On Election Day, there won’t be a lot of surprises in Wyoming. The Cowboy State is expected to overwhelmingly re-elect former President Donald Trump. Incumbent Republicans Senator John Barrasso and Representative Harriet Hageman are likely to return to Congress with ease. And on the state level, Republicans are expected to keep their dominance in the state’s legislature.

But a closer look shows cracks in the state’s red wall and mounting questions about what it means to be a Wyomingite and a conservative.

“It’s been disheartening to see the division in our own party,” Republican State Senator Wendy Schuler said. “We still have people that are really thinking that this far right rhetoric is what we need to hear.”

The “Code of the West,” derived from the book “Cowboy Ethics,” is written into the Wyoming constitution. Members of the Wyoming legislature have no staff or assistants and often work full-time in the communities they represent as ranchers, lawyers, or truck drivers. The cowboy code and citizen legislature feed into Wyoming’s political reputation as a handshake-forward, small-town style, independently thinking state. National trends, however, are coming home to roost.

Recent legislative sessions have been rife with hot-button culture war issues, with the 2024 sessions including proposed abortion restrictions, a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, and a ban on gun-free zones. Republican fissures on the issues mirror national trends, with more moderate, establishment Republicans bearing allegations of being “RINOs” (Republicans in Name Only) from their further-right, often Freedom Caucus-aligned opponents.

The clashes have played out in Wyoming’s highest echelons. Republican Governor Mark Gordon vetoed many of the legislature’s culture war bills and ended up facing censure from his own party. Gordon frequently butts heads with Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who secured his office with a Trump endorsement and campaigned on disproven claims of a stolen 2020 election.

The fissures were on full display in the state’s primary, which shifted power rightward towards the growing Wyoming Freedom Caucus. The campaign season featured accusations of misinformation, including a defamation lawsuit, out-of-state money, and continued the state’s trend of increasingly expensive election cycles.

The Freedom Caucus will enter 2025 in the driver’s seat instead of its members’ long-held positions as political outsiders and disrupters. Republican State Representative and Freedom Caucus member Chip Neiman says the reshuffling of power indicates voter discontent with Wyoming politics.

“If people didn’t want something, or were satisfied with the howngs were, this would not have gone this way,” Nieman said. “I would suggest that people are looking for more conservative type leadership.”

Cy Neff reports on Wyoming politics for USA TODAY. You can reach him at cneff@usatoday.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CyNeffNews

Armenian wildlife rangers did practically everything wrong when recently releasing a brown bear, and they’re lucky nobody got killed, Wyoming Grizzly experts said.

A viral video of the Oct. 23 incident shows a 2-year-old male Armenian brown bear, a close relative of Wyoming grizzlies, turn and charge right for the ranger who lifted the gate on the bear’s cage.

The man barely manages to hop into the bed of a pickup, which speeds away while the irritated bear chases the truck, still dead set on taking a chunk out of the ranger.

Nobody was hurt, but what’s seen in the video is a terrible example of how to handle bears, federal grizzly biologist Frank van Manen told Cowboy State Daily on Monday.

“The scenario shown in the video is highly irresponsible, both from a human safety and bear safety standpoint,” he said.

Retired federal ecologist Chuck Neal of Cody agreed that what the video depicts was foolhardy.

“The man releasing the bear is practically eyeball-to-eyeball with it,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “They’re treating that animal like he was a raccoon or a fox.”

A Bear Named Ricky

Celebrity bears, such as Grizzly 399 and Grizzly 104, aren’t limited to Wyoming’s Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks.

The bear that tried to make mincemeat of the Armenian wildlife ranger is well-known in his home country. He’s named Ricky, after British comedian and animal rights activist Ricky Gervais.

In early October, Ricky was struck by a vehicle in the village of Urtsadzor, Ararat Province, Armenia.

He was taken to a wildlife sanctuary and nursed back to health. His release back into the wild was supposed to be a celebratory moment.

But Ricky apparently didn’t appreciate the humans’ kind gesture.

After his cage was taken to the release site and placed on the ground, the ranger stood atop it and pulled the front gate off.

As Ricky went after him with claws swinging and teeth bared, the ranger had to use the gate as a shield to fend off the bear as the man desperately scrambled into the pickup bed.

Stupid Human Tricks

Having a bear cage just set on the ground was stupid, Neal said. And having somebody stand on top of it and pull the gate was even stupider.

“We don’t even use cages like that anymore in North America,” he said. “The bear-management agencies here typically use culvert-style cages on wheels, pulled behind the truck.”

And the cage door is opened remotely, he added.

“Much of the time, there’s never even a need for personnel to be outside of vehicles during a release,” Neal said.

Gotta Keep ’Em Separated

Keeping people and bears separated during releases is the key to keeping everybody safe, bears and humans alike, said van Manen.

He’s the supervisory biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. The team frequently traps and releases bears, either for studies or to relocated them.

“All partner agencies of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team have very strict protocols in place to prevent such a dangerous scenario (as the one in the video),” he said.

“The safety of our field personnel and that of the bears in our care is our top priority,” he said. “There are lots of safety considerations and we try to anticipate and minimize risks throughout the entire process of setting and checking traps, chemical immobilization, handling, recovery and release.

“For example, in a similar situation, absolutely no personnel would be outside of a vehicle at the time of release; our field personnel pull the trap door with a very long rope operated from inside a vehicle, and drive away as soon as the trap door opens and the bear leaves the trap.”

Ricky Might Have Been Doped

Neal said that from what he could tell by watching the video, it’s highly likely that Ricky was still recovering from tranquilizers when the ranger pulled the gate on his cage.

“He looked like he was still hopped up on drugs,” Neal said. “He was clumsy and not as agile as bears usually are.”

Although it might seem safter to have a semi-tranquilized bear, that’s not the case, he added.

Bears that are trying to wake up from a tranquilizer nap are known to be extremely grouchy, Neal said.

“Bears can become aggressive when they are coming down off tranquilizers, and I think that might be what was happening in that video,” he said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.