Mississippi has topped West Virginia as the most obese state in the nation, according to a new Gallup analysis.

The latest poll found that 35.4% of Mississippians were obese in 2013, compared to 34.4% of West Virginians.

At the other end of the spectrum, Montana overtook Colorado as the state with the lowest obesity rate — 19.6%.

It was also the only state with an obesity rate below 20% in 2013.

There were 11 states with obesity rates that topped 30%, compared to five states in 2012.

People are classified as obese if their Body Mass Index (BMI) is 30 or more.

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It only comes but once a year, and it's quite a sight to see.

Over the next few days FWP is trying to airlift 60 Bighorn Sheep off Wild Horse Island and send them to other parts of the state.

"Yeah, this is great," said Bruce Sterling, a wildlife biologist who has helped with the annual transfer for nearly two decades.

They're blindfolded, bound, and strung up underneath a helicopter, then flown and gently landed in Big Arm State Park where they get a whole set of medical tests before being carried into a trailer.

Then the entire thing starts over again.

"The only way to really control the population is to periodically go in and capture sheep," explained Sterling.

Wild Horse Island really doesn't have many predators for the sheep and hunting isn't allowed, so the numbers can get out of hand. The Island can only support about 100 sheep, and at last check, 155 sheep were spotted, but there could be more. They're hoping to airlift out 20 ewes and 40 rams.

The collars are equipped to locate the animals with radio waves and they put two fingers underneath the collars for a good fit.

"The radio collars are going out on ewes and we're doing that so we can keep track of where they go, and primarily know where they spend the summer," said Sterling.

Some of the sheep will head to the Cabinet Mountains, and the others will be sent to the Kootenai Falls Wildlife Management Area just west of Libby. Sterling says the sheep populations in these areas aren't struggling, but they could use some beefed up numbers.

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Joseph Shelton is a freelance writer who graduated from Montana State University with a degree in English Literature. He lives in Bozeman, where he enjoys hiking, reading, and being a misunderstood artist-type. 

I have a tattoo on my left forearm of a cave glyph from California which is known as "Hairy Man" by the locals.  It has become a kind of visual shorthand for Bigfoot, amongst those who follow that sort of thing.

My own relationship with Bigfoot, or Squatchy, or whatever you may want to call him/her is one of fascination and/or reserved belief.  It makes sense to me that an intelligent bipedal ape might be able to hide in the woods.  It also makes a good deal of sense to me that a Western subculture that used to value hardiness, closeness to nature and independence would think up a bogeyman to invest with those qualities, even if he didn't exist before.  So whether Bigfoot is a real man/animal or a symbol for the dreams of rural America, I believe in him.

Anyway, Bigfoot expert and local figure Kelly Berdahl happened to notice my tattoo, which eventually got me invited to a taping of one of the "Town Hall Meetings" that lend the Animal Planet program "Finding Bigfoot" all their drama and pathos.  Afterwards I ended up at the Cats Paw lounge in Bozeman, getting sloshed with Bobo, Cliff, and Matt Moneymaker. 

I had secretly hoped to find Ranae Holland there, owing to a nice compliment she earlier paid my vintage coat (not to mention a passing resemblance she has a to an ex girlfriend I still can't get out of my mind), but alas, she was off searching the local woods for Squatches.  Still, I managed to force Bobo to buy me a drink, and to talk shop with Cliff and Matt.  It's one of those memories that I will be able to amuse myself with for years.  The time I got snockered with professional monster hunters from the television.

The really surreal thing was seeing myself on television when the episode came out.  I didn't say a word, and in fact only appeared in about two to three seconds of screen time.  There is a shot of the back of my head, which I was able to recognize as myself despite my lack of familiarity with my rear, as well as a really regrettable shot of me in profile in which my facial hair looks like some kind of hairy animal clinging desperately to the underside of my face.  Still, it was pretty exciting, the culmination of a lifetime of thinking that I really oughta be in pictures.

 Perhaps someone at the the network will see me and, impressed by my obvious gravitas, say "let's make a spin-off with that one kid we see briefly in the Bozeman episode".  If so, they can reach me here. 

