There are at least 23 prehistoric sites near Devils Tower National Monument, some of which are archaeological treasures eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. So in 2023 during a review of its resource management plan (RMP) the Newcastle, Wyoming office of the US Bureau of Land Management identified the Little Missouri Antelope Trap as an area of critical concern or ACEC.
Ogden Driskill is an Earth hating Wyoming legislator running cattle near Mahto Tipila in the Belle Fourche River watershed. But even Driskill isn't white enough for some Trumpers and faced a solid write-in campaign from a former chair of the Crook County Republican Party. Crook County is home to the Little Missouri Antelope Trap.
Since at least 2021 Wyoming's two Earth hating US Senators have introduced legislation that would cancel Indigenous culture at America's first national monument so the preservation of another ACEC is likely doomed especially now that a US president who hates Native Americans is slashing history.
"In the interior, there are a series of wooden juniper drive-line structures and there is a physical antelope trap where Native American Indian tribes came to hunt for significant periods of time across the land-scape," says Chad Krause, Field Manager for the BLM's Newcastle Field Office. There's only one existing ACEC in the management area overseen by the Newcastle Field Office. The cur-rent plan, which was approved in 1999, includes Whoopup Canyon east of Newcastle. "It has petroglyphs that are around 11,000 years old," Krause says. The proposed area has public access via the Little Missouri Road and is a popular hunting area for – unsurprisingly – antelope. What made this site stand out, he says, was partly the information gathered from the tribes and partly the manageability of the location. [BLM proposes new protected area]Learn more at Salon.
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