Dig it.

I don't dig it. While I agree with the general gist of the article, some of the the things said in it are why so many people (like me) get turned off by these kinds of articles.

"Inhumane"???? Of course it's inhumane. Bison aren't humans. They're bison. Give me a break.

"Buffalo"??? Bison are not buffalo.

"Take back our Public Lands"??? Oh, please. You make it sound like we're being overrun by what you probably call "Faceless private entities".

Sorry, but these kinds of articles are why so many people just turn a blind eye to what really is a problem. Most people (like myself) just roll their eyes and say, "they're at it again".

Well Walt, you're correct in that folks have turned a "blind eye" to the problem for 100 years or so. They, along with our governor have been lobotomized by the livestock industry into believing that the "sacred cow at the public trough" is more important than our fish and wildlife.
It costs us taxpayers millions of dollars every year to restore all the damage done by cows on our public lands that should be wildlife habitat, not cow habitat.
Tourists would rather watch fish rising on our streams than a bunch of cows crapping in the water and destroying the stream environment.
Remove cows from our public lands...Save them for the bison, elk, bear and fish.

Bison crap in streams too,

Not only do bison also crap in streams, they also degrade the land, "maximize deadly conflits" (ever had a bison charge you??) and not allow public streams and the sagebrush steppe to recover. Why do you think a grazing bison is not as detrimental to public lands as cattle???

I'll add my signature to that open letter. It's high time we began to recognize the negative impacts of our support for open ranges for private enterprise.
Back in the day, I always sided with the homesteaders against the cattle ranchers when the issue arose in the movies.
Must have been some vestige of intellect even in my salad days.

In point of fact, bison do not wallow in streams as cattle do (ever been to Yellowstone NP?), nor do they graze intensively until the grass is "burnt" (they keep movin), and you may be surprised to learn that our rivers and streams and wildlands were in MUCH BETTER shape when we had 60,000,000 bison roaming around rather than godonlyknows how many ungainly cows. Someone also needs to look "inhumane" up in the dictionary. Finally, Bison bison is the scientific name for what is commonly known as the American Buffalo, which is admittedly a misnomer rooted in European ignorance not unlike that exhibited by some of our commenters.

Walt Weaver joins a long list of RWC who use words incorrectly nearly as frequently as their incorrect thoughts are posted...

Bison break down stream beds and banks as much as cows do, that is a fact. Fence in bison and you'll have "burnt" land, that also is a fact.

Okay, let's have it out! Here's a quote from a recently published article on bison:
"The buffalo's sharp hooves even serve to break up and oxygenate
soil rather than flatten and deplete it, which improves the turf and increases the variety of grasses, forbs, and shrubs. Buffalo 'eat a wider array of plants than do cows, which likely helped to sustain their massive populations. They don't gather in large groups around springs and streams, opting instead to wallow in potholes, which, seeded with their manure, become fertile ground for much-needed vegetation."
And who said anything about fencing them in? We have wildlife refuges and lots of open range close enough to YNP for them to sniff, with natural migration corridors to get them there! We can at least start with that, can't we?

And......bison have horns and can defend themselves against predators, unlike helpless cows who are put out there with no means of defense. Hell, if we had Texas longhorns up here in Montana that could defend themselves against predators it would give the cow growers one less thing to whine about.
As far as Schweitzer, he has lied to the people of this state by claiming he would work to solve the bison crisis. Another worthless politician who has sold out for votes.
Course he was supported by the Montana Wildlife Federation and National Wildlife Federation who endorsed the C.U.T. fiasco...
The only benefit of that deal was to line the church coffers. It did nothing for the bison.

Great letter Tom.

i am not aware that bison would inflict the same impact to a landscapes as cattle. bison roam, and so - perhaps if one were to fence bison & prevent them from roaming - the same impact would occur, but that is clearly not what Tom is talking about here as his comments demonstrate.

by every measure, ecology * economy * animal welfare * etc. it makes absolutely no sense to continue to enable a marginal private interest to sabotage the future of Montana. People enjoy wildlife - and they have a right to - it's public land.

Schweitzer's hesitation to take this issue by the horn is political cowardice, more and more folk are recognizing it.

Admit it, Tom, you're merely pushing a legal and bacterial pogrom of the ranching community. Sort of like with the sheep? This time with another disease?

The imprisonment of wild bison in Yellowstone doesn't make any environmental sense, nor protection from disease in areas where there are no cattle, or economic sense.

If livestock interests were pursuing rational economic goals they would abandon this policy after comparing costs to benefits. However, if anything, they are digging in.

Therefore, I concluded some time ago their real goal was non-economic in nature. I think it is simply to show the conservationists and anyone else in Montana who steps out of line who is the really boss of the land.

They need a good kick to bring them down to size. They are no better than the rest of us.

Their swollen opinion of themselves is the real problem underlying all of this.

Wow, Ralph, you really do loathe livestock producers. Tell me, did you move to Idaho for purely rational reasons, or if you are (gasp) homegrown spuds, do you STAY for purely rational reasons?

As for bison, if the PARK SERVICE had followed a RATIONAL management policy focused on ERADICATION of the exotic, Mediterranean bangs from the bison herds when they were small, back before the idiocy of "natural management" -- then chances are more than good that it would be RATIONAL to let bison loose from the park...
and a darn good chance that elk wouldn't be polluted as well.
Would the bison never recover, even now? One word, Ralph, your very fave...WOLVES.
What did THEY start with...a double handful or so? And they've taken over game management from sportsmen in parts of at least five states.
I am just amazed sometimes that you people will not concede that bison have an exotic disease here, one that is almost gone from north of the Mex border after it spread continent/world wide.

