Wyoming

Former Wyoming Man Is Hero Beekeeper From Dodgers Game

Published

2 years ago

May 1, 2024

Former Wyoming Man Is Hero Beekeeper From Dodgers Game

The MVP of Tuesday night’s Major League Baseball game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers was Matt Hilton. But don’t bother looking for the 37-year-old right-hander on either team’s roster.

While the former Wyomingite did help his hometown Arizona D-backs to a 4-3 win, Hilton’s ESPN highlight reel was compiled before the first pitch was ever thrown. The pest control expert was called on to handle a colony of bees that held up the start of the game for almost two hours.

Media outlets across the country had fun with the puns — “Chase Field was buzzing last night” — but the truth of the matter is the situation could have turned serious in a heartbeat. Even before Hilton arrived he had a pretty good idea he would be dealing with a highly antagonistic crossbred species known colloquially as “killer bees.”

“We live in a state where Africanized honey bees are super common here,” Hilton told Cowboy State Daily. “Compared to a normal strain of honeybees, most people can’t tell the difference. Except these have a tendency to be extremely aggressive — 10-20 times more aggressive than the average honeybee.”

Red Carpet Treatment

Hilton informed stadium staff to move people in the closest box seats to at least 50 to 75 feet away. He was on his way.

“I explained these bees very much raised the risk level quite a bit. I kind of walked them through it, but it was not their first rodeo,” Hilton said.

In fact, stadium personnel rolled out the red carpet for Hilton and had everything waiting for the bee whisperer when he arrived.

“I was able to drive right up to the big bay doors and throw my gear on,” he said. “They had the scissor lift right there ready to go. It was in everyone’s interest to get this game underway as safely and quickly as possible.”

Bonnie Tyler’s “I Need a Hero” blared from loudspeakers as Hilton’s play-in song, just like he was the team’s closer coming in from the bullpen.

By the way, a shout out to another winning team — Blue Sky Pest Control of Phoenix. Chase Field actually contracts with the local company for regular service keeping the food concessionaire areas pest- and rodent-free.

Blue Sky Pest Control is also on-call 24/7 for just the type of crazy emergency that came up Tuesday.

“I was at my 6-year-old son’s T-ball game when the head guy at Chase called me and said he had a swarm of bees holding the game up,” Hilton said. “In my line of work, especially with a high-profile account like this, we have to drop everything and take care of the problem.”

10,000 To 20,000 Bees

When Hilton arrived to the field, he quickly anesthetized the popup colony with a non-pesticidal solution. That was done to lock the bees in place.

“They interlock their legs together when they are in a colony like this. The last thing you want to do is start poking at them and have them fly off individually looking for someone to be mad at,” Hilton said.

The pest control tech estimates between 10,000 and 20,000 bees made up this particular swarm. If agitated, D-backs fans could be in a lot more pain than anything the Dodgers could dish out.

“The risk comes in if that swarm gets disturbed. If they start stinging people, when they do it releases a pheromone in the stinger that signals: ‘Hey, get this guy,’” Hilton said.

Deaths have been reported in Arizona, Utah and Texas, where a victim was stung repeatedly by Africanized bees.

Donned in a beekeeper’s protective suit, Hilton was able to vacuum up all the bees as the crowd around him chanted, “You can do it!”

King For A Night

Once the job was done, Hilton gave the fans a fist pump and was immediately invited to toss out the ceremonial first pitch.

Just another day at the office, Hilton said. Except for the paid attendance.

“I’ve done hundreds of these types of calls. This was the first in front of 30,000 people,” Hilton said. “I’ll maybe be in a parking lot and a handful of people will be looking on from their office windows. This one was a little more high-pressure with a game hanging in the balance. It was pretty electric, pretty awesome.”

Blue Sky offers a relocation service for bee swarms it collects but the market for Africanized bees is slim.

“Beekeepers don’t want Africanized honey bees. You see pictures of video of beekeepers tending their hives without a suit on. That’s where it gets dicey. If they did that with these bees they would be in a world of hurt,” Hilton assured.

Wyoming To The Rescue

Topps, the baseball card manufacturer, is already working on a special one-off card for the bee specialist who saved the game. It will be a keepsake for the Arizona man with Wyoming roots.

Hilton lived in Buffalo, Wyoming, from ages 11 through 18 before he attended college Arizona State University. He met an Arizona girl, Morgan, and the two were married in 2010. They have four kids.

“I moved away from Buffalo because of the cold. I got married to the love of my life and found a career and a company that really suits me,” Hilton said. “Buffalo is a super cool little town and I take a lot of pride having grown up there. I miss hunting and fishing in the Big Horn Mountains.”

Contact Jake Nichols at jake@cowboystatedaily.com

Beekeeper Matt Hilton reacts to fans after removing a colony of bees that formed on the net behind home plate during a delay to the MLB game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field on April 30, 2024, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Christian Petersen, Getty Images)
Beekeeper Matt Hilton, left, arrives to Chase Field to remove a colony of bees that formed on the net behind home plate during a delay to the MLB game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks on April 30, 2024, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Christian Petersen, Getty Images)

Jake Nichols can be reached at jake@cowboystatedaily.com.

