Environment News | New West Network

I'm tired of article headlines like this. Provides additional habitat for who? Twenty-five guinea pig buffalo? What happens when these buffalo move back into Yellowstone and come back out? What happens to their herds that they are effectively removed from at the 25 number? How was this "additional habitat" even necessary when there already were public access roads through here and fencing would have been much cheaper?

This is a disgrace.

What's more, the numbers of buffalo dead - counting winter kill - are at least now 2,400 - over half the herd. According to their own report, there may be as few as 1,436 buffalo in the park (though NPS is saying that they miscalculated their own numbers). See this report:

in pdf: http://www.yellowstone-online.com/facts/yellowstone_bison_population_management_activities_04_15_08.pdf

in htiml:
http://yellowstone-online.com/2008/04/1436-to-2300-yellowstone-buffalo-left.html

A total disgrace, and the environmental groups (Greater Yellowstone Coalition, National Parks Conservations Association, National Wildlife Federation, Montana Wildlife Federation) who have sold them up and propped up the government slaughter should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone giving them a penny of the $1 million they say they are going to raise is not only doing nothing to help buffalo, they are killing them and sending them to the slaughterhouse. And, for those 25, they are doing nothing to improve their lives.

Absurd. And, a big thumbs down to all the headline writers on these articles who have missed the point and made the government's claim for them.

Although this is being hailed, and it is truly good no more bison will be sent to slaughter, the contents of this deal are a joke.

It simply defers the controversy by one year.

And what year is it? Election year! As long as DOL controls buffalo and their habitat, and Montana refuses to treat buffalo like other wildlife, it's a cruel sham. Another clear example of the political elite overriding the majority.

Steve you are absolutely right. In addition, this is just a transfer of money from well meaning (I suppose) conservation groups and the taxpayers to this Church.

2.8 million dollars for 25 bison chosen by the MDOL, to cross the park boundary with delayed hazing until April 15.
"Historic"??? Well, if you want to count this as a continuation of a long-running, shameful chapter of American history--then i guess the term is fitting.

What a joke. And typical of GYC to laud some meaningless sham action. I am sure they will use it to raise more of their millions of dollars which they can then use to finance their PR machine.

Dear Lucia Stewart and fellow posters,

I know that most of you are not eager to hear the input of a rancher; but, I can't keep myself from offering a perspective in terms of the financial framework from which real ranchers operate. I believe that you will find this viewpoint relevant; but, it doesn't seem like anyone has offered any analysis of this corrupt mess from this standpoint, at least not that I have seen.

If you go back to 1998, the stated justification for this deal with CUT has always been to provide grazing for bison. The taxes to be spent on this adventure were justified as support for the bison; the donations to the "conservation" groups were justified as support for the bison; and, although there may be peripheral benefits and land rights obtained through the deal, the goal of the deal was overwhelmingly to be about grazing room for the bison, was justified to the taxpayers as grazing room for the bison, and was sold to the appropriators as grazing room for the bison. Since 1998, working with CUT to get this grazing room for the bison has, to the best of my rough reckoning, cost more than $15 million ($13 million in 1998 and now another $2+ million), not counting the time and cost of the bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians, and accountants. To the best of my understanding, this deal now covers 30 years of grazing access and allows a maximum of 100 head on the property for about half time, given that they now want the bison off the land by April 15th each spring. Stay with me here...

We, ranchers, commonly measure herds for grazing rights in terms of Animal Units (AUs). For the purposes of this analysis, we can count one head of bison as being one AU and the result from a money standpoint will actually be charitable to CUT. We, ranchers commonly pay for grazing rights in terms of Animal Unit Months (AUMs), which is the right to graze one AU for one month. Stay with me here...

So, let's calculate what CUT is getting paid for these grazing rights. You start with the $15 million that they have gotten total since 1998 (again being charitable to CUT by not counting any interest or escalation on the first $13 million); then you divide by 30, because the deal allows access for 30 years, and you get the rough annual cost of the deal; then you divide by 100, because the deal only allows a maximum of 100 AUs on the property at any time, and you get the cost per year per AU; and, finally, you need to divide by 6, because they are only going to allow access for roughly 6 months each year, and you get the cost per AUM. By my calculation, the cost is a bit more than $800 per AUM and that is being very charitable to CUT in my assumptions and not even counting inflation over the 30 years.

