Fixing the Herd
Congress Looks at Solutions to Yellowstone Bison Debate
By Sanjay Talwani, 3-20-07
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| Caption: Joshua Osher (left) of Buffalo Field Campaign listens to the discussion at a congressional hearing on the Yellowstone bison Tuesday. Also at the table, from left, are James Hagenbarth of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, Dr. Charles Kay of Utah State University and Darrell Geist, working with the Buffalo Field Campaign. Photo by Sanjay Talwani. | |
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Montana’s lone Congressman, Denny Rehberg raised his voice Tuesday at a Congressional oversight hearing about the bison in Yellowstone National Park, the feared transmission of calf-aborting brucellosis from bison to Montana’s cattle, and the resulting years of killing and hazing thousands of bison that wandered out of the park in search of food.
“I have an answer,” Rehberg thundered in his leadoff statement to the House Natural Resources Committee panel that oversees national parks. “Why don’t you fix your herd?”
Fixing the herd—by stamping out brucellosis entirely—was central in the discussions toward solving the Yellowstone bison standoff. The hearing of the National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands Subcommittee, now chaired by Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, was the first ever to address the issue.
Also new for the new Congress was testimony from the Buffalo Field Campaign, which advocates giving buffalo full access to all suitable habitat in Montana within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, and managing cattle grazing in the area to keep them brucellosis-free.
The scruffy beards and Western dress on hand were a departure from the usual sea of charcoal suits, and the BFC’s Joshua Osher said it was the first time the group has ever testified to Congress after several years of coming to Washington to sway members of Congress and their staff.
The hearing didn’t address any specific legislation but raised several concerns, Congressional complaints against the bureaucracies, and possible solutions. Most agreed the current management scheme (the Interagency Bison Management Plan, or IBMP, launched in December 2000) is not the long-term solution and not much of a short-term solution either.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer stressed from the start: He’s a rancher and an agricultural scientist and wants to keep the government brucellosis-free seal for his state’s cattle industry.
Straying as usual from his prepared testimony into a presentation apparently guided by a few hand-written notes, Schweitzer offered three options: The first involves continued negotiations with landowners of some 9,000-plus acres for arrangements by which the cattle and bison would never graze in the same place at the same time, thus greatly reducing the risk of disease transmission.
Or, the ranchers could run other species that aren’t susceptible to the brucellosis. The largest relevant landowner is the Royal Teton Ranch, owned by the Church Universal and Triumphant, an upscale, Messianic sect known over the years for its arms cache, apocalyptic predictions, and favoring of the color purple, among other things. Schweitzer said real estate deals take seven or eight round of negotiations to work out, and so far they were only on round three or four.
Schweitzer’s second option involved a zone north of the park where the cattle and buffalo could still coexist, but the cattle would be subject to thorough—“100 percent”—testing upon entering or leaving the zone.
The third option involves developing vaccines to protect cattle, bison, elk and other animals against brucellosis. There’s plenty of debate whether that’s even possible anytime soon, but Schweitzer also warned that a disease-free herd would become classified as other wildlife, relatively free to roam and managed by hunting. He raised the image of bison cluttering train tracks and the exciting road from Bozeman to Big Sky, and knocking down fences all over eastern Montana.
Another key theme from Schweitzer and others: The need for the Department of Interior, overseeing the parks, and the USDA, overseeing cattle health certification, need to coordinate.
Schweitzer also said management of buffalo could well include hunting even inside the park, where it’s now prohibited.
James F. Hagenbarth of the Montana Stockgrowers Association zeroed in on the eradication of brucellosis, and a long-term plan of all interested parties to make it happen. After the hearing, he said he’d favor federal legislation to totally fund the development of injectible vaccines for cattle and oral vaccines on bait on wildlife.
“We need to focus right on that,” he said.
In the hearing, he noted the ultimate consequences of Montana losing its brucellosis-free stamp could be ranchers selling out their choice Yellowstone-area land to developers, replacing the cows and open space with condos for an even harsher environment for buffalo and other wildlife.
Speaking afterward, he dismissed Schweitzer’s image of disease-free buffalo with license to rampage across the prairies, noting that the state has ways of managing wildlife, including hunting. He especially took issue with Schweitzer’s suggestion for a buffer zone with increased testing for cows, saying the practical effects would be too onerous.
The nation’s top vet—Dr. John Clifford, USDA Deputy Administrator for APHIS (the Animal and Plant Inspection Service)—also called for an eradication of brucellosis in the bison and elk herds, which he said will require continued development of various methods and technologies.
Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, elaborated upon the torturous buffalo deaths that inevitably arise when thousands are killed. He recounted a 14-year-old boy taking a long rifle shot at a buffalo, nailing its spine; the beast made some 30 attempts to rise to its feet before dying, he said.
Tim Stevens of the National Parks Conservation Association testified to the cultural significance of the bison and the enjoyment of wildlife by tourists. In addition to advocating separation of cattle and bison in the short term, he and others said the USDA should designate a brucellosis sub-zone in the Yellowstone area so detection of the disease in two cattle herd there would not blacklist cattle hundreds of miles away elsewhere in Montana.
Dr. Charles Kay, a professor at Utah State University and a constituent of Rep. Bob Bishop, the panel’s top Republican, said the park was destabilized, overgrazed, and had almost zero if any bison roaming in it in the first place.
The occasion also enabled some to make plain their contempt for those stupid urbanites who want to give the whole West back to the bison and the Indians.
Rehberg scoffed at those who invoked the animal as a national icon, the very symbol of the Park Service itself and part of the NPS uniform. “If you really want to do something for the bison, this icon, if you want to wear it on your shoulder, if you want to think of Montana as the vision that you get with ‘A River Runs Through It,’ then do something about the herd,” he said. “Fix it. Don’t let diseased herd walk around the park, because you wouldn’t want us, as livestock herder, to have an infected herd in among your wildlife. You wouldn’t want us to overgraze your park, and your federal property. Where do we find the philosophy that allows the opportunity for your diseased herd to overgraze our park?”
Rehberg, who served on the Natural Resources Committee for many years before giving it up for a slot on the House Appropriations Committee, has become an occasional ersatz committee member. In this hearing, he gave testimony as a witness, took questions, and then moved to the dais to sit with the subcommittee members, where he asked questions of the other witnesses.
He also needled Schweitzer for appearing yet again before Congress, claiming that the governor spends more time in Washington than he does, and that he spends more time in Montana than Schweitzer does.
Confronting a witness from the Government Accountability Office, Rehberg asked if she had consulted with just government people on a buffalo report or also someone “who knows something about grazing.” He was assured the GAO consulted with all stakeholders.
Bishop, of Utah, took issue with some of the Park Service’s core management philosophy. He told NPS Associate Director for Resource Stewardship and Science, Michael Soukup, that he found it hard to imagine that the park service considered bison getting eaten by wolves, or freezing or starving to death, a humane way to naturally manage the herd. He also pinned Soukup down on which has a greater value: a free-roaming bison herd, or one that’s brucellosis-free. Thwarting Soukup’s attempts to insist that the two goals were not incompatible, the congressman got the bureaucrat to admit that the free-roaming bison would constitute a higher value than a disease-free herd.
“If that (the disease free herd) is not your greatest value, then there is something deeply wrong with the park service,” he said.
I respect and admire Josh and Darrell and the other free-roaming buffalo advocates in the room who had to listen to the same old horsesh*t coming from the ranching advocates. I would have been spitting and swearing and boiling with frustration.
I think the one thing I do want to comment on is Bishop challenging the idea that buffalo starve to death or get eaten by wolves or die of exposure.
No, I don't think I need to comment. I mean, come on.
And I'm not an urbanite and I don't think I'm stupid, but I'm for giving the west back to the indians and the buffalo.
However, that's not what we're asking here. How bout we share the west, huh?
I like the sub-zone idea. But common sense never trumps cattle profit in this state, does it?
I just read in the Helena paper that the chairman of the subcommittee liked Schwitzer's 100% testing idea. Right. What, are they going to put a fence around the park with a little testing gate that the bison have to go through to leave, like security gates at the airport?
Let the so-called 'diseased' herd leave the park and roam freely. Keep the cattle off public lands and behind secure fencing. (I inspected the bison proof fencing at Elk Island National Park in Alberta. It looks quite simple and inexpensive).
And once again, just like everyone at BFC has been saying for years, there has been no case of wild buffalo transmitting the disease to cattle, even in Grand Teton Park where bison and cattle have mingled for over 50 years.
And for gosh sakes, it isn't even about brucellosis. Why do I let myself get sucked into that trap? It's about grass, remember?
tsk, poor Dennis Rehberg. The man really has issues. He should get help.
