Cheryl Morales started the medicinal garden at the Aaniiih Nakoda College demonstration farm with only four plants: yarrow, echinacea, plantain and licorice root.

After 10 years, the campus garden within the Fort Belknap reservation in northern Montana now holds more than 60 species that take up almost 30,000 square feet. Morales adds new plants annually. This year, she is testing Oregon grape root and breadroot.

Like many people in the Fort Belknap community, Morales, 60, is working to teach herself and others the traditional indigenous health knowledge that was largely lost because of federal policies.

Now the Indian Health Service, a federally funded and treaty-promised health care service, is also starting to embrace such knowledge. The Fort Belknap IHS hospital is seeking job applicants for two traditional practitioner positions, offering up to $68,000 a year. While the health service has filled similar positions across the Navajo Nation in the past 15 years, these would be the first IHS positions of their kind in Montana.

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Hundreds more people in Montana’s prisons and correctional facilities will have access to coronavirus testing starting Friday, a significant increase from the total of 31 inmates and offenders that have received a test so far.

The state Department of Corrections said this week that 774 tests per month will be available for inmates and staff who are asymptomatic. That’s in addition to diagnostic testing for anyone exhibiting symptoms, according to spokeswoman Carolynn Bright, which is the policy DOC said it has so far followed in accordance with CDC guidelines.

To date, three DOC and contract staff have tested positive for COVID-19, in addition to two people at the Gallatin County Detention Center.

“I will say that, at this point, has been our greatest success, or one of our greatest successes,” said DOC Director Reginald Michael during a May 12 teleconference appearance before the Law and Justice Interim Committee. “Not many of our states have numbers similar to the numbers you see in front of you,” he said.

But lawmakers on the committee were quick to note that the low number of confirmed cases is likely a result of having conducted so few tests. 

“It’s good to see that we have such low tests proving positive now, but given that we have tested so few, that is very, I think, misleading,” said Sen. Diane Sands, D-Missoula. “My question to the director is: What is your general plan when those tests come back, more universal testing, and we find a much higher level of presence of this virus?”

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Wildlife Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that annually kills thousands of wild animals across Montana, will at least temporarily cut back on how and where it kills animals such as bears, wolves and coyotes in the state under a settlement reached Thursday with WildEarth Guardians.

The settlement applies to wildlife in protected areas like Wilderness Areas and National Wildlife Refuges, and also halts the use of sodium cyanide bombs on public land and private land in 41 counties until Wildlife Services conducts an updated environmental analysis. The agency will also halt its killing of black bears and mountain lions on federal land within the state.

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How Montana’s 2020 census became “an uphill climb while it’s hailing basketballs.”

When the Navajo Transitional Energy Company acquired three Powder River Basin coal mines in October, industry analysts warned the purchase was a “risky bet” with lots of downside due to projected declines in the coal industry.

About six months later, the COVID-19 pandemic has only amplified those risks. Last month, NTEC laid off 130 workers, including 73 at the Spring Creek mine — a quarter of the workforce at Montana’s largest coal mine.

“The market has declined even more quickly than expected,” said Robert Godby, an economics professor at the University of Wyoming.

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With livestock prices falling and food banks in need, Montana ag producers are finding new ways to share
 

For $.28 a pound, Shorty Hofer doesn’t want to sell his hogs, but in a farrow-to-finish operation where new litters of piglets are born every week, you run out of room in your barn.

“We farrow every week,” said Hofer, a hog farmer and business manager of the Hutterite Midway Colony near Conrad. “We keep farrowing, so we’ve got to keep them moving. They’ve got to go somewhere every week.”

Hofer decided to do something different with his most recent load of finished hogs. Rather than sell all of them at a loss, Hofer made a deal with Independent Meat Company, his regular processor in Twin Falls, Idaho. If Independent Meat would slaughter 10 hogs without charge, the processor could keep the prime cuts for resale, and Hofer would take the equivalent weight in hot dogs and ground pork. Hofer then would donate the 800 pounds of pork to local food banks. 

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Yellowstone National Park’s Wyoming entrances to open next week

Yellowstone National Park will open its Wyoming entrances on Monday, May 18, at noon, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly announced today.

The park will be limited to day-use only via the Cody and Jackson entrances. Only the park’s lower loop — which includes Lake, Canyon, Norris, Old Faithful, West Thumb, and Grant Village — will be open. No commercial tour buses will be allowed to enter the park. The opening comes at the request of Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, Sholly said.

Montana’s gates to Yellowstone National Park will not open before June 1, Gov. Steve Bullock said during a press briefing Wednesday afternoon.

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Republican U.S. House candidate Matt Rosendale
 

As the state commissioner of securities and insurance, Rosendale regulates the insurance industry in Montana, and he says his actions during the coronavirus pandemic are an example of competent leadership during a crisis. He discusses his efforts to protect vulnerable seniors from exploitation scams and help consumers facing insurance gaps obtain new or continued coverage.

“I’ve shown that I can get conservative results while being fiscally responsible and a good steward of the taxpayers’ dollars, and I’d like to do the same thing in Congress,” Rosendale tells Montana Free Press editor-in-chief John S. Adams. “I think we have to restore some fiscal sanity to the federal government. I can do it.”

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