Montana
Montana FWP encourages homeowners to bear-proof their properties
ANACONDA — ANACONDA — An Anaconda woman got a huge surprise when she looked out her window around 9 p.m. on June 12 and saw a giant black bear getting into her garbage can just outside her home on Yankee Flats.
“I looked out the window and the bear was just out there snacking away. I’m still, like, a little shocked and startled because I knew that they were going to be out here and around me but I didn’t know like that close,” says Kayla Hicks.
Hicks is originally from Kansas and is renting the property while she works on assignment until November. She says this isn’t the first time a bear has rummaged through her garbage but it’s the first time she has seen it do so and that’s why she called Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks for help.
“If a bear is coming into some type of food source at your house, it’s good to secure that attractant now because bears have a really good memory and so they’ll remember, you know, where they got food frequently or when they got food. So, it is good to try to think about securing that attractant so that it doesn’t become a reoccurring problem,” says Brad Balis, a bear management technician for the Upper Clark Fork and part of the Big Hole region for Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks.
Balis says this is the first he has learned of a bear in the Yankee Flats area but he encourages homeowners to call FWP if they spot a bear causing problems on their property. He says the more a bear frequents a residential area like the one located just 10 miles outside of Anaconda, the more the bear will become used to humans, and that can be life-threatening for the bear.
“The danger for the bear is those food rewards, getting those food rewards. It kind of starts associating homes with that food reward and then, you know, from it being around a house it’s going to start seeing people more frequently. That’s going to be less of a concern. If they are getting into trouble we try to give them a second chance but if they do continue to get into trouble and we know it’s the same bear then occasionally we do have to lethally remove them,” says Balis.
Balis says issues with bears are usually preventable because they let their noses guide them to food sources like garbage, bird feeders, and grease traps on bbq grills. Bears are also drawn to chickens because of their scattered feed and the noise they make. Securing these items for the long term is the best deterrent and Kayla Hicks now keeps her trash can locked up in a shed until collection day.
“I mean, I may not be from here but I like the wildlife and everything so I want to learn more about how to handle the situation,” says Hicks.
“My worry is that I have an active two-year-old. So, just trying to keep her safe and everything and she likes being outside too. So we just have to be careful and watch the surroundings.”
Balis says there are resources available to help homeowners purchase bear-proof garbage cans and other items that are bear deterrents from organizations likeDefenders of Wildlife, People and Carnivores, and The American Bear Foundation. Balis says if a homeowner is willing to switch to a bear-resistant container, People and Carnivores will cover half of the cost associated with the purchase of the container.
“A lot of times folks will wait before they reach out to us but I would encourage people if they do have a bear hanging around their home or getting into trouble, just contact the Region 2 office directly and the number for them is 406-542-5500,” says Balis.
Montana
Montana Lottery Mega Millions, Big Sky Bonus results for June 23, 2026
The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 23, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Mega Millions numbers from June 23 drawing
48-51-60-63-66, Mega Ball: 20
Check Mega Millions payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from June 23 drawing
06-21-22-31, Bonus: 13
Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
- Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
- Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.
Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.
Montana
Man Driving Giant Banana Gets Pulled Over in Montana
We cover lots of hard news here at The Drive. Y’know, the stuff that keeps you updated on the automotive industry and enthusiast scene. Other times, we don’t. Other times, we write silly car-related stuff because it’s fun. This is one of those times. A giant banana recently got pulled over in Montana, and as the Cowboy State Daily put it, it wasn’t its first time.
According to the Montana State Police, the giant banana car and its driver, Steve Braithwaite, were pulled over near Billings because part of the license plate was blocked. He did not receive a ticket. Also, the plate reads “SPLIT.”
“We’ve stopped speeders, distracted drivers, and even a few unusual vehicles… but this one definitely stands out.
The Big Banana Car was stopped cruising near Billings today. While it may be apPEALing, traffic laws still apply to fruit. 😎 🍌
Safe travels, Montana,” said the Montana State Police’s Facebook page.
