Duck Valley Reservation leaders cite public safety crisis, call for action amid lack of MMIP info

By LESLIE THOMPSON
Elko Daily Free Press
DUCK VALLEY — A lack of information related to cases of missing and murdered indigenous people across the Duck Valley Indian Reservation is an ongoing problem. Members of Duck Valley’s Shoshone-Paiute Tribal Business Council say they often never get answers from law enforcement regarding investigations and many cases remain unsolved. This year, four deaths have been investigated as homicides on or within a mile of the reservation.

Following the most recent death, the Elko Daily Free Press visited with some members of the Tribal Council to learn more about how these deaths are impacting their community.

‘Shroud of secrecy’
“We have cold cases that have been sitting just on a shelf for decades,” said Marco Ovando, public affairs officer for the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes.

He said some cases have never been fully investigated. He described it as an “endemic situation” in which cases are not fully investigated and a “shroud of secrecy” often surrounds investigations. This further deteriorates the trust that the tribal community has in its own law enforcement, he said.

Tribes are still awaiting answers from the Bureau of Indian Affairs about an officer-involved shooting of a tribal member on Sept. 13, which resulted in the death of Ryan Street, 35.

“We reached out as a tribe to the BIA about any specifics, because there’s a lot of circulation going on social media, a lot of talk within the community about what was going on because no one knows,” said Ovando.

He said the BIA had not responded with any details, leaving the Tribes in the dark. Even simple communication would be helpful.

“Let us know that they’re looking into it, that they’re investigating it, that they’re here for us,” Ovando said.
Violent crimes are ‘a trend’

Tribal Chairman Brian Mason said violent crimes on the reservation are “a trend.”

He said this is largely due to a lack of law enforcement, with only two BIA officers shared among Indian Country communities in Elko County.

Normally, the Tribes would have their own police officers, as many as seven, Mason said. This would include a police chief, school resource officer, a lieutenant and patrol officers.

“It’s a trust and treaty obligation that the government has failed,” he said.

Mason said it is a social issue for Tribes throughout the U.S., with the main issue being that the BIA is responsible for the law enforcement on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.

Without a local dispatch center, 911 calls from the reservation are routed to a dispatch center east of Salt Lake City.

“That’s three hours away,” Mason said.

Even if the BIA officers were in Elko, they may be working on another case and can’t just drop it to “run to Duck Valley,” he said.

Limited law enforcement is like the ‘Wild West’
Vice Chairman Arnold Thomas mentioned that additional issues are a lack of good cellphone coverage and no police radios in BIA vehicles. This sometimes leads to dispatchers not being able to reach officers. Additionally, with the dispatch center being so far away, dispatchers can get the addresses wrong.

“There are some locations that do not have actual addresses,” Thomas said.

Mason has met with U.S. Senators from Nevada and Idaho, the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the BIA, saying “everybody is very well aware” of the issue. He has considered going to the United Nations to get peacekeeping forces on the reservation. However, he said it would be a heavy lift and has doubts about the Trump Administration allowing that to happen.

“You know, he is not going to want UN forces in the middle of the United States,” he said.

Mason said the need for law enforcement is great and likened the reservation to the “Wild West,” as far as crime and fatalities go.

“I don’t care who is up here helping us enforce the laws, but we need someone because we don’t have tribal police,” he said.

Thomas said the Tribes have often been told that the isolated location of the Duck Valley reservation is “where the pavement ends and the West begins.”

‘Our people are on edge’
Mason said he knows everybody is dealing with crime across the state and nation but said it is very impactful on a community that averages about 900 to 1,100 people.

And while the Tribes have a court hearing process in which they can exclude individuals — indigenous or not — from coming to the reservation, they don’t have officers to enforce it.

This is part of the reason the Tribes want more information when violent crimes happen.

In addition to Street’s death, tribal leaders pointed to three homicides this year. This includes the murder of 20-year-old tribal woman in April on the reservation; a hit-and-run in May and a stabbing in August, which took place in or near Mountain City, as reported by authorities.

Lance Dick Jr., a council member, said that with everything that’s happened in the past six months, “our people are on edge.”

He said people are scared within their own homes.

“They don’t know when a cop’s going to show up. They don’t know who’s going to help them when there’s, you know, any kind of act of violence going on. And you know, it’s an issue within our community and they feel that.”

‘It also comes back on us, too’
Ardith CatchestheEnemy, the mother of the young woman who was murdered, said her daughter’s case is under investigation. Her daughter's name is Kyree Catches.

“She was brutally murdered here on our reservation,” she said.

CatchestheEnemy said the person suspected in the killing had an outstanding warrant from McDermott, a sister Tribe over the mountain.

CatchestheEnemy said there is a BIA tip line residents can text with information about crimes, but it frequently goes unanswered. Her family attempted to contact BIA numerous times in late February and early March requesting that the man be arrested and nothing was ever done.

“There was no follow through. It was just a one-way thing,” she said. “Me being the type of parent I am, I do my own investigation.”

CatchestheEnemy confirmed with McDermott’s Tribal Court Clerk that the man did have an active warrant.

