Wyoming
There Are Plenty Of Coyotes And Wolves In… | Cowboy State Daily
As near as anybody can tell so far, Wyoming coyotes are just that: coyotes.
Even though there are plenty of coyotes all around the Cowboy State, and they share territory with Wyoming wolves, as far as anyone knows they haven’t mated with wolves to produce hybrid offspring.
But in the Eastern United States and Canada, the coyotes people encounter are likely to be coywolves, or coyote-wolf crossbreeds, frequently also with some dog DNA tossed in.
Different canine species can, and in some places have, successfully crossbred and had fertile offspring, some experts told Cowboy State Daily. But in Wyoming, wolves and coyotes tend to avoid each other, and coyotes risk getting killed by wolves.
A Bigger Dog
Coywolves, or Eastern coyotes, are burlier than coyotes out West.
“They’re larger than your Western coyotes. They average about 35 pounds, and the largest ones can get up over 50 pounds,” David Sausville, wildlife management program lead with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, told Cowboy State Daily.
Even on the larger end, Western coyotes rarely tip the scales past 30 pounds.
Sausville is a Vermont native, but has experience with both Eastern and Western coyotes, as well as purebred wolves having spent some time in the Dakotas and Alaska.
Eastern wolves, which might, or might not, have been smaller than wolves out West, were wiped out, probably by the early 1900s, he said. Coywolves moved in to take their place.
“They’ve taken over the niche of what our Eastern wolf used to do,” he said.
The coywolves’ prey consists largely of rabbits and small mammals, but they will also take down deer from time to time.
“They’re opportunistic. And if they get the opportunity to take a deer, especially a fawn, they’ll take it,” Sausville said.
Wyoming’s coyotes are also known to occasionally take deer fawns or elk calves, but in some places they must compete with wolves or grizzlies for those tasty prizes.
Coywolves also adjust well to urban living.
“I’ve heard reports of them in New York City,” Sausville said. “They catch them down there at night sometimes.”
No Proof So Far Of Wyoming Coywolves
While coywolves are increasingly common in the East, in Wyoming they’re more likely than not in the same category as jackalopes — mythical creatures.
Particularly since the advent of social media, rumors crop up and get circulated about somebody spotting a coywolf slinking through the mountain forests or bounding across the prairie.
Those are probably rumors and nothing more.
“I’m not aware of any coywolves being documented in Wyoming,” Wyoming Game and Fish Large Carnivore Specialist Dan Thompson told Cowboy State Daily.
“In an evolutionary sense, species with the same genus (such as canine) can breed and produce offspring, but it is not something that occurs regularly, based on behavioral adaptations and other social hierarchy,” he added.
Researcher Kira Cassidy monitors and studies wolves in Yellowstone National Park, including the tenacious 11-year-old, one-eyed Wolf 907F.
Yellowstone has its share of coyotes too. To survive, they must be crafty about out-competing bears, wolves and mountain lions for big game carcasses and other food.
And one celebrity coyote named Limpy has mastered the art of looking pathetic and suckering tourists for snacks, even though feeding wildlife in Yellowstone is strictly against the rules.
But seducing wolves and producing supersized offspring isn’t a trick that Yellowstone coyotes have learned, Cassidy told Cowboy State Daily.
“I’ve never heard of a coyote/wolf pairing out here. It’s rare to even see a coyote and wolf in the same vicinity without showing a classic dynamic of a wolf trying to chase and catch/kill the coyote, or multiple coyotes chasing away a single wolf, usually near a coyote den,” she said.
Colorado Coywolf Rumors Probably False Too
There’s also been social media chatter and barstool talk of coywolves or other such critters to the south of Wyoming in the Centennial State.
But that’s also likely just unsubstantiated talk, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesman Joey Livingston told Cowboy State Daily.
There’s never been a verified report of any such animal in Colorado, he said.
“Wolves and coyotes have coexisted in the Rockies for many years, and they are still distinct species. That should be good evidence to say they will continue to not breed with each other at any significant rate,” Livingston said.
“The coywolf issue usually comes from the Eastern U.S./Canada,” he said. “There are always rumors about coywolves and wolf-dogs in the northern Rockies, but it has rarely been proven and has never been a problem.”
On the off chance coywolves ever do take hold in Colorado, they wouldn’t be a protected species there, Livingston said.
“They would be managed as any other wildlife species without Federal Endangered Species protections,” he said.
Taking The Long Road To Vermont
It took considerable time and coyotes traveling long distances to produce a permanent population of coywolves in Vermont and across the East.