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Wyoming

How Wyoming Game Wardens Cracked The Cody Serial Poaching Case

Published

9 hours ago

March 24, 2026

Press Room

How Wyoming Game Wardens Cracked The Cody Serial Poaching Case

For four straight nights, Game Warden Spencer Carstens and a fellow officer sat in an unmarked vehicle at a Cody city park, windows down, staring into the blackness from dusk until 3 a.m.

Nothing happened.

The poaching caper that would become known internally as the “Cody Park Case” had been building since late August 2024, when residents began finding mule deer carcasses in their front yards and floating in a pond at the Park County Complex. The deer body count reached nine.

According to Wyoming Game and Fish, all nine were killed “right in the middle of town where deer like to hang out” by the library, not far from Canal Park and Glendale Park

All shot with a compound bow, all left to rot.

By the time wardens launched their stakeout, and the only lead was grainy security camera footage of a silver car cruising the neighborhood.

The full story of how the case came together is now the subject of an episode of the Wyoming Wildlife Podcast, hosted by Robert Gagliardi, the assistant editor of Wyoming Wildlife magazine. The podcast is a newer offering from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and this particular episode stood out for good reason.

“Our law enforcement stories, those are a fan favorite because they’re very exciting, they’re incredibly interesting, and they do a great job just highlighting just how much work goes into successfully investigating and closing a case like that,” Amanda Fry, public information officer for Wyoming Game and Fish, told Cowboy State Daily.

First Blood

In 2024, the first dead buck appeared in someone’s front yard near a city park, with a blood trail leading across the street and footprints disappearing into the grass. An arrow wound made the cause of death obvious.

“The first thing I kind of thought of was maybe it was a kid,” Carstens recalled for the podcast. A deer in a backyard, shot for fun — that was going to be the end of it.

But then, more reports came in the same day. A second buck, a couple of doors down, also arrowed.

Then a third, in a nearby park, where wardens recovered an arrow — an expandable broadhead fired from a compound bow, a typical hunting setup. Then deer four, five and six. Then number seven, found floating in a pond at the Park County Complex, requiring Carstens to wade out in chest waders to retrieve it.

All nine carcasses — two bucks, six does and a fawn — turned up within a tight radius around the county library and city park, right in the middle of town.

Every animal was shot and abandoned. None were harvested in any way.

“They were just killed and left,” Fry confirmed.

Silver Car

Being in city limits gave wardens tools they rarely get to use. Ring doorbell cameras from cooperative neighbors produced footage of activity on the nights deer were killed. Security cameras at a local business captured a silver car driving slowly up and down the street before parking, and a figure stepping out with a flashlight.

It was the first real break, but the footage was too grainy to identify a make and model, let alone a license plate.

“And of course, it’s one of those deals where there’s just silver cars everywhere you look, once you start looking for them,” Carstens said.

An early lead pointed to a group of teenagers spotted on Ring camera footage running around and riding in the back of a truck. Wardens tracked them down at a local school — only to learn they had been playing a supervised game that night, organized by Cody police. They were ruled out.

With no suspect and deer still turning up dead, Carstens and his team decided to stake out the park. They would sit in the dark and wait.

Forensic evidence was gathered from arrows to catch a serial poacher in Cody (Courtesy: Wyoming Game and Fish)

Fifth Night

By the fifth night of the stakeout, the wardens were running on fumes.

“We’re kind of tired, kind of getting sick of it, trying to figure out what are we going to do next because this isn’t working,” Carstens recalled.

Then they heard it — the unmistakable thwack of a compound bow firing in the darkness, followed by the sound of an arrow hitting flesh.

Using night vision, the wardens looked out into the park. A man was standing there holding a bow, standing over a dead deer.

Carstens crept out of the truck and got as close as he could before making contact. The man bolted.

“I actually get in a foot pursuit with this guy,” Carstens said. “He was a young, pretty fast guy, so he got away from me.”

But the suspect had to have driven there. Wardens fanned out and found the silver car parked about a block away. Peering through the window, they saw an arrow lying on the front seat that matched the one recovered from an earlier crime scene.

And the car was full of fresh groceries.

“Basically went out to get groceries, on his way home decided to pull over and shoot a deer in the park,” Carstens said.

Blood Science

The suspect — later identified as Joshua Tamirat Wielhouwer — fled the state. But wardens had his vehicle and, soon, search warrants for the house where he had been staying. Inside, archery equipment was scattered through multiple rooms. A second vehicle yielded more gear, including a bow and broadheads.

Some of that equipment had blood on it. In some cases, only minuscule traces.

Wardens had also been collecting the deer carcasses and storing them in an evidence freezer. They sent tissue samples from eight of the nine deer to the Wyoming Game & Fish forensics lab, along with every piece of blood-stained archery equipment from the house.

What came back was, in Carstens’ word, “remarkable.”