And as a note: in all seriousness, I met some very cool people on the shoot that day, including "Finding Bigfoot" crewmember Tyler Bounds, who I still plan to interview at length someday, and who also appreciated my tattoo.  I look forward to seeing whatever monsters he finds, and the same is true of the cast of the show, which was very kind to suffer the company of a fan on their set, not to mention buying him drinks.

Download the guidebook here:

Montana Guide Book 2014-15

Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation, then moving to Bozeman where she owned a downtown retail anchor for eighteen years. These days she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Energetic Healthcare, hosts a monthly movie night, teaches and writes about many topics.

In winter’s snow, tracks become mysteries that invite exploration. Wander a hillside and find where deer slept, where they cleared snow to browse, where a mouse scurried for cover, maybe where a raptor captured it. Look for the passage of endangered or threatened species, animals you may never see, but whose tracks reveal their presence. Tracks can also tell you more about an animal you just saw. It’s wonderfully fun and mysterious to decipher the clues, to see what stories the tracks tell.

How you photograph tracks, the designs they create in the snow, their expression of movement over time, depends on your intended use of the image. Is it academic or artistic? Either way, the first rule of tracking is a good track gives good information, a bad one, little to none. Check 100 yards in either direction to study the details in each print. Look for clearly defined impressions of claws, toes and the inter-digital pad. You can find good tracks in any kind of snow but it can be harder to find a good track in deep powder because there’s little to no definition. Sometimes small animals leave the best tracks because they hurry along the snow’s surface.

When photographing tracks, you won’t need much in the way of specialized equipment. In fact, most tracks are big enough to photograph without a special lens pack. Do pack along a good guide book. “Scats and Tracks of the Rocky Mountains; A Field Guide to the Signs of Seventy Wildlife Species,” by Gardiner’s master tracker, James Halfpenny, is a concise and valuable guide that will easily fit in your camera bag or pack.

When making “academic” images of tracks, begin by taking an image of the track as you found it. The edges of the track define how big it is. Use something with a straight edge to “scale” the track. A ruler works best. Don’t use pennies, nickels, or a key chain as size markers for academic images. Definitive measures of size will help you determine what animal made the track. Be sure to shoot tracks straight on for identification, not from an angle. Take several pictures. Halfpenny, who teaches in and around Yellowstone, advises, “Shoot, shoot, shoot. We used to say its ‘just film,’ but now, with digital, I tell students, ‘Spend a few electrons.’ ”

Marsha Phllips of F-11 Phoitographic Supplies advises, “For artistic images of tracks, all photographic rules of composure and lighting apply. Try various angles including a long view. Be careful. A flash will blow out your detail. If you have to use one, try moving it off of the camera at a low power setting. Better still, bounce the flash off of something white like a pocket sized photo reflector. Low directional light is best to make a track standout. In harsh sunlight, you get such harsh contrast you can’t see the track. In soft light, there’s less detail.

“You can use a mirror or a flashlight to reflect light on to a track,” Philips adds. “Or, if there’s too much light, use someone’s shadow to shade.

The joy of digital photography and image editing software like Photoshop is that you can adjust the contrast of an image or sharpen the detail on a track. Don't rely on that fix, though. Remember the basic rule: you can’t make a good image from an indistinct track. As Jim Halfpenny phrases it, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Take the time to find the best track and take several images.

Enjoy and share the story of your winter discoveries.

Cabin fever isn’t a psychiatric diagnosis, but it does exist, says Josh Klapow, a clinical psychologist with a PhD at the school of public health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “Basically, it’s your mind’s way of telling you that the environment you are in is less than optimal for normal functioning,” he says. “It’s when you’re in a space of restricted freedom for a period of time that you can no longer tolerate.”

Before you get full on “snow rage” — a term the media has coined for the extreme angst people are feeling about the weather — and pull a shotgun on a snow plow driver, here’s how you can recognize when you’re getting too stir crazy and how you can cope.

