Wyoming
Bear Rescue Gives Wyoming Bruins ‘A Second Chance At Freedom’
When Wyoming Game and Fish Department wardens found a motherless, starving female black bear cub cowering under porches in the small community of Kelly, Wyoming, last month, they knew exactly who to call.
It wasn’t long before a transport team from Idaho Black Bear Rehab (IBBR) was on the way to move the cub to its facility in Garden City, Idaho.
Now, the cub — named Alice by her rescuers — is doing fine and is on track to be returned to the wilds of Wyoming this coming summer.
Alice is just one of numerous black bear cubs from Wyoming and the surrounding region that IBBR has taken in since it was founded in 1989. The center’s stated goal is to keep bears just long enough for them to get big and healthy enough to strike out on their own, and then return them to the wild.
“In the 14-plus years I’ve been here we have had one bear go to a zoo. I don’t think there were any others. That would be a bear name Whiskey who resides at the Houston Zoo under the name Claud,” Amy Kidwell, who runs IBBR, told Cowboy State Daily.
A Job She Didn’t Expect
IBBR was founded by wildlife rehabilitator Sally Maughan, who named the first bear cub she took in Ruggles.
Kidwell knew of the center, but had no inclination of ever working there. But she has always had a soft spot for animals, so when she found out that IBBR needed food for the bears, she was more than happy to donate what she could.
IBBR runs exclusively on donations, Kidwell said.
“I worked at a little country market when I learned about IBBR and I had been bringing food to the bear rehab center every Sunday for a year,” Kidwell said. “And when the store where I worked closed, I told Sally I would still donate food, but it wouldn’t be every Sunday anymore.
“At this point, I still hadn’t met Sally, only spoke with her on the phone. She mentioned that I should apply for a job with her. I couldn’t believe that was an option.”
The job interview went better than expected.
“The first time I met Sally in person was my interview with her,” Kidwell said. “We talked for three hours straight. At one point, she said she was looking for someone stupid enough to take over the rehab one day, and I told her I was pretty dumb. We both got a good laugh out of it. I was hired, and a friendship was born.”
She and her daughter Emma, who was 6 at the time, moved into a small onsite house. Kidwell was gradually given more responsibility dealing with the bears until she was able to run the facility. She continued to learn all she could from Maughan until Maughan’s death in 2021.
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Amy Kidwell and her daughter Emma, left, have worked at Idaho Black Bear Rehab since Emma was 6. At right are Shadow and Kapiolani, a rare mother-and-cub combo rescued by Idaho Black Bear Rehab. (Photo Courtesy Amy Kidwell) -
Whiskey is one of the few bears sent to Idaho Black Bear Rehab that couldn’t be returned to the wild. He lives in the Huston Zoo under the name Claud. (Photo Courtesy Amy Kidwell)
53 Bears In One Year
IBBR sits on about 2.25 acres, and the main bear enclosure is about 5,000 square feet. There are smaller enclosures for bears that need to be isolated until they get used to their surroundings.
It’s usually a busy place. The bears almost always come to IBBR via Game and Fish and its sister agencies in surrounding states.
Because of space limitations and to keep from getting overwhelmed, Kidwell likes to limit it to about 15 bears at a time. They’re usually orphaned cubs, although the center has taken in a few 2-year-olds, as well as a mother and cub, Shadow and Kapiolani.
The average stay is just a few months, and Kidwell likes to keep her direct contact with the bears minimal, since the goal is to make them wild again. She has a local veterinarian on call in case any of the bears are sick or hurt.
The bears are usually released back into the wild in early summer so that they have the entire warm season to get back into the swing of things.
“We have done some fall releases as well,” Kidwell said.
She recalls that 2004 was a particularly exhausting year. The center rescued 40 cubs that year, with a peak number of 23 at the facility all at once. The main enclosure didn’t have roof on it, so the winter was especially miserable.
“In 2007, 53 bears arrived, including yearlings and two bears that were 2 years old. The addition of our new solid roof made managing that number of bears much easier,” Kidwell said.
Smart And Fast
Kidwell said she’s developed a tremendous respect for black bears.
One thing that might surprise folks about them is “how fast they do everything,” she said. “They grow, move and think faster than you can imagine.”
And no two bears are alike.
“Each bear is completely different from the others,” Kidwell said. “Just like with people, they have personalities and quirks. When we have a lot of bears on site, especially if they are all the same color, I need to consider their personality to tell them apart.”
Along with members of her transport team, Kidwell has noticed that black bears are keen problem-solvers and they communicate well with each other.
“They also communicate in ways that are so familiar to us,” she said. “I’ve seen them throw an arm in front of another bear, much like a parent puts their arm in front of their kid when they suddenly brake while driving, to stop them from doing something or going a certain direction.”
Learning With Momma And Cub
The bears also communicate with humans when necessary, Kidwell said. She recalled an interesting episode with mother-and-cub Shadow and Kapiolani.
Each bear has a “line” that they don’t want humans to cross, “and hers was a little farther out that most because she had a cub,” Kidwell said.
“We understood each other once I learned that, and she didn’t mind me much at all after the day I also yelled at her cub. She didn’t want her curious babe out of the den when I was in there and she would even lay on top of him to keep him in,” Kidwell said.
“He would scream and wiggle out from under her, and she would yell at him when he got too close to me – which was not really close at all,” she added. “One day he got away from her, so I yelled at him and motioned toward his mom and he ran back in with her. I felt she had a whole new appreciation for me that day. I’d almost swear she laughed.”