The normal cost to graze public lands is a bit less than $2 per AUM. In cases of excellent private land grazing rights, the cost can go as high as $20 to even $60 per AUM. Again, by my calculation above, your cost, my cost, the taxpayer's cost, for these grazing rights seems to be a bit more than $800 per AUM. The situation is all the more ridiculous because this tremendously corrupt amount of money per AUM is being spent to support only 100 bison at any one time, something less than 3% of the herd. My point is, of course, that this deal seems incredibly corrupt whether you like bison or don't like bison or don't dare one way or another. The "bottom line" is that CUT is more like SCREW in this case and in others as well given their history. The culpability doesn't stop there. The granola and sandals crowd can be forgiven for not knowing how much an AUM should cost; but MT DOL damn sure does; Tester and Schweitzer should know; Rehberg and Baucus should know; and even the GYC should know what they are collecting donations for. I am all for the bison; but, this CUT crap sure seems to stink.

To the real mike,

Thanks for the common sense break-down. While I understand the bison issue, and a huge sum of money has been spent for absolutely nothing, I had never seen the figures as you have presented them. Seen from your perspective i am considerably more angry than before. In my opinion you have made both an excellent, and valid point. I think a lot more people would be angry if they read your post, regardless of their position on this issue.

I think it would be worthwhile to send your info to Nick Rahall and the GAO.

To the real MIke,

That is a splendid analysis. You should write a guest editorial for New West, or perhaps they should take your comment and elevate into an editorial.

Critical things are being left out of reports regarding the so-called deal being negotiated between the Church Universal & Triumphant, FWP, National Park Service, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, National Parks Conservation Association, and National and Montana Wildlife Federations. The public is being woefully deceived. This "deal" will do nothing to stop the slaughter of wild bison.

The 30-year lease is a sham, an attempt to make these entities look like they are finally "doing something" for buffalo. In truth, they are exacerbating current mismanagement actions and would continue to block a significant wildlife migration corridor. Only 25 wild bison would be allowed to temporarily occupy a portion of CUT and Gallatin National Forest land. But first, the "lucky" 25 buffalo will be captured, tested, tagged, vaccinated, collared, vaginally implanted and otherwise run through the typical bison torture gauntlet. 

U.S. taxpayers have already paid CUT $13,000,000 for wild bison to access these lands. CUT has completely failed to fulfill their end of the bargain, the U.S. Forest Service has neglected their responsibilities, and this year Yellowstone has slaughtered nearly 1,300 wild bison as a result, this year's death toll rising to over 1,600 wild American bison. Why should more millions be given to CUT so they can add more insult to injury by letting a handful of mistreated bison be given temporary access to a fraction of their historic habitat? 

CUT and the Forest Service still have an obligation to ensure that bison benefit from the 1999 land deal by providing a "safe haven for the bison" as detailed in that agreement. The NGOs and FWP who are blindly pushing this most recent extortion effort as the saving grace for buffalo should be ashamed for misleading the public into believing that bison would benefit in any way. Only by forcing CUT and the USFS to fulfill their end of the bargain struck in 1999 can we begin to stop the slaughter of what's left of the northern range buffalo herds.

The continuing war against wild bison is about grass and who gets to eat it. It's about land control and control of wildlife. Brucellosis is a FRAUD.

I think it best to take this agreement to court.

RH

I know that "Action" Jackson gets mad at me, at least in the time that he takes between posing for photos, when I talk about genetics being the root issue in preserving these bison; but, if the numbers are truly as low as I have heard they are after this winter's slaughter, I honestly believe that you need to get some honest geneticists dueling with the government's scientostitutes about how low you can take this population size without risking the loss of some of the rare unhybridized genetic bandwidth. The government will undoubtedly try to lump these bison in with all the other bison in the country and say that bison are plentiful; but, the vast majority of bison across America are hybridized, which makes lumping the Yellowstone herd in with them something along the lines of failing to distinguish between jungle fowl and barred rocks or between farm/hatchery salmon and wild salmon or between herefords and my longhorns. Okay, okay, you still get the picture.