The lab matched all eight deer to specific pieces of equipment — individual broadheads, arrows and metal inserts — through DNA analysis. Trace amounts of tissue inside a tiny metal arrow insert were enough to tie a specific deer to a specific arrow.

“This is the first case that I’ve worked where we’ve actually been able to take nothing but DNA evidence and make a full case on it,” Carstens said. “Big kudos to the forensics lab. They really helped put this case together. We wouldn’t have a case without them.”

A cell phone search warrant then connected the suspect’s archery equipment to an older case — a beef cow shot with multiple arrows and left to die the year before, a case the Park County Sheriff’s Office had been unable to solve.

Serial Poacher

With a nationwide extraditable warrant issued through the Park County prosecuting office, officers in another state began looking for the suspect. He eventually turned himself in, flew back to Cody and sat in jail for 75 days before posting bail.

A trial was set for February 2025. Before it began, prosecutors and the defense reached a plea deal: guilty on nine of the 18 misdemeanor charges, $18,000 in restitution for the deer and one full year in county jail, with 73 days credited for time served.

The suspect also pleaded guilty to felony destruction of property for the cow, paying restitution to the rancher and accepting three years of supervised probation. All seized archery equipment was forfeited. 

A year behind bars is an unusual outcome for a wildlife case in Wyoming, where penalties more commonly involve fines and revocation of hunting privileges, explained Carstens.

“This guy had never purchased a hunting license in Wyoming,” Carstens said. “He wasn’t really a traditional hunter in the sense that he buys a license, goes out in the field and looks to harvest anything.”

The warden’s best guess at a motive: the suspect was into archery as target shooting and “maybe just wanted to take it to the next level and see what he could do with his bow.”

Forensic evidence was gathered from arrows to catch a serial poacher in Cody — who was also connected to a mutilated cow. (Courtesy: Wyoming Game and Fish)

Team Effort

Carstens credited his fellow wardens and the Game and Fish investigative unit — which considered the dead cow as a possible predator conflict before determining it had been killed by a bow — and the Park County prosecutor’s office.

“This was definitely the most collaborative effort that I’ve been a part of,” Carstens said.

The community played a role too. Neighbors willingly shared security camera footage, and residents who enjoy the town’s urban mule deer herd were eager to see the case resolved.

“Our hope is to cover everything Game and Fish is doing,” Fry said of the Wyoming Wildlife Podcast. “We have terrestrial habitat work, aquatic habitat work, but our law enforcement stories — those are a fan favorite.”

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.

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Wyoming

BLM and Wyoming Honor Farm to Offer Trained Wild Horses and Burros in May

Published

21 hours ago

March 23, 2026

Press Room

BLM and Wyoming Honor Farm to Offer Trained Wild Horses and Burros in May

The Wyoming Department of Corrections Wyoming Honor Farm and the Bureau of Land Management have announced they will host an adoption on May 9 in Riverton.

According to a release, for more than 35 years, the Honor Farm has shared the BLM’s commitment to place animals removed from overpopulated herds into good, private homes.

The event will offer saddle-started horses, halter-started yearlings and gentled burros for adoption. Photos of many of the available animals can be seen by following BLM Wyoming on Facebook or X. The organizations are currently developing a Flickr album that will premier in the near future. The horses to be offered all originate from Wyoming public lands.

The Wyoming Honor Farm is located one mile north of Riverton. Take U.S. Highway 26 to Honor Farm Road.

On May 8, gates open at 12:30 p.m. Preview available horses and burros in-person starting at 1:30 p.m. All visitors must be offsite by 3:30 p.m.

On May 9, gates open at 8 a.m. and the competitive-bid adoption begins at 10 a.m.

Both days’ events are free and open to anyone interested in wild horses, the Honor Farm gentling process and the BLM wild horse and burro adoption program.

According to the BLM, it will provide applications and information about how to adopt on both days. The BLM reports the horses and burros are current on their vaccinations, de-worming and Coggins testing. Only covered straight deck or stock type trailers with swing gate and sturdy walls and floors are authorized for loading.

The Wyoming Department of Corrections reports that since 1988, the Honor Farm has helped the BLM place thousands of horses and burros. The WDC has a low recidivism rate, and leadership feels this is largely due to the meaningful work accomplished by the Honor Farm inmates, including the gentling of wild horses. Inmates who are released after working in this program have a greater chance of succeeding in the outside world, according to the WDC.

Refreshments will be available during the event. Ice cream sandwiches will be provided on Friday, May 8. On Saturday, May 9, breakfast and lunch will be available free of charge for attendees.

All members of the public entering the facility will be subject to security checks conducted by GSecurity, including vehicle inspections. For the safety of visitors, staff, and animals – pets, firearms, and alcohol are not allowed on site.

The BLM wishes the public to be aware that cell phones, smart watches, cameras, video equipment and tobacco products must be kept locked in your vehicle while onsite. To maintain a positive environment for visitors, a reasonable clothing standard must be adhered to. Shorts and form-fitting clothing are prohibited.

To learn more about the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Program, including adoption requirements, visit blm.gov/whb or contact the national information center at 866-468-7826 or wildhorse@blm.gov.

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