Karbon Kounty Moos

—Francis Scott Key, 1814

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro’ the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation;
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

I couldn’t help but notice this story in the dead tree issue of the
Billings Gazette.

Researching further, I found the article in the
Seattle Post Intelligencer.

Here it is:

Frightened USFS workers call for rescue after hearing wolf howls

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

KETCHUM, Idaho — The sound of howling wolves prompted two U.S. Forest Service employees to call for a helicopter evacuation from the Sawtooth Wilderness late last month, officials said.

The employees, both from Utah, became frightened Sept. 23 after seeing wolves chasing a bull elk across the meadow and later hearing the animals howl, said Ed Waldapfel, a spokesman for the Sawtooth National Forest.

“They started hearing wolves howling all around them,” Waldapfel told the Idaho Mountain Express. “They called on their radio or satellite phone and asked their supervisor if they could leave the area.”

Waldapfel did not know the employees’ names, but said they were from the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Ogden and were conducting forest inventory work in the Sawtooths.

“No matter which way they went they said they could hear the wolves,” he said. “They admitted they were very scared and wanted to get out of the area.”

The employees’ supervisor called national forest officials and “asked for a helicopter to come in and retrieve them,” Waldapfel said.

The wolves never made any aggressive moves toward the pair. There are no documented cases of wolves attacking humans in Idaho, though the employees may not have known that, Waldapfel said.

“They’re not part of our regular work force and so they hadn’t had training for this kind of wildlife encounter,” Waldapfel said.

According to a National Park Service fact sheet, there has never been a documented case of a healthy wild wolf seriously injuring or killing a human being in North America.

Steve Nadeau, wolf program supervisor with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, was shocked that howling could prompt a helicopter evacuation.

“Holy moly - sounds to me like someone’s read too many of Grimm’s fairy tales,” Nadeau said. “I’m flabbergasted that (the Forest Service) would go to that extent over wolves howling in the woods because wolves howl in the woods all the time. That’s how they communicate.”

Howling, especially in rocky, mountainous areas, can echo, said Lynne Stone, a Stanley resident who regularly observes backcountry wolf behavior.

“There are great wolf-howl acoustics. They probably weren’t surrounded by wolves,” Stone said. “I’d be more afraid of running into a moose cow with calves, or a black bear with cubs, than encountering howling wolves.”

Sawtooth National Forest officials will review training procedures to better prepare out-of-area Forest Service personnel for the wildlife they may encounter while in Idaho, Waldapfel said.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 12th, 2006 at 3:29 pm and is filed under animals, music, wolves, my photos, morons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.