Grand Teton sobriety checkpoint snags 40

JACKSON - Police issued 40 citations as more than 300 vehicles passed through a sobriety checkpoint at Grand Teton National Park.

The checkpoint opened at 10 p.m. Thursday and closed early Friday, coinciding with a Black Crowes concert at nearby Snow King Center.

Officials said they cited five people for driving under the influence of intoxicants, three for having open containers of alcohol, one for possession of a controlled substance and five minors for public intoxication.

Warnings were issued for a variety of infractions.

Park officials said a large sign warned of the checkpoint and drivers had several opportunities to turn around before reaching the checkpoint.

Police reported no arrests or problems at the concert.

"I think there was a guy who fell off a chair and we helped him up," Jackson police Cpl. Roger Schultz said.

Man sentenced for poaching elk

LARAMIE - A man who pleaded guilty for poaching a bull elk on private land southeast of town in 2001 was fined $10,000, ordered to pay $12,000 in restitution and sentenced to three years of unsupervised probation.

Circuit Court Judge Robert Castor also permanently revoked the Wyoming hunting privileges of Steve Herrman, 42, on Friday.

Herrman pleaded guilty to two counts of taking a game animal without a license and two counts of trespassing to hunt.

Herrman has been serving time in Colorado for felony wildlife violations in that state, according to Bill Haley, a Wyoming game warden.

Haley said markings on a bullet recovered from part of the elk matched other bullets fired from a gun owned by Herrman. The testing took place at a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forensics laboratory in Oregon.

Drought takes toll on Cheyenne trees

CHEYENNE - Unusually hot weather and low precipitation the past several years have killed many of the city's trees and left others parched.

Randy Overstreet, assistant director of forestry for the city's Forestry Division, said precipitation in Cheyenne is 3 inches below normal for this time of year.

That's on top of several drier-than-normal years.

"The trees are all suffering because of the drought conditions, and when a tree is stressed, it's susceptible to insect and disease problems," Overstreet said.

He said many large cottonwoods have been dying and many people are unaware until it's too late. "Larger trees are most susceptible," he said. "They might take longer to show the effects, but once they do, they don't recover from it."

Shane Smith, director of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, said some trees give no warning that they are about to die. "Sadly, the damage sneaks up on people," he said. "It's not something where most people can look up and say, 'That tree's under stress."'

Smith said aspen spider mite populations have exploded this year, leaving aspens with dusty, ragged lower leaves. Overstreet said he has seen large numbers of Ips spruce beetles and Douglas fir tussock moths on spruce trees around town.