JH Underground – news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming news, sports and music blog from Jackson Hole, Wyoming

After being inundated with complaints, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to kill the small group of wolves roaming the South Park area.

Mike Jimenez, the service’s wolf recovery coordinator for Wyoming, plans to dart three or four wolves by helicopter in the coming days, once the predators move into a suitable area away from a residential neighborhood.

The decision follows standard practice, Jimenez said today in a phone interview. The agency has had to take similar action in other towns around the region, although this is the first time in Jackson, he said. With wolves inside the city limit, passing through the Indian Trails neighborhood and even using streets, conflicts are inevitable, he explained.

“At some point, there’s a line where we’ve gotten an unbelievable amount of calls,” Jimenez said.

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Posted under Environment, Politics, Wyoming, Wyoming Legislature

Tags: cowboys, david stubbs, wildlife, wolves

It seems any enterprising engineer or dreamer looking for an easy handout from state government could hit up the Wyoming Water Development Commission.

On the heels of recommending $300,000 for a Green River watershed study — possibly an end run for yet another ill-advised dam proposal — water managers are seeking $2.4 million for more cloud seeding.

Yes, cloud seeding. The latest request comes on top of nearly $12 million the Wyoming Legislature has given the agency to pump silver iodide into the clouds above the Wind River, Medicine Bow and Sierra Madre mountains, with no measurable results and in violation of wilderness protections.

The goal is to boost snowpack and increase runoff in the Green and Wind rivers, presumably to graze more cattle in the desert. Barry Lawrence, project manager for the Wyoming Water Development Office, calls cloud seeding a “long-term water management strategy,” the News&Guide reported.

Lawmakers might as well be wandering the desert with a forked stick.

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Posted under Economy, Environment, Politics, Republican Party, Weather, Wyoming, Wyoming Legislature

Tags: boondoggles, cowboys, native americans, powder, skiing, wilderness

While working on a story recently for the new Jackson Hole food magazine, Dishing, I learned that agriculture is making a comeback in Teton Valley, Idaho. As the real estate market has imploded, landowners are turning to raising pigs, beef and even goats to help feed their families and earn a few extra bucks.

Groups such as Slow Food in the Tetons, which hosts its SlowToberFest beer and appetizer tasting tonight at Q Roadhouse, have nurtured this movement, which holds promise for any semblance of a “sustainable” lifestyle in these parts.

On his blog A Vivid Eye, photographer David Stubbs has posted a photo essay from a summer spent documenting brothers Chase and Cody Lockhart on their Jackson Hole Hereford Ranch. Once a stream monitor for the Forest Service, Stubbs re-evaluated some of his perceptions about ranching and its impact.

“Here was a small family business conserving open space and wildlife habitat by producing local food on some of the most valuable rural real estate on earth,” he writes, “a unique piece of Jackson history evolving from its roots with two fifth-generation ranching brothers — legitimate, local cowboys.”

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Posted under Economy, Environment, Food

Tags: cowboys, david stubbs, grand teton national park, photography

Locally, a lot of people who ordinarily would take no interest in Modern Family will be watching tonight’s premiere, only not for the reasons the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce is hoping.

Residents will be weighing whether the $70,000 the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board put up to lure the show here is worth the exposure. (One half of the hour-long show was filmed at Lost Creek Ranch last month.) Will Jackson Hole be featured prominently, or serve as just a Hollywood set?

At the time, I was inclined to think the fee was worthwhile, although I had never heard of the show until the News&Guide started making such hullabaloo about the prospect of filming. For the tourism board, it must have been hard to pass up the chance to have Jackson Hole placed before some 12 million viewers.

Yet why would one of the highest-rated sitcoms, on a network, ABC, whose parent Walt Disney Co. reaps more than $4 billion a year in profits, need a handout from a small town in Wyoming?

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Posted under Economy, Entertainment, Politics

Tags: cowboys, Media, tourists

Like, way, way canceled. And not because of the rainy weather.

Snow King Resort pulled the plug on the show because the Utah-based promoter did not follow through on a contract for an earlier concert, Confederate Railroad on July 21. And the promoter, Jason Taylor, salesman for a minor league baseball team, the Orem Owlz, is facing legal and financial woes in his home state stemming from unpaid bills for another botched event.

I’ve known the show was in jeopardy for some time, after Confederate Railroad was called off, but SmithTix continued to sell tickets until yesterday, when it posted a notice of the cancellation.

Dana Ahrensberg, manager of events at Snow King, sent an email to Taylor on July 18, saying, “I’m pulling the plug on Snow King’s involvement in the concert supposedly scheduled for July 21st at Snow King. Snow King will no longer participate in this event. Our property it NOT available for your use. As we have not received any money from you we have nothing to refund. Consider this discussed event & related hotel rooms cancelled, it will not occur on Snow King Resort property. I appreciate your interest in us as a venue. I’m not sure what happened here. Good luck with future endeavors.”

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Posted under Crime, Entertainment, Music, Ski Resorts

Tags: cowboys, snow king, utah