She is now focusing on doing everything she can, including finding a way that when asking for help, help arrives, so other families don’t have to experience similar tragedies.

“So that they don’t go through what I have been enduring,” she said.

CatchestheEnemy said there are people who are selling alcohol and drugs on the reservation and that if BIA officers would acknowledge the problem and take care of it, there would be visible changes.

She said her finger is pointing right at BIA, but added, “It also comes back on us, too, you know, as a community.”

Thomas commented that the tribal leadership also wants to help ensure that people who are on the run who go to the reservation are apprehended. He said tribal leaders want to support law enforcement entities to protect and keep safe tribal members.

'Public safety is a basic human and civil right’
Mason said CatchestheEnemy’s story is common among many stories throughout the reservation and other places in rural Nevada and Idaho.

“I think public safety is a basic human and civil right,” the chairman said. “People should be able to call law enforcement and expect at least within a reasonable time that law enforcement will be there.”

He said county law enforcement once maintained a regular presence in Mountain City but no longer does. In addition, there is a bar in Mountain City, which is an issue, Mason said because the reservation does not allow the sale of alcohol. He said there is a lot of violent crime and drugs and only one road in and out of the reservation.

Mason said the tribe is seeking more cooperation from Elko County to address criminal activity in the area.

He said the council has requested to speak with Elko County Sheriff and has met with Elko County commissioners.

‘At our wit’s end’
“We are at our wit’s end here and as tribal leaders it’s our responsibility to help protect tribal members and I think we’re failing at that,” Mason said. “And it’s not a good feeling.”

He feels the community no longer has the trust and confidence that the government is providing a safe environment to live in.

“That’s a sad state to be in where you know you can’t do anything. You know, you feel helpless,” Mason said.

This includes elders who live by themselves being afraid.

He said there have been periods of time with other similar increases in violent crime but added that it’s never been this bad. It’s reached a point where tribal members are arming themselves and making sure they have a loaded weapon by the door around the clock.

“I already sleep like that, and I imagine most people do as well,” Mason said.

Thomas added that tribal leadership has gone to Washington D.C. several times, working with various politicians outside of Nevada and Idaho.

“It’s really frustrating when we jumped up and down, screamed and yelled, cried and applauded on various levels, and nothing,” he said.

As a result of a shortage of officers, more tribal members, like Mason, are taking up arms to protect their homes and families.

Resilient, but exhausted
When tragedies and violent crime happen, the Tribe has few professional resources available.

“What ends up happening is we rely upon our traditional ceremonies,” Thomas said.

In addition to being a way to deal with grief, those ceremonies also are conducted to help those struggling with alcohol and drug addiction. He said at the end of the day, tribal mentors and elders tell other tribal members to maintain those teachings because that is what will help them get through tough times.

“But again, at the end of the day, we are resilient,” he said.

Ovando added that although they are resilient, the Tribes need justice. He said sometimes that could just be active communication from law enforcement agencies. Without it, he said, there is a lot of conspiracy and animosity.

“We’ve been handling crisis after crisis for centuries now, but there comes a point in time where we’re tired. We’re exhausted. We’re screaming into the void and trying to get assistance to help alleviate some of these crises. But we’ll still be here. We’re strong. We’re rural Nevada.”

Duck Valley public safety story.
LESLIE THOMPSON is the executive editor at the Elko Daily Free Press. She can be reached at 775-748-2710 or lthompson@elkodaily.com.

No black-footed ferrets found in Meeteetse, 40 years after rescue saved species

By MIKE KOSHMRL
WyoFile
Wyoming wildlife managers are reporting that no black-footed ferrets are being detected in the cradle of the species’ conservation: the Absaroka Range foothills outside of Meeteetse, where the ferrets were saved after presumed extinction in the 1980s.

A tough combination of plague and drought — both big issues for the embattled western species — are suspected causes of a population collapse in the Meeteetse area, where wildlife managers returned ferrets to the wild in 2016 after a three-decade-long absence. It’s not assured that the reintroduced population is completely gone, but it’s not looking promising, Wyoming Game and Fish Department small carnivore biologist Andy Gygli said.

“We spent a couple hundred hours of effort surveying 4,000 to 5,000 acres of the Meeteetse reintroduction area,” Gygli said. “We didn’t see any ferrets.”

The complete absence of ferrets during the late August surveys wasn’t wholly surprising. Sylvatic plague flared in the region in 2018 and 2019, and ferret numbers plunged to just one confirmed animal in 2020. Subsequent releases of captive-raised ferrets, including 18 animals in 2022, helped the small population temporarily recover, but plague struck again in 2023. By 2025, spotlighting surveyors again detected just a single ferret. This summer there were none.

Ferrets bottoming out and potentially disappearing struck Meeteetse rancher Allen Hogg as a big letdown.

“I’m really disappointed, of course,” Hogg told WyoFile. “They might be gone. But just because they didn’t find them doesn’t mean they’re not there, either. I’m not saying all hope is lost.”