Why can we build a fence between us and Mexico, to keep out climbers and crawlers, when we can't build a perimeter fence in the areas of bison contention? And I am talking about either party, NPS or CUT...Good fences make good neighbors. I certainly can see why there would not be a fence separating USFS and NPS. But private property is another deal.

The issue is, a decade ago, last year, this year, and next, that there is insufficient winter graze for bison in the Park. In reality, there is insufficient summer graze in the Park if you were to look at it from a concerned husband of range land's viewpoint. No limbs with foliage on any living tree, hardwood or conifer, below the height of a bison or elk browsing, winter range with the nutritional value of a MacDonalds parking lot after the ravens have had their fill, thousands of acres of burn now growing dense lodgepole, not bison or elk food. You look at the streams and there are no willows and the prairies have no brush patches to hide a calf or fawn. Way too many animals for way too long of time. And the only corrective action has to be fewer animals grazing.

If genetics and bison family groups are of great importance, why do bison supporters not go to Ted Turner, and see if there is a spot in some of his two million or more acres for a free roaming family group with good old time genetics, and no chance of those becoming mixed with those that have bovine genes? Let him walk his talk. And, there has to be somewhere in the 195 million acres of public land in the West that might be able to support a free roaming herd of great gene pool. Right now this deal is being patched with money, and not much thought for the future. Of course, when the whining minority is beating on the door for political solutions, what we sometimes get is not what is needed in the long term, as you would expect. This CUT deal is just another contrived solution from people with their hands tied by way too many laws, regulations, and prior bad court decisions. And they are not spending their own money.

I prefer to think too many buffalo being slaughtered, not too many animals. Too many corrupt politicians, doling out too much money for far too long. Buffalo don't need fences, they need habitat to roam. Schweitzer has broken Racicot's previous record of wasting buffalo for political gain. Democrats made it worst, if that's possible.

This always brings us back to THE PLAN. When nearly any sort of suggestions are offered, "they're outside the PLAN". This news is delivered in a tone that always reminds me of cats purring.
I started attending IBMP meetings not long after the turn of the century. It was immediately clear that livestock interests were calling the shots, so to speak. This remains the case with the "hunt". FWP solicits input on license numbers, etc., but more than postage-stamp habitat?! No, it's outside the PLAN.
The PLAN is allegedly adaptable, we're told. IBMP members hosted a first-of-its-kind roundtable discussion in Bozeman two winters ago. Many good suggestions were offered, and productive (or so we thought!) discussion took place between all factions.
This past winter there was another IBMP confab, about "progress on the IBMP". One of my comments was that with global warming these days, the glaciers are actually moving faster!
But now we have this RTR deal, an "adaption". A profoundly disgusting one to many of us.
It's an election year and all, though, so we're supposed to be patient, and depending on how things shake out perhaps the IBMP members will be struck with blinding lights or something and we'll finally see some meaningful progress.
I am ordinarily quite optimistic, but my faith in the existing IBMP members doing that is used up. These are the same people who just oversaw the largest slaughter of wild bison since the 1800's. It's in the PLAN, you know.

to bear bait
I posted this on another web site but feel it is pertinent here. You are right in a lot of your observations but the root cause is the Interagency bison management "plan" implemented on Yellowstone's boundary. Family groups do matter. It is the only way any of these herd animals were able to become what they were as a species when the aborigines hunted them.

As far as genetics, Mike, I feel this matters a lot. The only thing is as individuals, genetics is the chance of the draw. With extended families each family determines genetic selection in an exponential way. It is in their competion with other families that allows for culture to determine what genetics get passed on. Culture dictates what animals learn to eat, dating relationships and the ability for animals within groups to get along. Narrowly put, with the luck of the draw, as pertaining to individuals, we get genetics based only on "survival of the fittest". The post follows;