Not Stopping Anytime Soon
Running IBBR is an around-the-clock challenge, but Kidwell said she relishes it and plans to be there for Game and Fish and other agencies that need help with bear rescues for a long time to come.
“It was pure dumb luck that I ended up here. I have always loved animals, but I never dreamed I would end up working with bears,” she said. “When I feel like I’ve had enough and I just want to walk away, which is never caused by the bears themselves, I still can’t imagine closing up shop and ever having to say ‘no’ to a bear in need.”
“No matter the sad stories, the occasional difficulty in fighting to get a bear here, the paperwork, or keeping up with social media — once that bear arrives, absolutely everything is worth providing the temporary safety and comfort to these bears — and giving them their second chance at freedom in the wild is the most satisfying feeling I could ever have,” Kidwell added.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
If the Wyoming House and Senate approve its budget changes, then the chambers’ Joint Conference Committee will have helped the University of Wyoming dodge a $40 million cut, while also limiting the Wyoming Business Council to one year’s funding instead of the standard two.
The Joint Conference Committee adopted numerous changes to the state’s two-year budget draft, but didn’t formally advance the document to the House and Senate chambers. The committee meets again Monday and may do so at that time.
Then, the House and Senate can vote on whether to adopt that draft by a simple majority.
First, UW
Starting in January, the Joint Appropriations Committee majority had sought to deny around $20 million in exception requests the University of Wyoming made, while imposing a $40 million cut to the university’s block grant.
That’s about 10% of the state’s grant to UW but a lesser proportion of the school’s overall operating budget.
The Senate sought to restore the $60 million.
The House sought to keep the denials and cuts, ultimately settling on a bargain to cut $20 million, and hinge UW’s retention of the remaining $20 million on its finding and reporting $5 million in savings.
The Joint Conference Committee the House and Senate sent into a Friday meeting to negotiate those two stances chose to fund UW “fully,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily in the state Capitol after the meeting.
But, $10 million of UW’s $40 million block grant won’t reach it until the school charts a “road map” of how it could save $5 million, and reports that to the Joint Appropriations Committee, she added.
“A healthy exercise, I think, for them to participate in, while the Legislature still allows them to receive full grant funding,” Nethercott said.
“I’m hopeful people feel confident the University is fully funded,” she continued, as it’s “on the brink of receiving a new president, having the resources he or she may need to continue to steer the leadership of the University, our state’s flagship school into the future.”
Hours earlier in a press conference, House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, said the Legislature has been clear that UW should avoid “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI programming, and that it’s the position of the House majority that the school should tailor its programming to Wyoming’s true business needs – so UW graduates will stay in the state.
Within an earlier draft of the budget sat a footnote blocking money for Wyoming Public Media — a publicly funded media and radio entity funded through UW’s budget.
That footnote is gone from the JCC’s draft, said Nethercott.
Wyoming Business Council
The Wyoming Business Council is set to receive roughly $14 million, confined to one year, for its internal operations, said Nethercott.
“Both chambers have decided to only fund the operations,” Nethercott said, “not all the grant programs.”
She said that’s to compel the Legislature to revisit the concerns it has with the agency, then return in the 2027 legislative session with a vision for its future.
The Business Ready Communities program is “eliminated,” she said.
JCC member Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, elaborated further.
Of the appropriation, $12 million is from the state’s checking account, plus the state is authorizing WBC to use $157,787 in federal funds and nearly $1 million from other sources.
“We’re going to take it up as an interim topic in appropriations (committee) and how to rebuild it and make it work the way we think it should work,” said Pendergraft. But the JCC opted to fund the Small Business Development Center for two years, along with Economic Diversification Division for Manufacturing Works, and the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, Pendergraft noted, pointing to that language on his draft budget sheet.
Pendergraft made headlines last year by saying he wanted to eliminate the Wyoming Business Council altogether.
But Nethercott told the Senate earlier this month, legislators have complained of that agency her entire nine-year tenure.
She attributed this to what she called communications shortfalls that may not be intentional. She cosponsored a now-stalled bill this year that had sought to adopt a task force to evaluate WBC.
The Wyoming Business Council’s functions range from less controversial, like helping communities build infrastructure, to more controversial, like awarding tax-funded grants to certain businesses on a competitive application process.
Wyoming Public Television
Wyoming Public Television, which is not the same as Wyoming Public Media, is slated to receive the $3 million it lost when Congress defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Nethercott said.
It will also receive its usual $3 million from Wyoming.
The entity will not receive another $3 million it had sought to upgrade its emergency-alert towers, said Nethercott, “because we received information from them… they have another source to pay for the replacement and maintenance of the towers.”
Like the Wyoming Business Council, the Wyoming Public TV’s functions range from less controversial to more controversial.
The entity operates, maintains and staffs emergency alert towers throughout Wyoming.
Wyoming Public TV also produces entertainment and informational movies. Its state grants run through the community colleges’ budget.
State Employees
Nethercott noted that the JCC advanced to both chambers an agreement to pay $111 million from the state’s checking account to give state employees raises.
Those raises would bring them to 2024 market values for their work, she noted.
Because that money is coming from the state’s checking account, or “general fund,” and not its severance tax pool as the House had envisioned, then $111 million won’t impact the $105 million investment another still-viable bill seeking to build an “energy dominance fund” envisions.
That bill, sponsored by Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, seeks to lend to large energy-sector projects.
Biteman told Cowboy State Daily in an interview days before the session convened that its purpose is to counteract “green” compacts investors have adopted, and which have bottlenecked energy projects.
Wyoming’s executive branch is currently suing BlackRock and other investors on that same assertion.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-21-26
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026
4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne
Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
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