“The Eastern coyote (Canis latrans) moved eastward from west of the Mississippi and first appeared in Vermont in the late 1940s,” according to Vermont Fish and Wildlife.
“It is generally larger than its Western ancestor because it gained size by breeding with gray wolves occupying the Great Lakes region, Eastern wolves, and even domestic dogs in southern Canada before it moved into our area,” according to the agency.
Coywolves have become more common over recent decades as they’ve moved in and claimed territory, sometimes pushing out foxes, Sausville said.
And there’s some misconceptions built up around them, he added. For example, that they regularly hunt in packs and howl like wolves.
In the springtime, pairs of coywolves, or Eastern coyotes, might hang out and hunt together with some of their offspring, he said. But then they’ll tend to go their separate ways in the fall.
As far as howling goes, Sausville said he’s mostly just heard coywolves yipping, much like the coyotes he heard in the Dakotas.
“I actually think that domestic dogs howl more than Eastern coyotes do,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
Wyoming
Wyoming power plant booming with suspected UFO, drone sightings — but still no answers after over a year
Fleets of drones and suspected UFOs have been spotted hovering over a Wyoming power plant for more than a year, while a local sheriff’s department is still searching for clues.
Officials with the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office recorded scores of beaming, drone-like objects circling around the Red Desert and Jim Bridger Power Plant in Rock Springs over the last 13 months — though they didn’t specify how many, the Cowboy State Daily reported.
Sheriff John Grossnickle was one of the first to witness the spectacles, and last saw the mind-boggling formation on Dec. 12, his spokesperson Jason Mower told the outlet.
The fleets periodically congregate over the power plant in coordinated formations, Mower claimed.
The sheriff’s office hasn’t been able to recover any of the suspected UFOs, telling the outlet they’re too high to shoot down.
The law enforcement outpost’s exhaustive efforts to get to the truth haven’t yielded any results, even after Grossnickle enlisted help from Wyoming US Rep. Harriet Hageman — who Mower claimed saw the formation during a trip to the power plant.
Hageman could not be reached for comment.
“We’ve worked with everybody. We’ve done everything we can to figure out what they are, and nobody wants to give us any answers,” Mower said, according to the outlet.
At first, spooked locals bombarded the sheriff’s office with calls about the confounding aerial formations. Now, though, Mower said that people seem to have accepted it as “the new normal.”
Mower noted that the objects, which he interchangeably referred to as “drones” and “unidentified flying objects,” have yet to pose a danger to the public or cause any damage to the power plant itself.
“It’s like this phenomenon that continues to happen, but it’s not causing any, you know, issues that we have to deal with — other than the presence of them,” he told the outlet.
The spokesperson promised the sheriff’s office would “certainly act accordingly” if the drones pose an imminent harm.
Meanwhile, Niobrara County Sheriff Randy Starkey told the Cowboy State Daily that residents of his community also reported mystery drone sightings over Lance Creek — more than 300 miles from the Jim Bridger Power Plant — starting in late October 2024 and ending in early March.
Starkey said he’s “just glad they’re gone,” according to the outlet.
Drone sightings captured the nation’s attention last year when they were causing hysteria in sightings over New Jersey.
Just days into his second term, President Trump had to clarify that the drones were authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration to quell worries that they posed a national security threat.
Still, the public wasn’t convinced, but the mystery slowly faded as the sightings plummeted.
In October, though, an anonymous source with an unnamed military contractor told The Post that their company was responsible for the hysteria.
Much of Wyoming outside of Yellowstone and Grand Teton also struggles with emergency response time.
By Katie Klingsporn, WyoFile
Wyoming’s U.S. Sen. John Barrasso is pushing legislation to upgrade emergency communications in national parks — a step he says would improve responses in far-flung areas of parks like Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
“This bill improves the speed and accuracy of emergency responders in locating and assisting callers in need of emergency assistance,” Barrasso told members of the National Parks Subcommittee last week during a hearing on the bill. “These moments make a difference between visitors being able to receive quick care and continue their trip or facing more serious medical complications.”
The legislation directs the U.S. Department of the Interior to develop a plan to upgrade National Park Service 911 call centers with next-generation 911 technology.
Among other things, these upgrades would enable them to receive text messages, images and videos in addition to phone calls, enhancing their ability to respond to emergencies or rescues in the parks.
Each year, rangers and emergency services respond to a wide range of calls — from lost hikers to car accidents and grizzly maulings — in the Wyoming parks’ combined 2.5 million acres.