Comment By bear bait, 3-21-07I get to see the roaming bison, the ones harrassed back to the Park, and the whole of the Northend deal at YNP, every year at this time. YNP is over grazed. Way over grazed. There are even exclosures to illustrate the over grazing. Ugly land management, and really ugly for a Natl Park.
First and foremost, there is not enough winter feed unless there evolves a rock eating bison. Any public land grazer or private land rancher who would have a range eaten to its geologic core would be strung up or foreclosed upon. YNP range is bankrupt. Kaput. Gone. Too many critters on too little space for way too long, and range destruction happens. It is about grass. The public let the bison eat all theirs. And until responsible grass management happens in the Park, there is no reason to shove the problem north into private property or the Elk winter range. Fencing bison out of private land would require a lot of fence, and the checkerboard land ownerships, access, all would be a huge logistics problem. Our history shows that the Feds would not get the fencing project done in a timely manner nor would they maintain them. It would just expand a problem.
You could expand the Park, and then you would expand the problem because of no controls on species populations. It would be like hanging a papered hoop in the outhouse. The result would be an expansion of overgrazed range. No Crows, Nez Perce, Sheep Eaters to cull the herd, to move it.
Addressing the bison overpopulation is the responsible thing to do. It will never happen. The humans that will fight culling and population controls deny that their ancestors were anything but herbivores. Our red of tooth heritage is to be dismissed, and the bison and their cohorts need to live without humans. That has never happened in 10,000 years, but we are wiser today. wink wink.
Perhaps if bison control were called fourth trimester abortion, and an effort to not have unwanted baby bison, it would gain traction with the urban liberal left who vote their guilt at being a part of the problem. I think a hip, urban oriented bison would be just what the ecosystem needs. Bison birth control at feeding stations, fourth trimester abortions, and education. The bison must go to school to learn how to be responsible wild bison. Bison counseling, bison social workers, bison state supported health care, bison drug awareness programs. After all, they are just creatures like us, and should have all our social and government benefits. If the programs were expansive and lucrative, maybe we would get illegal alien bison moving in to expand the gene pool. Or some of those Canadian bison eater wolves looking for one dumb meal.
Why not once and for all study the relationship of bison and cattle as to disease control and transference and get this issue solved once and for all?
This church (Royal Teton Ranch) owns a big hunk of land they want to make money (usual church occupation) from the NPS on either a sale or grazing rights for the migrating bison. Why not have congress appropriate enough money to buy the land and expand YNP?
Can not other states and locations take the overpopulation of YNP bison?
Native American Nations where are you? Get off your slot machine butts and step forward and spend some of that loot on saving a part of our heritage.
Hunting bison is like hunting cattle. There is no sport in it whatsoever. Humanly harvesting overpopulation for human consumption should be allowed.
Bear bait, I can't think of anyone, even the most radical animals rights activists I've met who would deny that First Nations people hunted buffalo. People who believe that wildlife and wilderness can exist seperate from humanity must wish to live in a bubble. Most of us advocating for free-roaming buffalo recognize that hunting is a part of wise bison management. However, this can't happen until their habitat is expanded. Overgrazing in the park is a contentious issue. The enclosures prove nothing because they illustrate what a peice of land fenced off from all wildlife would look like, and not anything that exists in nature. Personally, I don't feel it's the heart of the issue anyway. Whethere the range is overgrazed or not, the solution still is to allow habitat on public land in Montana. Plenty of the at public land is many miles from grazing cattle at the time of year that the bison would be out of the park using it. Fencing private land might not even be required, not for a while anyway.
And even then, the heavy-handed solutions being proposed by the state of Montana and it's stockgrowers seem more suitable to a problem that is dire and immediate. The chance of these bison infecting cattle are remote. Which doesn't mean management is not required, it just means managing for remote risk. But the state of Montana and the stockgrowers are not proposing remote risk management. They are acting as if disease transmission is this runaway problem that is that has been happening for a long time and must finally be stopped. Let buffalo roam, assess the true risk instead of believing the dire and unrealistic predictions of the stockgrowers, and then adapt the management to address any issues as they occur.
And the painting of free-roaming bison advocates as urban hipsters has got to stop. There definitely are people from all over this country who want to protect these buffalo, and perhaps their motivations don't involve a proper understanding of what life is actually like in the Yellowstone region. But there are many who live day to day with buffalo, elk, bears, deer, cows and horses who can see for themselves that this management plan, as well as the ideas proposed by the state of Montana and the stockgrowers and completely inappropriate for the situation. The people at the forefront bison advocacy live in the Yellowstone area and know a great deal about life there and the way that nature and industry interact. So free-roaming bison advocacy can not at all be written off as a misinformed city-folk campaign.