Sustainable populations of herd animals has little to do with population densities and everything to do with family structure … and the anchoring culture these composites of families produces. There is no ecological balance and no bison restoration when bison, each as an individual animal and expanded in numbers to a “population density”, is used as THE guide… such as narrow based science does today.
Bison are herbivores. Instinctively they can eat grass but it takes training by ancestors to eat the broad leaves. This is no different than omnivores such as bears and humans, who can eat flesh with no training but need lots of instruction on what plants or which parts of those plants are edible…and what time of year it can be eaten. Do we eat the bark of an oak tree, the leaves or acorns? What condition do the acorns have to be in to be edible?
Thus, the less structure bison have the less they know what to eat. Ted Turners 1000’s of bison on hundreds of thousands of acres have not one chance of attaining ecological balance with the land because the calves are weaned. Thus most all learning stops. In Yellowstone, as bison families are becoming more and more fractured there will be more and more overgrazing of grass type plants. Thus numbers of bison this land can support goes down.
But it doesn’t end here. Embattled populations, no matter what the species, entrenches itself. Yellowstone’s Lamar rangers reinforce what I have observed by telling me the herd there does not spread out of the Valley in the summer like they use to. This is because the bison families are scared. Indiscriminate herd reductions means families no longer have the roles needed to make them feel secure. Steven’s Creek Corrals have taken care of that. The remnants of these extended families feel under siege because of what the rangers are subjecting them to during the winter. Thus with the fear coming from hazing, any back country user on horse back scares these moms and little ones in their back country home (home is not the roadside) into retreating to the invisible walled city of the Valley.
When we combine loss of protective roles and disruption of home (think of a human family where everything is great but then strangers come in to the house for a drink of water every hour of the day and night. That mother would move her family out fast.), we end up with a whole bunch of dysfunctional bison families in Lamar Valley refuge camps.
Additionally, structured herd animals graze entirely differently than dysfunctional “population densities”. In Yellowstone I always saw the young out front, keeping the family moving during speed grazing (there are two types of grazing in functional herds; static, where learning is conveyed and young can eat while mature animals rest, and the second of what I call speed grazing). Plus, each family likes to stay close together as compared to fearful dysfunctional individuals. Families solve range sciences perpetual problem of dysfunctional animals “eating the best and leaving the rest”. Staying close together grazing loosely translates into human families eating all of what mother puts on your plate.
Finally, dysfunctional populations propagate much faster than functional families. All are trying to form up families for survival and this means all haste in doing so, whether there is graze available or not. Think of the population explosions in famished slums of Africa and Haiti.
State Game and Fish unknowingly uses this management tool with their hunting regulations. Core dysfunctional herds means more animals are available for hunters each fall. The environment may be going to hell but the numbers are there.
In Yellowstone the more the herd is artificially reduced the more animals are produced and the ones produced know less and less what to eat. It is a no win situation that Yellowstone politics and short sighted science has got them selves into. It will not be long before all bison will be leaving every winter if present “management” continues. Winter range in Yellowstone will become summer pastures for these scared bison. And with continued harassment bison’s original summer homes will be void of buffalo.
So what is the bison carrying capacity in Yellowstone? The answer is less each year.

Actually Lucia the bison have been tolerated in the hunting zone in Eagle Creek above Gardiner for several years now, this is not the "first time in a decade".

Sportsmen and other bison advocates please also consider these stunning costs and commitments of this deal, especially the commitments required of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP):

I. Cash: Cut will receive $1,876,500 upfront to initiate the agreement and $76,500 each year for the next 19 years of the 30-year agreement. This totals $3.3 million dollars and since payments are highly “front-ended”, the capital value of the deal is much greater (considering interest that could be earned on the money).