Outside park boundaries, the state’s emergency service providers also face steep challenges, namely achieving financial viability. Many patients, meantime, encounter a lack of uniformity and longer 911 response times in the state’s so-called frontier areas.
Improving the availability of ground ambulance services to respond to 911 calls is a major priority in Wyoming’s recent application for federal Rural Health Transformation Project funds.
Barrasso’s office did not respond to a WyoFile request for comment on the state’s broader EMS challenges by publication time.
The bill from the prominent Wyoming Republican, who serves as Senate Majority Whip, joined a slate of federal proposals the subcommittee considered last week. With other bills related to the official name of North America’s highest mountain, an extra park fee charged to international visitors, the health of a wild horse herd and the use of off-highway vehicles in Capitol Reef National Park, Barrasso’s “Making Parks Safer Act” was among the least controversial.
What’s in it
Barrasso brought the bipartisan act along with Sens. Angus King (I-Maine), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).
The bill would equip national park 911 call centers with technological upgrades that would improve and streamline responses, Barrasso said. He noted that hundreds of millions of visitors stream into America’s national parks annually. That includes more than 8 million recreation visits to Wyoming’s national parks in 2024.
“Folks travel from across the world to enjoy the great American outdoors, and for many families, these memories last a lifetime,” he testified. “This is a bipartisan bill that ensures visitors who may need assistance can be reached in an accurate and timely manner.”
The Park Service supports Barrasso’s bill, Mike Caldwell, the agency’s associate director of park planning, facilities and lands, said during the hearing. It’s among several proposals that are “consistent with executive order 14314, ‘Making America Beautiful Again by Improving our National Parks,’” Caldwell said.
“These improvements are largely invisible to visitors, so they strengthen the emergency response without deterring the park’s natural beauty or history,” he said.
Other park issues
National parks have been a topic of contention since President Donald Trump included them in his DOGE efforts in early 2025. Since then, efforts to sell off federal land and strip park materials of historical information that casts a negative light on the country, along with a 43-day government shutdown, have continued to fuel debate over the proper management of America’s parks.
Several of these changes and issues came up during the recent National Parks Subcommittee hearing.
Among them was the recent announcement that resident fee-free dates will change in 2026. Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth will no longer be included in those days, but visitors won’t have to pay fees on new dates: Flag Day on June 14, which is Trump’s birthday and Oct. 27, Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday.
Conservation organizations and others decried those changes as regressive.
At the hearing, Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), assured the room that “when this president is in the past, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth will not only have fee-free national park admission, they will occupy, again, incredible places of pride in our nation’s history.”
Improvements such as the new fee structure “put American families first,” according to the Department of the Interior. “These policies ensure that U.S. taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in an announcement.
WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
Wyoming
Evacuations spread from fires in South Dakota, Wyoming due to strong winds from coast-to-coast storm
CLIMATE TECH: As wildfires grow stronger, faster, and more expensive, a California-based startup is taking a high-tech approach to fight these fires using autonomous drones designed to extinguish flames before they turn deadly. Founder & CEO Stuart Landesberg joins FOX Weather to discuss Seneca’s firefighting drones.
Large, fast-moving fires are causing evacuations in South Dakota and Wyoming due to the impacts of a coast-to-coast storm.
The FOX Forecast Center said winds have been gusting up to 70 mph in the Pennington County, South Dakota area, which has caused the wildfire to spread rapidly.
COAST-TO-COAST STORM CAUSES TRAVEL ISSUES DUE TO HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS, HEAVY RAIN ACROSS NORTHWEST
The blaze, known as the Greyhound Fire, is approximately 200 acres in size. The fire is burning two to three miles south of Keystone and is moving east, according to the Pennington County Sheriff’s Office.
The Greyhound Fire in South Dakota spans 200 acres.
(FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
Highway 40 and Playhouse Road are closed as crews work to contain the fire.
People living along the highway between Playhouse Road and Rushmore Ranch Road have been evacuated, officials said.
TWO KIDS WAITING FOR THE BUS CRITICALLY INJURED DUE TO STRONG WINDS IN IDAHO
Crews are asking anyone in an evacuation zone to leave the area. Officials are advising people in the area to check the Pennington County Public Safety Hub.
A grass fire has caused evacuations in the Winchester Hills section of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
(FOX Weather / FOX Weather)
People in the Winchester Hills area of Cheyenne, Wyoming, have also been evacuated due to a grass fire.
The FOX Forecast Center said winds are gusting up to 75 mph in the area.
The National Weather Service has issued a Fire Warning and says there is a shelter at South High School for evacuated residents.
Check for updates on this developing story.
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