Park museum puts historic photos on Web

CODY - Internet surfers can take a visual trip through the 20th century in Park County thanks to an exhaustive online collection of photos by two of the area's most acclaimed photographers.

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center's McCracken Research Library has launched an online archive of 3,500 photographs by Jack Richard and 2,500 photographs by Charles Belden.

The archive allows users to browse, search and purchase images from the museum's Web site at http://www.bbhc.org.

Photo archivist Megan Peacock said the photos represent a wide-ranging look at life in northwestern Wyoming over the past 100 years.

Richard's photos appeared in national magazines including Life and National Geographic.

"He photographed Yellowstone National Park for decades, and went back to take pictures of the same things many times over several decades, so you can see the changes in the area," Peacock said.

Richard, a pilot, also took aerial photos, and frequently photographed local industries, including mining, tourism, ranching, oil and gas.

Belden was a Meeteetse rancher who captured iconic images of Western life from 1914 to 1940.

Trout group protests planned BLM leases

CODY - Citing dwindling Yellowstone cutthroat trout numbers, Trout Unlimited is protesting a number of proposed oil and gas leases being offered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management across Wyoming.

"Development of these leases could have a lasting negative impact on wild and native trout from one end of Wyoming to the other," said Kathy Lynch, Trout Unlimited's Western energy counsel in Jackson.

The lease sales, planned for Dec. 4, could open drilling access to parcels in Park, Big Horn, Carbon, Sweetwater and Uinta counties, Lynch said.

One parcel near Clark, near the Wyoming-Montana border, is part of the Line Creek drainage, Lynch said. "That parcel is overlaying private land and appears to have a potential split-estate issue," she said, although she was uncertain of the property owner.

Lynch said the Line Creek parcel, which is near the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River, is close to thriving populations of Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

Such a parcel should warrant special attention from BLM and potential developers and may not be appropriate for development, she said.

Parcels in Big Horn County include some along the Greybull River, also a native Yellowstone cutthroat fishery, Lynch said.

Game and Fish wants to delay BLM oil, gas leases

CHEYENNE - The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission has asked the Bureau of Land Management to delay the sale of proposed oil and gas leases in south-central Wyoming because of potential impacts to sage grouse and other wildlife.

Game and Fish Commission President Bill Williams made the request in a letter sent last week to BLM Deputy State Director Alan Rabinoff.

"In particular, the commission is in the process of identifying and evaluating sage grouse seasonal ranges and core habitats," Williams wrote.