NEWS: Private Property Rights Violated by Livestock Agents Hazing Wild Bison
By LetBuffaloRoam, New West Unfiltered 5-29-08
P.O. BOX 956
WEST YELLOWSTONE, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org
* NEWS RELEASE *
PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS VIOLATED BY LIVESTOCK AGENTS HAZING WILD BISON
Property Owners Welcome Bison, Not DOL, on Cattle-Free Horse Butte
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - May 29, 2008
Press Contacts:
Janae & Rob Galanis, 406-646-4848
Ed & Vicky Millspaugh, Hebgen Lake Estates, 406-646-9176, (cell) 406-580-0321
Stephany Seay, Buffalo Field Campaign, 406-646-0070
WEST YELLOWSTONE, MT - With horses, a helicopter, state and federal law enforcement, and U.S tax dollars to spend, Montana Department of Livestock agents have descended upon the cattle-free Horse Butte Peninsula, violating private property rights and upsetting human and wildlife residents in an attempt to chase wild American bison out of Montana and into Yellowstone National Park.
"These actions underscore the arrogance of the Department of Livestock, cattle industry, and agencies carrying out the Interagency Bison Management Plan," said Mike Mease, co-founder of Buffalo Field Campaign. "There are no cattle out here and the landowners want the buffalo around, yet the government-funded cowboys act like the only private property rights that matter are those pertaining to cattle."
The Horse Butte peninsula is a 26,000-acre landscape encompassing both public (Gallatin National Forest) and private property. It is 100% cattle-free at all times of the year. Horse Butte provides critical winter range and calving grounds for American bison. The majority of Horse Butte residents welcome bison, but do not welcome the presence of the Montana Department of Livestock. Homeowners have expressed their wishes that the DOL refrain from chasing bison off of their land, but these wishes continue to be ignored.
"I am a fully disabled veteran. I went to war--nearly getting killed several times--for their rights and my rights and now they're taking it away from me by violating my private property rights," said Ed Millspaugh, Horse Butte property owner and president of Hebgen Lake Estates. "Is this the way Montana wants to treat its vets?"
Buffalo Field Campaign documented Department of Livestock agents harassing wild bison, including newborn calves, chasing them off of the Galanis property using a helicopter, which they flew at about 20 feet above the ground, violating airspace. Fence lines were damaged in the opereation.
The Galanis family, shaken and distraught over today's actions by the DOL, refrained from immediate comment until they are able to assess the damage caused by the operation. As soon as the Galanis family took ownership of the former Munns' Ranch, they immediately placed signs around their 700+-acre property defining it as a "Buffalo Safe Zone," the largest in Montana.
"The Galanis family removed the problem by removing the cattle on Horse Butte," said Stephany Seay, a spokeswoman for Buffalo Field Campaign. "Now we need to remove the Department of Livestock."
Buffalo Field Campaign also documented as DOL agent Shane Grube and another DOL agent, both on horseback, chased one wild bull bison off of other private properties within Yellowstone Village housing area. Residents came from their homes to scorn the DOL's actions and asked them to leave the premises. The residents were ignored.
"The Interagency Bison Management Plan is supposed to be adaptive, so adapt!" said Mease. "The fact that there are no cattle on Horse Butte is a significant change and it means the Department of Livestock has absolutely no reason to be there harassing bison!"
In March of 2008, Horse Butte homeowners, Buffalo Field Campaign, and Earthjustice called on state and federal officials to stop hazing, capturing, and killing bison that migrate onto Horse Butte. View the letter and press release at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/press0708/pressreleases0708/030408.html.
There are no cattle currently grazing in the Hebgen Lake region, and they may not be trucked into the region until early July. There is no risk of brucellosis transmission at this time. There has never been a documented case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis to cattle.
More than 1,700 wild American bison have been eliminated from the remaining wild population this winter under actions carried out under the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP), as well as state and treaty hunts. Bison are a migratory species native to vast expanses of North America and are ecologically extinct everywhere in the United States outside of Yellowstone National Park. Buffalo Field Campaign strongly opposes the Interagency Bison Management Plan and maintains that wild bison should be respected as a valued native wildlife species and allowed to naturally and fully recover themselves throughout their historic native range, especially on public lands.
Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field, every day, to stop the slaughter of the wild American buffalo. Volunteers defend the buffalo and their habitat and advocate for their lasting protection. BFC has proposed real alternatives to the current mismanagement of American bison that can be viewed at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/solutions.html. For more information, video clips and photos visit: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org
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Here's the REAL story:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20080528-1251-wst-yellowstonebison.html
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Bison to be hazed into Yellowstone as ranchers go to court
By Matthew Brown
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:51 p.m. May 28, 2008
BOZEMAN, Mont. – The Montana Department of Livestock says it will haze up to 100 bison from private property into Yellowstone National Park, after cattle ranchers Wednesday asked a state judge to order the animals' removal.
The bison are on a former ranch whose owners asked the state to leave the animals alone. That would go against a program that calls for killing or removing bison that migrate outside Yellowstone to prevent the spread of disease to livestock.
Since February, 1,728 Yellowstone bison – more than half the park's population – have been killed or removed to prevent the spread of the disease brucellosis.
Ranchers say the state is running that risk by allowing bison to linger outside the park's western boundary, in an area where cattle are to return next week.
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Here's more on the REAL story:
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=8394527&nav=menu227_2
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MT Stockgrowers Assoc. upset over bison management
Posted: May 29, 2008 06:27 AM PDT
Updated: May 29, 2008 06:30 AM PDT
Members of the Montana Stockgrowers Association say that the Montana Board of Livestock has failed to properly manage bison on the western edge of Yellowstone National Park, which has resulted in increased risk of brucellosis spreading from Bison to cattle.
The Montana Stockgrowers Association says that for the last three years, the state has not put bison back into the park by May 15th as mandated in the Interagency Bison Management plan.
The Stockgrowers lawsuit asks the Fifth Judicial District Court to immediately force the Board of Livestock to remove bison from property bordering Yellowstone National Park.
"It's not just about a few landowners adjacent to Yellowstone national park," said Montana Stockgrowers Association Executive Vice President Errol Rice. "We're talking about the whole state of Montana. And by not removing these bison and not adhering to the may 15th date,the state board of livestock is putting the entire livestock industry at risk."
Board of Livestock Chair Bill Hedstrom says that the livestock department had delays because of privacy issues with a new land owner, and also did not want to force the bison across flooded areas.
Hedstrom adds that the Department of Livestock plans to remove the bison on Thursday.
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No cattle on Horse Butte today, tomorrow, next week, next month or three months from now. No cattle around Hebgen Lake until July. These bison were no threat to anyone or anything. This BS will end, someday; but unfortunately not today.
Comment By mostlyMike, 5-29-08I hope Montana DOL ends up paying monetary damages to the people whose property they damaged by running the bison through their fences.
Comment By Ann, 5-30-08Seems to me Property owners should be able to sue the cattle men that filed suit against the DOL, for Bison still being out of the Park.
Just as if you hired someone to rob a bank, you are accountable for the robbery, and would be prosecuted for it. So should the people that filed suit against the DOL, in Madison County Court. As per the article in the Bozeman Chronicle.
Their pressure against the DOL, is the reason the DOL 'trespassed'. Private Property, should be just that Private. Those Bison were putting no cattle in danger, nor anything else on this peninsula. They should have been left right where they were, and saved the money for fencing materials for Red Canyon, and Stintz Field, as well as the other ones on Highway 20.
In the meantime while everyone is watching the hawk, the fox is sneaking in on the hen house.
I get the feeling that this year has been and, until next January, will continue to be a time of "last gasps" for the rightwing. In the case of those trust fund inheriting WASP stockgrowers, they aren't looking to do the anything moral or productive, couldn't see a productive or moral path if it groped them. They're just frantically trying to use the time they have left, before the political winds change on them, to cut down the bison to as near to a genetic bottleneck as they can get and to entrench a process to get wolf numbers down as well. Neither approach will serve them well in the long run; but, competence is not their strong suit. I believe that, after forty years of whining over not having power followed by finally getting over a decade of essentially near complete control, the rightwingers now realize that they didn't know how to wield power, didn't know what to do with the power, were dumbfounded and paralyzed when their ideological fantasies didn't have any workable connection to the real world, and put the whole system FUBAR on every conceivable front. They are now acting out in desperation, knowing that the party is most likely over and that all they got done was turning over the punchbowl and falling into the cake. Seems like such sad collection of incompetent trash to me.
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