We want to plant plants that are flowering and makes the community look better.”

Duce said the Parks Department is coordinating with the volunteers of the adjacent community garden on organizing a spring planting of milkweeds at the site and exploring other ideas.

However, don’t necessarily expect a cluster of monarchs to land in Rathdrum this year, Duce said.

“Monarchs don’t have a road map of where the food is located so it may take a couple years before they find their way to Rathdrum as they migrate to discover their food sources,” he said.

The western population of monarchs often migrates to southern California, but has been found overwintering in Mexico as well.

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

BOZEMAN, Montana (AP) — While Idaho and Wyoming pursue plans to allow grizzly bear hunting outside Yellowstone National Park, Montana wildlife officials say they don’t regret deciding against holding a hunt this year.

This past week, Idaho opened public comment on a proposal for a hunt of one male grizzly. Wyoming has released a proposal to sell 24 grizzly tags.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department officials decided against proposing a hunt in February.

“We made the decisions we feel are best for our state,” agency spokesman Greg Lemon said. “Wyoming and Idaho and their departments have done the same.”

Yellowstone spokeswoman Morgan Warthin said Friday that the park didn’t have any concerns about the proposed hunts.

Frank van Manen, the leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said kill limits enshrined in the management guidelines should ensure any impact to the population will likely be “pretty minor.”

But critics are worried that the proposed hunts threaten the newly delisted grizzly population, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported. They are especially concerned about Wyoming’s plan, which includes allowing hunters to take two female bears.

Bonnie Rice, of the Sierra Club, said in a statement this week that Wyoming’s proposal is “extreme and irresponsible” and that killing females could have an impact on reproductive rates.

Nick Gevock, conservation director for the Montana Wildlife Federation, a delisting supporter, said Wyoming’s proposal is a bit much.

“I think it’s a very aggressive hunt for the first year,” Gevock said. “The species just came off the endangered species list.”

Brian Nesvik, chief game warden for Wyoming Game and Fish, said the proposal meets all the required thresholds and was created with public feedback, and that the state believes it’s biologically sound.

“I would disagree that this is overly aggressive,” Nesvik said. “When you consider the total number of bears in the ecosystem, this is a very low number.”

Government scientists estimate that there are more than 700 grizzlies in the Yellowstone area. The federal government lifted Endangered Species Act protections from the bears in August 2017, ceding management responsibility to the three states and opening the door for the first grizzly hunts in decades.

Several environmental groups and Native Americans have sued in federal court to restore federal protections for the bears.

The three states have an agreement that lines out how many bears could be taken by hunters each year in areas outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, where bear hunting will not be allowed.

Dan Vermillion, the chairman of Montana’s Fish and Wildlife Commission, said the risk of killing a female bear was something Montana wrestled with when considering a hunting season.

“It’s really hard to guarantee that somebody’s not going to shoot the wrong bear,” Vermillion said.

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — While Idaho and Wyoming pursue plans to allow grizzly bear hunting outside Yellowstone National Park, Montana wildlife officials say they don’t regret deciding against holding a hunt this year.

This past week, Idaho opened public comment on a proposal for a hunt of one male grizzly. Wyoming has released a proposal to sell 24 grizzly tags.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department officials decided against proposing a hunt in February.

“We made the decisions we feel are best for our state,” agency spokesman Greg Lemon said. “Wyoming and Idaho and their departments have done the same.”

Yellowstone spokeswoman Morgan Warthin said Friday that the park didn’t have any concerns about the proposed hunts.

Frank van Manen, the leader of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, said kill limits enshrined in the management guidelines should ensure any impact to the population will likely be “pretty minor.”

But critics are worried that the proposed hunts threaten the newly delisted grizzly population, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported . They are especially concerned about Wyoming’s plan, which includes allowing hunters to take two female bears.

Bonnie Rice, of the Sierra Club, said in a statement this week that Wyoming’s proposal is “extreme and irresponsible” and that killing females could have an impact on reproductive rates.

Nick Gevock, conservation director for the Montana Wildlife Federation, a delisting supporter, said Wyoming’s proposal is a bit much.

“I think it’s a very aggressive hunt for the first year,” Gevock said. “The species just came off the endangered species list.”

Brian Nesvik, chief game warden for Wyoming Game and Fish, said the proposal meets all the required thresholds and was created with public feedback, and that the state believes it’s biologically sound.

“I would disagree that this is overly aggressive,” Nesvik said. “When you consider the total number of bears in the ecosystem, this is a very low number.”

Government scientists estimate that there are more than 700 grizzlies in the Yellowstone area. The federal government lifted Endangered Species Act protections from the bears in August 2017, ceding management responsibility to the three states and opening the door for the first grizzly hunts in decades.

Several environmental groups and Native Americans have sued in federal court to restore federal protections for the bears.

The three states have an agreement that lines out how many bears could be taken by hunters each year in areas outside Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, where bear hunting will not be allowed.

Dan Vermillion, the chairman of Montana’s Fish and Wildlife Commission, said the risk of killing a female bear was something Montana wrestled with when considering a hunting season.

“It’s really hard to guarantee that somebody’s not going to shoot the wrong bear,” Vermillion said.

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

MOOSE, Wyo. (AP) — Crews have begun plowing roads in Grand Teton National Park in preparation for the spring and summer seasons.

The park says crews have begun plowing the Teton Park Road between Taggart Lake Trailhead and Signal Mountain Lodge. The plowing operations mark the end of over-snow access on the 14-mile stretch of road for the season.

Visitors may continue to use other areas of the park for winter recreation such as cross-country skiing, skate skiing, and snowshoeing until snow conditions are no longer favorable.

Teton Park Road is anticipated to be accessible to activities such as cycling, roller skating, skateboarding, roller skiing, walking, jogging, and leashed pet-walking within the next few weeks. The road will open to motor vehicles on May 1.

CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — A man who chained himself to a concrete-filled barrel in an effort to prevent trucks from hauling Yellowstone National Park bison to slaughter has pleaded guilty.

The Casper Star-Tribune reports Joshua Rivera, of Clifton, Colorado, pleaded guilty Monday to trespassing and interfering with a government employee. He and another man were arrested Friday after they chained themselves to 55-gallon (208-liter) barrels in an attempt to block a road in Yellowstone.

The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported the men belong to the group Wild Buffalo Defense. The group’s spokesman, Monty Slate, said the protest delayed a shipment of bison for a few hours before another path was cleared.

Bison are shipped to slaughter each year as part of a population management plan for the park.

Rivera’s co-defendant has pleaded not guilty.

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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, http://www.trib.com