The Meeteetse rancher’s family name became synonymous with black-footed ferrets 45 years ago, when a blue heeler owned by his parents brought a dead weasel-like critter home. Subsequently, biologists found more than 100 other black-footed ferrets — presumed extinct for the two years prior — on and near the family ranch.

The exact cause of the ferrets’ absence during the surveys is unknown, but recently drought in the Bighorn Basin walloped their primary prey species, prairie dogs. In many corners of the West, there just hasn’t been enough vegetation growth to sustain strong numbers of the grass-eating mammals.

“We’ve heard a lot about deer, elk, pronghorn and cattle having hard times,” Gygli said. “It’s the same with our other herbivores. Prairie dogs also have to eat, and lack of (vegetation) coverage can result in low recruitment, which can result in downstream effects.”

For ferrets, those downstream drought effects are severe. They, too, haven’t had enough to eat. Indirectly, drought caused the numbers of rare mustelids in the world’s largest wild black-footed ferret population, in South Dakota’s Conata Basin/Badlands, to plummet from 250 to 70 animals between 2024 and 2025, according to biologist and ferret expert Travis Livieri, who studies that population.

“In my 30 years of doing this, I’ve never seen (drought) this bad, where prairie dogs failed to reproduce at a high rate,” Livieri said. “The prairie dogs don’t do well, the ferrets won’t do well.”

Prairie dogs in the Meeteetse area also continue to struggle, Gygli said. After the 2023 bout of sylvatic plague, Game and Fish surveys mapped prairie dog colonies and found only 3,800 acres in active use — down from the 6,000-plus acres that were mapped around the time of the 2016 reintroduction. Densities of prairie dogs per acre aren’t great, either.

The habitat conditions were bad enough for black-footed ferrets this summer that Gygli diverted 10 captive-raised animals that were going to be released in Meeteetse to the Shirley Basin, site of a rare ferret reintroduction success story. His rationale was that keeping ferrets out of the reintroduction area would relieve predation pressure on prairie dogs, helping them recover — and ultimately again support ferrets.

“There are prairie dogs there,” Gygli said. “They just need some time and some good conditions to come back. Rodents reproduce. That’s part of their strategy — they reproduce really quick.”

Wildlife managers are also assisting the recovery with prophylactic insecticide treatments to kill fleas and guard against plague. On average, they treat roughly 4,000 acres annually — a roughly $100,000 expense, with the lion’s share covered by the Bureau of Land Management, Gygli said.

For now, the Meeteetse reintroduction area might stay free of ferrets intentionally. The last time that happened, in 1986, there were wildly different circumstances. It was a rescue mission to save the species. Although the federal and state wildlife officials found 124 black-footed ferrets after Shep the ranch dog’s remarkable rediscovery, the population plummeted in 1985 from a combination of plague and canine distemper.

Retired Game and Fish Nongame Wildlife Supervisor Bob Oakleaf was on the front lines at the time, and he helped develop a contingency plan that outlined when wildlife officials should step in and whisk the remaining animals from the wild. Taking every last ferret into captivity from their only stronghold was a controversial decision, he recalled.

“There was a lot of blockage in the Game and Fish,” Oakleaf told WyoFile. “Back then, the Game and Fish really wasn’t oriented towards captive breeding.”

Then-Game and Fish Director Bill Morris halted the ferret capturing operation “halfway through,” he said, leading to a series of meetings. Oakleaf and others talked him into allowing them to resume.

“Thank God for the agreement on the contingency plan, because it allowed us to catch a few more ferrets,” Oakleaf said.

After the last known wild ferret, a male known as Scarface, was captured in early 1987, there were a total of 18 black-footed ferrets remaining in the world — all from Meeteetse. Ferrets didn’t return to the area for another three decades. They went back into the wild on the same private ranchland where they were rediscovered.

“All of the releases and all of the recovery efforts have all been concentrated here on our ranch and the Pitchfork,” Hogg said. “Lenox Baker, the current owner, was probably the most instrumental person in getting them brought back here — he really made the push.”

Hogg’s hopeful that the Meeteetse reintroduction area’s prairie dogs stage a comeback and the black-footed ferrets reappear — even if it takes continuous intervention.

“It might be a situation where, to maintain it here for historical reasons, we have to keep supplementing that population,” Hogg said. “Sometimes it just is what it is. You can only spend so much money on a project. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but we certainly hope it will work.”

There are some skeptics that Meeteetse will ever be home to self-sustaining ferrets. Oakleaf, the Game and Fish retiree, says he understands the desire to restore the historically significant population, but he worries that it’s just not the right place — it’s too small and has too much plague, he said.

“Everybody involved feels obligated to put them back in Meeteetse.” Oakleaf said, “But, man, I don’t know how you do it. It just hasn’t shown over the years that it could support a ferret population.”

For now, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department is not giving up.

“This is a place that we’re going to continue to work on,” Gygli said. “It’s the place where ferrets persisted.”

In an ideal world, prairie dog populations would bounce back enough to support a captive-raised ferret release in 2027, he said.

This story was originally published by WyoFile and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.