According to the report, Braithwaite has been pulled over hundreds of times over the decade he’s been driving his banana car across the country. In fact, he believes that during the first few years he had the thing, he was one of the most frequently pulled-over men in America.
“Driving around in a banana and having all these people, all these smiles and waves, affects me. It actually does something fantastic,” he told the outlet.
He even claims to have been pulled over once for “peeling out,” which was, of course, a joke.
Another report claims that Braithwaite began working on the fiberglass banana in 2008 and finished it in 2011. It’s based on a 1993 Ford F-150 and is a bout 23 feet from tip to tip.
Keep on keepin’ on, Steve.
Got a tip? Email us at tips@thedrive.com
Montana
The Latest ‘Sustained Yield’ Scam Will Devastate Montana’s National Forests
Log landing, western Montana. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
Way back in 1995 Bob Brown, the Republican president of the Montana Senate, called me into his office.
He had co-sponsored a bill with a pro-logging Missoula Democrat to establish a “sustained yield” level of logging on Montana’s state trust lands – and he was worried it wasn’t working out the way he hoped.
Bob was right to be worried then and Montanans are right to be worried now because Trump’s Forest Service Chief and former timber industry lobbyist Tom Schultz, has just unleashed the “sustained yield” scam on Montana’s National Forests.
To appreciate Brown’s concerns, it’s important to understand that the 1995 Montana legislature had two-thirds Republican majorities in the House and Senate and Republican Marc Racicot in the Governor’s Office.
Those majorities put Montana’s environment in the cross-hairs with a raft of industry-friendly deregulatory bills. That included the timber industry, which was losing the “timber wars” in large part because Plum Creek Timber, one of the largest private forest landowners in the West, had decided to “liquidate” its “timber assets” – also known as “forests.”
That decision resulted in massive clearcuts since there were virtually no regulations on logging private land. Plum Creek scalped the forests of northwest Montana, including the lands around Bob’s home in Whitefish, leaving barren, knapweed infested stumpfields that remain to this day. His goal was to protect the lands around the trout streams he’d fished growing up and hoped the bill would do that.
It was the closing weeks of the session and Bob wanted to know if it was possible to reduce the environmental impacts of his bill since it had been heavily amended to favor extraction, not “sustained yield.” My advice was to let the bill die because he didn’t have the votes to remove the amendments the timber industry lobbyists stuck on the bill. But he didn’t take that advice, the bill passed, and the logging level for Montana’s state forests was set at 52 to 55 million board feet per year.
Two years later, Tom Schultz went to work for Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, heading the trust lands timber division and earning the sobriquet “Chainsaw Tom” for his pro-logging zeal. Like the stumpfields, his dedication to the timber industry remains to this day – only now he’s in charge of the United States Forest Service and bringing chainsaws to millions of acres of our remaining intact forests.
If you believe that “sustained yield” is supposed to be a carefully calculated determination of how many millions of board feet of timber can be logged every year on a sustainable basis that means limiting logging to the pace at which the forests can regrow – regardless of the demands of the rapacious timber industry.
In the “old days” loggers liked to refer to forests as “100 year gardens.” But of course forests aren’t gardens, they’re complex ecosystems – and the timber industry doesn’t wait a century for forests to regrow.
It’s unlikely that quaint misnomer is even applicable in today’s climate with hotter, longer summers, minimal snowpack, and extreme drought. Yet, Montana’s “sustained yield” is now nearly 10 million board feet a year higher than when Brown’s bill passed, defying logic and science and justifying his concerns from 30 years ago.
“Chainsaw Tom” Schultz has now reappeared and demands that 350-500 million board feet of Montana’s national forests be logged over 10 years. Schultz’s timber industry lobbyist background offers a clue as to where that “sustainable yield” number came from — and the reason we will likely be left with nothing but stumpfields and knapweed from his “landscape scale” logging of our remaining intact forests.
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