Comment By Kalanu, 3-21-07Oh, and one more thing. If you don't have faith in the government to build and maintain wire fencing, then how would you trust them to deal with as issue like disease management in a timely and effective manner?
Comment By Daniel J. Kostelnik, 3-21-07Montana's bison hunt was an excellent solution. They leave the Park, they are culled. The shooter cleans up the mess, pays for the priveledge, and gets the meat and hide. But people complained it wasn't sporting. Bison hunting hasn't been sporting since it became humane, with the quick-killing rifle. I suppose we could do it on horseback, riding beside them and shooting them over and over with pistols or light carbines like Bill Cody. That way only takes a few hours for them to die. It's a bit hard on horses, but very sporting. You can do the same thing with arrows, like on Dances With Wolves, of course, don't expect them to drop dead instantly like they did on the screen. You have to track them for a few days, until they get weak, lay down and die. The real way to hunt bison is to run them over a cliff. Then you can spear or bludgeon the ones with broken legs or backs. Exciting! Sporting!! Dangerous!!! Survivor Yellowstone. A bunch of citified hardbodies running around in loincloths in the winter, trying to kill bison with handmade spears. Folks would come from all over the world and pay plenty to take part.
Comment By Jack, 3-21-07Dr.Charles Kay is 100% correct about the NPS in YNP.Years upon years of gross mismanagement of the vegetative resource and the ungulates dependent upon that resource. Natural regulation was a myth of the NPS.Let animals starve to death for the convenience of the NPS has always been the policy.Now the NPS and USFWS brought in wolves from Canada to destroy more of YNP's native wildlife,elk,mule deer,wild sheep,moose,beaver and the native coyote you name it. I left out the bison. Wolves killing few bison they are defensive against wolves. The bison population will continue to grow and nearly 4800 now close to the remaining elk population.Bison will continue to starve they need more than snowballs and scenery to survive.Protesters opposed the harvest of 50 bison outside YNP by hunters but said nothing about the NPS killing 750.Would it be too much to ask Congress to fire them all in YNP and start all over with qualified people? I am still interested in the secret illegal introduction of wolves into YNP from Alaska in the early 1970's and all the laws the NPS/USFWS broke including the Lacy Act. Look at Alston Chase "Playing God In Yellowstone" 'the wolf mystery'.
Comment By Kalanu, 3-21-07Jack,
The 'protesters' oppossed to the bison hunt have in fact been complaining rather loudly about the National Park Service killing over 900 bison last year. Buffalo Field Campaign even has a huge billboard on Hwy. 90 in Billings that says 'Yellowstone National Park kills Thousands of Buffalo.' So that's hardly saying nothing.
What would make the hunt more sporting is allowing habitat for bison in Montana.
And again, wild animals starve. Wild animals are preyed upon by wolves and coyotes. This is nature. I said I wouldn't mention it because I thought everyone knew this by now, but I guess not. Yellowstone is a park, not a zoo, and the animals inside are wild animals, not zoo animals. You see what I mean? So let's throw away all the zoo animal management tactics and start behaving as if we're dealing with a wild animal here.
(And another correction to your numbers. The late winter count for this year was 3600)
Is the correct figure 3600 bison now? They lost more to starvation this last winter then. There goes the 20% increase /year.Maybe the wolves got some bison calves. I didn't say YNP was a zoo but a mismanaged piece of public land. I often wondered what the Bison Field Campaign did... you put up signs then? I would guess then you are opposed to hunting of bison outside the park. Do you support the FWP captive bison herd? What a waste of federal Homeland Security money that is. What is the immediate threat to National Homeland Security with bison? Montana was really desperate for money to pull that one off. The wild YNP bison are FWP game farm bison at the old game farm. Those calves should be 3 year olds now getting too big for the 'farm' maybe FWP could turn some loose in Bozeman for the Bison Field Campaign, just an idea.Throw some more hay to FWP captive bison at Gardner.
Well the wolves don't belong in YNP they are exotic and from Canada. The wolves in YNP before 1995 should have been allowed to recover under the ESA and data was falsified by the NPS/USFWS that there were none. Did you know Canadian wolves carry dog genes as well? Yes, that is correct wolves with dog genes in YNP.Yes 'nature at work' you studied mythical reading well not science.That's a little like Al Gore and the Global Warming myth not based on science either. Have you looked at the winter range lately?