II. Ongoing costs and commitments required of FWP:

1. FWP shall construct and maintain fences and cattle guards.
2. FWP shall construct and maintain a bison confinement facility.
3. FWP will post warning signs where bison may pose a danger to people or property.
4. FWP shall monitor bison movements, 7 days/week, November through April.
5. FWP shall mark bison.
6. FWP shall prevent bison from using CUT lands outside the bison movement corridor and 3 “bison use areas”, which have yet to be disclosed.
7. FWP, in cooperation with other agencies in the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP), shall take actions to move bison through the bison movement Corridor.
8. FWP shall monitor births/abortion materials
9. FWP shall address lethal removal of bison as needed, obtaining CUT permission for lethal removal from CUT properties.
10. FWP shall remove bison carcasses and birth materials.
11. FWP shall provide 24-hour notice in advance of any routine management activity.
12. FWP shall address and alleviate any threats of bison to persons or property.
13. FWP shall indemnify and defend CUT against all liabilities, costs or damages, including attorney’s fees, for any damages resulting from actions of FWP. (Since FWP is responsible for all the management and monitoring of bison, this would likely include any unexpected harm or injury.)
14. FWP and CUT shall monitor range conditions within the bison movement corridor and the 3 bison use areas. FWP shall consult with CUT on range conditions.
15. Upon notification by CUT that range conditions have deteriorated below baseline conditions, FWP shall take appropriate action to mitigate bison impacts to range conditions in the 3 bison use areas.
16. FWP shall initiate a meeting with CUT annually to review administration of the agreement.
17. FWP shall consult with CUT on the location of any new capture facility near CUT lands.
18. Should the state and federal agencies desire to modify the IBMP, CUT agrees only to consider any resulting changes in the agreement that may be necessary. Thus, CUT could be a roadblock to modifying the IBMP.
19. FWP shall ensure that bison use of the CUT land is in accordance with the IBMP. Consequently, FWP is responsible for implementing all related aspects of the IBMP that the Government Accounting Office (GAO) just recommened by refined, revised or replaced, even if one or more other agencies is unwilling or unable to cooperate in any of the Plan’s activities. This adds the following commitments of the IBMP:
20. Capture and test bison; identify seronegative bison.
21. Remove bison from outside Yellowstone National Park by April 15 each year.
22. Remove bison from the east side of the Yellowstone River where there are thousands of acres of conflict-free public lands currently being managed by the U.S. Forest Service and FWP for large ungulate winter range and grizzly bear habitat.
23. Equip bison with radio collars and vaginal-implant transmitters.

What will all this cost FWP over the years? How much of this will come from hunter and angler license fund monies?

Most disturbing, we are paying for a "grazing lease" where it appears the overwhelming majority of the CUT property/forage in question will not be available to bison. It appears all CUT lands outside the narrow "corridor" and undisclosed "bison use areas" can be grazed by horses. As well, all CUT land not protected under the previous CUT $13 Million dollar conservation easement (portions of section 1, 6 & 31 just north of Beattie Gulch), which is the majority of the land in question can still be developed and/or subdivided. Furthermore, the majority of the "corridor" crosses land where the public already has preserved a public right-of-way for wildlife migration including a little used county dirt road.

In summary, this agreement provides little or no additional habitat or forage for bison that we didn't already own.

How much Fencing would 13 million dollars buy? QUITE a bit. Sure the first year of purchasing and building the 'game-farm' style fences would be costly, but that would be the last time that amount of money would be needed. Ranchers have to 'repair' fencing every year, so they could 'repair' any fencing of the 'game-farm' style fence, at no different cost than repairing the Barb-wire, etc.
Money saved from NOT hazing off the Horse Butte could be spent on fencing, and testing, and vaccines for the Ranchers. Why is it so difficult to see that it would, in the long run, save money and be beneficial to all.
It is much easier to fix a hole in the bucket, than to just let it continue to trickle out. The CUT deal is a waste of Time, money and resources. Money saved from NOT hazing year after year after year, could be spent on IMPROVING the vaccine FOR the Cattle.
APHIS needs to rethink the Brucellosis issue, and catch up to the 21st century. We KNOW how it is transmitted, so PREVENT that You don't need to kill everything. And for people to be lied to about Yellowstone being the only resevoir for Brucellosis, is just more proof of the 'Authorities' LYING to the public.

I have more questions; Why should cattle Ranchers be allowed to 'out-grow' their pastures, and spread out onto Public lands? What gives them the right to use public lands that Bison, Elk, etc. should be allowed to use? Just like 'you' try to say 'cull' the Bison because they are MIGRATING out of the park,or there are too many. Why not CULL the cattle ranches so they DON'T out grow their land? Why should cattlemen be allowed complete access of PUBLIC lands, and the native species not? Maybe if the Rancher did 'down-size' there would be less need for 'hand-outs'. If you can't manage the number you have on the land you have, then lessen the animals you have.