Photo Copyright Jim Robertson
(West Yellowstone MT)— Did you know that Yellowstone National Park and other government agencies behind the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) are planning to slaughter 900 buffalo this coming winter under the guise of “disease risk management” even though there has never been a documented case of a wild bison transmitting brucellosis—a bacterial disease that affects livestock and wildlife—to cattle?
In an effort to avert the bloodshed, Friends of Animals (FoA) and the Buffalo Field Campaign filed an emergency rulemaking petition Sept. 15 with the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to protect the genetic diversity and viability of the bison of Yellowstone National Park. They are requesting that the NPS and USFS undertake a population study and revise the IBMP to correct scientific deficiencies, make the plan consistent with the best available science, and follow the legal mandates the U.S. Congress has set. Until then, the groups are also requesting that the capture, removal or killing of bison at the Stephens Creek area of Yellowstone National Park and the Horse Butte area of the Gallatin National Forest be prohibited.
“Yellowstone National Park and other federal agencies are required to follow the best available science and not the latest political whims of Montana,” said Daniel Brister, executive director of Buffalo Field Campaign. “Our joint petition seeks redress to ensure the buffalo are protected for future generations. The IBMP currently is heavily weighted in favor of protecting the profits of the livestock industry at the expense and peril of our nation’s only continuously wild bison population.”
Every winter and spring, snow and ice cover the bison’s food and hunger pushes them to lower elevations across the park boundary in Montana. When they cross this arbitrary line, the buffalo enter a zone of violent conflict with ranchers. Last winter 653 bison were slaughtered, and back in the winter of 2007/2008, the largest scale wild buffalo slaughter, claimed the lives of 1,631 animals. At the turn of the 20th century, similar reckless behavior nearly drove bison to extinction.
“Slaughtering wild bison is the livestock industry’s way of eliminating competition and maintaining control of grazing lands surrounding Yellowstone National Park and across the west,” Brister said. “Montana’s livestock industry continues to use brucellosis to frighten and mislead the public into supporting its discrimination against bison. There has never been a single case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis to livestock.”
The IBMP was designed to be an adaptive management plan allowing for greater tolerance for bison as new information becomes available and conditions on the ground change, but no such tolerance has been afforded to the bison. Despite new scientific research showing that the Yellowstone population is comprised of distinct herds with unique genetics and behaviors, the agencies continue to treat Yellowstone bison as though they comprise a single homogeneous herd, Brister said.
“We want to make sure that each herd has a viable population number so that we are not starting to degrade the species,” said Mike Harris, director of Friends of Animals’ Wildlife Law Program. “Right now they are managing the numbers based largely upon misinformation regarding the genetic viability of the herds. The data they are using is not the best available data right now. They are using data that doesn’t match up with what is the actual status of the herd populations in the park. The petition is asking the federal agencies responsible for protecting these animals make an effort to establish stronger scientific criteria to protect the viability of the remaining Yellowstone herds, and to stop slaughtering the last 4,000 genetically pure bison left in the United States.”
Exposing the Big Game 
Bison and wolves and bears and wild horses and ranchers and hunters:
Surely we can find a place for the bison to roam, and manage them outside Yellowstone and elsewhere maybe even without hunting and fencing like cattle, with hunting like shooting a cow in a field, call it harvesting at least, no just call it killing, not hunting. This and a few other locations are some of the last best places, right? Tourists don’t come here to see cattle and fences. Both people living in Montana and visitors think of it as somewhat wild. A real heritage would be to preserve and restore the wildness of Montana in available places; and make some available by retiring some of the many leases, 772 leases on national forests in MT and 3776 BLM leases in MT, 26,000 permits in 16 western states. How much bad PR can Montana create for itself with regard to bison and wolves and other wild critters while coddling ranchers? Montana is giving itself terrible PR with regard to bison, wolves, wild horses, and soon maybe grizzlies. I am glad to see FWP and other groups pushing the idea that there are other places in Montana and elsewhere for bison other than Yellowstone thereby ensuring their survival and biodiversity. Speaking of YNP, why cannot bison wonder outside the Park to traditional winter grazing grounds on public land, 92% of land outside YNP near Gardiner is public land, instead of leasing that land to ranchers? Retire some leases. Manage the ranchers I say. Even ranchers near YNP on private land are very self-centered not to manage their herds with regard to wildlife. Who is encroaching? Man on wildlife? Let’s start retiring some of those permits, and create permanent conservation easements for wildlife on any leased land, and a buffer zone around Yellowstone and Glacier protecting wildlife.