How will the NPS/USFWS protect us from the deadly tapeworm carried by wolves in YNP? Lets bring EPA into the YNP turmoil as well. Yes, we are dealing with wild animals we agree on that point however. Wild elk for example as well as many other wild ungulates here outside YNP because of sportsmens-hunters dollars under the PR program of 1937 to purchase winter range in Montana.The winter ranges were not purchased for wolves to kill the elk on them either. As usual, the hunters pay all the bills for wildlife management which also supports fish and game agencies very existence. Did you enjoy reading "Playing God In Yellowstone"?
Dr. Charles Kay's phd thesis is excellent reading on the northern YNP range as well I would recommend it. A few scientific papers by Dr. Geist also.He has one on dog genes in Canadian wolves from Alberta and the deadly tapeworm from wolves transmittable to humans.There's lots of scientific literature out there.
If humans are not allowed to kill bison , outside the park or in, the bison are zoo animals, and the park is a zoo.
Wilderness and no human hunting are as alien to that geography as timothy grass on the Lamar flats, fenced exclosures, and about every other animal wearing at plastic or metal tag of some sort.
I wanted a grant writer to get me a grant to dart grossly obese humans in the Park, tag them, take a tooth, weigh them, tape their dimensions, and install a GPS transmitter so I could satellite track them. Find out where they ate, what they ate, how often they crapped, how much the dry weight of the big dooty was, all the necessary scientific stuff to learn about another of the native species in the Park. No luck yet. But I thought I might learn how to ensure that Park animals had enough to eat, to keep their fat levels high enough so that they bred successfully. We use animals to address human health, and I thought using humans to address animal health was a home run. No luck yet. And, I still can't find someone to buy a Honda 90 for every bison so they could ride to where there was some grass. I can dream, though. If the Taliban can whip the UN forces riding Honda 90s, I thought a few well trained bison could find enough to eat outside the fence, and be able to escape back to the mountains between the US Govt and private citizens.
I don't speak for BFC, but I know that they are oppossed to the quarantine facility in Gardiner. BFC does a lot of things, you should check out their website.
The vision here, and I know there are some but not all at BFC who share my beliefs, is that bison be allowed to re-establish habitat in Montana and beyond; naturally, without quarantining, without disease testing, without intervention, and when a suitable habitat is established and the herd is allowed to access winter forage, then public hunting can become a feasible management tool. The vision here is wild bison, and that's not the way they are being treated. They are being treated as zoo animals, and I don't think we should be hunting zoo animals.
Your comments on the FWP bison facility are well taken. Wildlife is just that to remain 'wild'. FWP is 'experimenting' to change what is already 'wild' and assumes they will create a genically pure bison herd then what they won't say and no place to put them?If they are behind a fence they are no longer 'wild' as well and a violation of the Unlawful Inclosures Act of 1885 the bison must be 'free roaming' with no fences to remain 'wild' which FWP won't read that law either. Playing god with 'mother nature' has never worked and the project will be a failure. I also agree if they looked at the vegetation, the winter range, which they don't these days they would be far better off.The USFS even got away with burning sagebrush on the winter range in Eagle Creek. The motivation is federal money under the Homeland Security program for FWP. This is a sham at the highest degree. Bison are a threat to our national security please explain FWP????Money that could be used to purchase land for wildlife is being wasted on some rediculous experiment. After public comment in opposition of it they went ahead anyway. I am sure Riggler is happy he gets paid 50 grand a year to have the experiment on some of his private land. Then over the fence in Little Trail Creek most all the elk killed by wolves and FWP turns their head the other way and tells us its "drought" that caused the decline in elk like we were stupid.So habitat is the most important we agree on that. The news media could have a field day writing all the articles on agency 'mismanagement' in the Gardiner area.
Comment By kalanu, 3-23-07As far as I know, Homeland Security is not involved with the FWP in a funding capacity. The rationale for the quarantine facility is that USDA rules forbid transporting bison due to their disease status. Homeland Security have been involved in the transfer of bison because brucellosis is classified as a biological weapon. Apparently the Soviets experimented with a strain of brucella (not brucella abortus, the strain that cattle and bison and elk and what not carry) and so all strains of brucella are listed as biological weapons. This is why research on a new vaccine for the disease aren't happening. There are not many labs set up for experimenting with biological weapons.
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