You probably are getting cabin fever if any of the following are true:

1. You’re feeling cooped up
2. You’re having difficulty concentrating on what’s in front of you
3. You feel lethargic, or simply feel unmotivated to do anything
4. You are feeling irritated and on edge for no apparent reason

The best way to get yourself out of your slump and in a happier mood is to get moving, find natural sunlight, and do anything that can engage your cognitive activity. The more ambitious snowed-in people can  go for a run around the bloc, start a home improvement project or read a book by window. Those feeling a little less motivated can at least make a snow angel for 10 minutes, sketch out projects they will take on once it’s sunny again, or at least pull up the blinds and play a brain-teasing app like QuizUp. Anything but watching marathons of TV on the couch. Sorry, House of Cards fans, but unless your body and brain are active you are likely to become listless and depressed.

Also, avoid foods that will only make you feel more sluggish or more irritated. “We have a tendency, particularly in this country, of shoving ourselves full of high-carb and high-fat foods when we have nothing else to do. That’s not good because they create lethargy,” says Klapow. “The other thing we do is sit around and drink coffee, which is also bad because that feeds agitation.”

For some, it’s not just a matter of motivating themselves to cheer up but also motivating kids who have been stuck inside during a series of snow days. ”I can say as someone whose kids have been home for the last four days, you get to a point where you’re turning around and being like, ‘Are you still here?’” jokes Klapow.

Though having children home for days at a time during the school week can be tough, solving their cabin fever is even easier than solving yours. “Kids are going display their cabin fever in a more obvious sort of way. They’re going to pick on each other or they’re going to jump up and down,” says Klapow. “But we can tell them to go bundle up and run around outside for 15 minutes, whereas its harder to motivate ourselves to do the same as adults. You can control what they’re eating, even though its harder for us to regulate our own food intake. But helping your kids get energized with games and the right eating habits can help you alleviate your cabin fever too.”

It’s important, he says, to find ways to up our mood before we reach our tipping point. “Snow rage is not a clinical diagnosis,” Klapow says. “But you can think of it as the point where individuals have lost their ability to control their emotions, and the results are actions that are harmful to others — like yelling at a spouse or hitting your neighbor with a snow shovel.”

Let’s hope the snow ends soon so it doesn’t come to that.

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RANK #5. Montana

• Well-being index score: 69.3

• Life expectancy: 78.5 years (21st lowest)

• Percent obese: 19.6% (the lowest)

• Median household income: $45,076 (12th lowest)

• Percentage with high school diploma: 92.8% (the highest)

Economic confidence in Montana was exceptionally bad in 2013, among the 10 worst states. Despite that, residents gave high ratings to their work environment. Nearly 94% of adults said they were satisfied with their job, the highest percentage nationally. This was likely due, in part, to feeling fully utilized at work — 89% of respondents said they used their strengths during the work day, more than all but one other state. Montana residents also practiced healthy behavior more than residents of most other states. A majority of the population reported healthy eating habits, weekly exercise routines, and lower-than-average smoking rates in 2013. Montana residents were also the least likely to be obese last year.

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Talk about passing gas: Vast stores of helium are escaping from the steam vents and hot springs of Yellowstone National Park after being trapped within Earth's crust for up to 2 billion years, according to new research.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey determined that the famed national park was releasing hundreds -- if not thousands -- of times more helium than anticipated.

In fact, researchers say, the escaping helium -- about 60 tons per year --  is enough to fill one Goodyear blimp every week.

They also calculate that this "sudden" release of gas began roughly 2 million years ago, with the advent of volcanic activity there.

"That might seem like a really, really long time to people, but in the geologic time scale, the volcanism is a recent phenomenon," said study coauthor Bill Evans, a research chemist at the USGS office in Menlo Park, Calif.

Helium, or more accurately the isotope helium-4, is produced in Earth's crust as uranium and thorium decay. Often, this nonradioactive, crustal helium is swept away by groundwater, or freed as a result of tectonic movement.

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Flathead Valley Community College’s Chef Howard Karp knows his way around a kitchen and in the past he has graciously shared some of his secrets with the Beacon. This time around, Karp has prepared what we’re calling the “perfect Montana meal,” anchored by bison rib eye steaks, grilled in coffee beans with a Flathead cherry velvet chili sauce.

Karp said the rib eye, also know as a “cowboy steak,” has an earthy flavor that is complemented by the coffee beans.

To serve alongside the meat, Karp said you could never go wrong with mashed potatoes or root vegetables.

The meal can serve up to eight people.

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