Why are we so ruled by the oppositional opinions of ranchers and hunters (“sportsmen”} and misinformed public and rancher politicians and conservative rancher legislators? You cannot confuse them with the facts. Per Lewis Carroll, “I have said it thrice, what I say three times is true.” It has been suggested and planned that bison be designated for placement (by FWP Montana) in other parts of the state. They are brucellosis free, tested, repeatedly so. Yet public meetings about the issue are attended almost unanimously by rancher-farmer crowds yelling, “No way!” Bison wander out of Yellowstone into traditional winter grazing ground, and ranchers protest and stockmen corral them, haze them and slaughter them. Instead of managing the cattle and ranchers around Yellowstone, ranchers want to manage the bison and keep them from going into a traditional outlet for grazing near Gardiner. The reports on any brucellosis of the past 70 years passing from bison to cattle are anecdotal, unproven, and none documented, only once in a Texas A&M lab setting closely confined with cattle. Brucellosis is more likely by elk who are more numerous and routinely come and go by the thousands. Now ranchers are proposing killing elk and fencing them off from their herds. Montana FWP, US Dept. of Agriculture Wildlife Services, and USFWS are agencies that serve ranchers, farmers and sportsmen more than wildlife. For a change, on a larger species, other than elk or deer, FWP was somewhat of an advocate for conservation and preservation of an American icon; but then usually folds vis a vis stockmen, who oppose bison, wild horses, wolves, grizzlies also.
The wolves also do not significantly impact stock. Many ranchers are ranching on public land displacing wildlife (772 National Forest permits, 3776 BLM permits in MT 2012) at a pittance in fees and complaining about bison or bison relocations or wolves or other predators or wild
horses and bison. Rancher mentalities in our western senators and representatives and governors and Interior Department subverted the intent and the law of the Endangered Species Act to politically manage wolves, in states particularly hostile to predators, versus scientifically, instituting an aggressive “management” (hunting and trapping) plan, really a vendetta driven by anti-wolf hysteria. Hunters repeat their anecdotal opinion (myth) that wolves are harming ungulate populations against evidence to the contrary. The number of elk in Montana is up 37% since wolf return. WY has had 10 years in a row of record elk kills. Hunters are the main pressure on elk and other wildlife. Predators are better and more natural managers of ecological systems, not FWP and other wildlife agencies, and not hunters or trappers. Ranchers repeat their anecdotal opinion (myth) that wolves are significantly impacting wildlife, really depredation is about 0.002 percent. Elk populations in Montana have soared from about 89,000 in 1989 to 140,000+ in 2012, and have soared in other states the past decade. Wolves were reintroduced in 1995 in Yellowstone and ID, but had already started reintroducing themselves via Glacier. There were two terrible winters, 1995-1996 and 1996-1997 in Yellowstone followed by years of drought that decimated those elk herds numbers and over-hunting until 2005, but those herds have re-bounded and are at historic levels when before they were at an all time high. From 1995 to 2005 elk hunters outside YNP killed over a thousand elk while wolves killed just over a hundred. Man killing is additive, does more damage to ungulate numbers while predator killing is natural and a balancing and trophic effect. Forage changes had more to do with decline than wolves or other predators. That the wolves decimated YNP elk herds is an absolute myth of wolf hating groups. Wild horse management by BLM (Bureau of Land Management) or Bureau of Land Mafia, if you will, is too influenced by their opinion. BLM is largely loaded by rancher interests. To protect wildlife, wildlife habitat, national forests and monuments, what some of the last best places have to offer, we had better stop deferring to ranchers and hunters and rancher politicians. They are purely serving themselves and are in a hysterical, self-centered, entitled, power and control state of mind with regard to bison, wolves, grizzlies, wild horses, and now elk. They are traditional encroachers on wildlife and habitat. They think they are entitled to public land and wildlife management for them. We need to manage ranchers, sportsmen and other encroachers, and development which is right up to wilderness edges, if we are to have wilderness and balanced wilderness ecology.
References:
https://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/foa-buffalo-field-campaign-file-rule-making-petition-to-stop-slaughter-of-buffalo-in-yellowstone-park/
http://gftrib.com/1pc2aqh
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/decision-on-bison-quarantine-expected-mid/articl
http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/columnists/enlist-montana-hunters-to-manage-bison-numbers/article_ca5b90a4-dc3d-11e3-8d45-001a4bcf887a.html#.U3U9ZLhtIow.email
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/montana-official-bison-numbers-must-go-down-before-tolerance-zone/article_6ba3eb6a-de0e-11e3-9b5d-0019bb2963f4.html#.U3fwHbtB1bM.email
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/proposal-montana-will-let-bison-into-new-areas-if-population/article_9ad0a57e-2d48-5792-82ce-4e5519dfa6a5.html
The powers that be in federal & state government should be required to read your piece. “Disease risk management…” What bullshit.
Dead on, Roger.
OMG, This is brilliant! Thank you!
Reblogged this on Mind Chatter and commented:
Please take a moment to educate yourself and sign the petition. Thanks
“Did you know that Yellowstone National Park and other government agencies behind the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) are planning to slaughter 900 buffalo this coming winter under the guise of “disease risk management” even though there has never been a documented case of a wild bison transmitting brucellosis—a bacterial disease that affects livestock and wildlife—to cattle?”