Sometimes I think it would be a good thing to just put an electric fence around Montana and Yellowstone. You guys can move there and run it "sustainably." All yours, you get to condemn the property of all those ranchers...at FMV, but then it will be yours. All you have to do is survive ten years on your own, and just leave the rest of us in the rest of the country the heck alone forever. Ted Turner can bankroll you. Maybe you can make him King and Carole King can be Minister of Culture and Weaving?

Eradicate the humans. There, problem solved!

Good piece Tom. I would add the slaughter-without-end of wild bison in Yellowstone would change if the U.S. Congress grew a backbone and stopped handing over millions of taxpayer dollars every year to a stew of agencies who don't know what the public trust is.

WILD bison are the keystone to healthy watersheds, restoring bird species diversity and grasslands damaged by cattle. The ecological services bison provide is poorly understood and not as serviceable to the news media as conflict-ridden disease. . .

The 100 or so cattle that were trucked in to Red Canyon just a few weeks ago have already ripped up the grass and exposed the soils. As far as I can tell, cattle's contribution to the ecology comes in the form of clouds of insects and flies. (You don't see cattle here in the Hebgen Basin during the winter they wouldn't stand a chance of surviving). Those are Bill Myers cattle at Red Canyon, one of the ranchers who filed suit to compel Montana to forcefully remove every wild bison that migrates along the Madison River into the basin. As bison are removed mid-May to make way for cattle, elk calving season begins. And as Ralph points out, the goal is not economic to the cattle rancher who lost their disease-free status to elk as state vet Marty Zaluski claims.

If these new wildlife friendly economies can emerge in a sustainable way, perhaps this will make room culturally for more profound changes than our political system is capable of.

As mentioned, I'm right there with you Tom on the 'oughtta-be criminal' geopolitical/socio-economic trajedy that public land livestock continue to inflict upon our public lands and wildlife.

In the interest of bettering my understanding of the ecological implications, perhaps you (or someone else who knows) would answer a couple questions I've had for some time :

I'm no expert, but I have trouble with the 'different hoof shape' argument. "Tilled" is certainly less lasting than pounded, but it seems to me it's still disturbed & from what I understand of sage steppe, that'll still diminish microbiotic crusts & with the prevalence of opportunistic annual non-native grasses, a 'tilled' disturbance seems like it could have the potential to favor weeds - depending on the surrounding seed source.

I would also like to learn more about bison as a 'keystone' species. I suspect it has something to do with biomass, prey for more robust populations of predators & scavengers ? Perhaps someone could better answer this as well ?

Just 'devils advocate' questions I'd like to learn more about.

Most of the bison ecology statements are based on their impact before extinction. They were destroyed as a species and later reintroduced. It is hard to say what the impacts would be today. the hoof shape argument is true but as mr. ertz pointed out, would likely favor exotic weeds and non-native grasses. i disagree that bison eat a wider array of plants. cattle diet consists of ~70% grass and the remainder forbs and shrub while bison diet consists of over 90% grass. of the few remaining intact prairies in this country it is easy to see the impact of cattle on the land. The main problem is that our grasslands have been so depleted since the early cattle rush days (actually a lot of longhorns) that it is difficult to predict what would happen were the bison to be re-introduced. i think that bison are an excellent species to assist with grassland restoration but we will likely need to supplement with grass seeding. native grass seed is very expensive. the long, mid and short grass prairies stretching from missouri to the rockies was the most incredible ecosystem on the planet. it is high time we step up and try to encourage the restoration of a large swath of prairie. i live in western mt and work on restoring a small area of grassland here but the big impacts will come from converting a large chunk of unproductive rangeland, crp, crop and fallow land in the plains states. bison will be a key component of this restoration effort. the impacts will be beneficial to all wildlife as well as watersheds, carbon sequestration and total ecosystem health. i would also have to say that i do not really view the YNP bison as wild. they were brought up from tx back in the day and life in a park, do not migrate and let tourists pet them. that said, i think it is time to create a very large area that they can roam freely, and perhaps we can help finance this with fair chase hunts and even commercial sale of bison meat. just a thought.

Brian Ertz,

We're not talking sagebrush steppe with regard to bison. It's true that sagebrush steppe did support a limited number of bison in areas with more precipitation but those were probably animals that drifted over from the larger population and utilized the areas with greater amounts of grasses and forbs. Areas of sagebrush steppe like in Eastern Idaho are different from sagebrush steppe areas of most of the rest of the Great Basin like Nevada because they aren't as dry. In modern times everyplace has weed problems though.

Ryan,

Only part of your statement about Yellowstone bison is true. There were bison brought to Yellowstone from Texas and northwest Montana but there were also a couple dozen bison left wandering the Park after the great slaughter. It was during the time when bison were being captively bred at the Buffalo Ranch where brucellosis was introduced to the heard. Those bison that remained naturally were never taken into captivity. Also, these bison do migrate, they just aren't allowed to.


As far as brucellosis is concerned, unless there is some sort of vaccine that can be sprayed from an airplane, it will continue to remain in the Greater Yellowstone especially under current management. Elk feedgrounds in Wyoming are the reservoir of the disease and until they go away the disease will remain. Even after the feedgrounds go away there will be no way to eradicate brucellosis because there are many animals that would never be vaccinated with the presently ineffective vaccines which would re-infect the elk and bison populations. Of course Dave Skinner would be fine with rounding up every elk and bison in the GYE to serve the selfish interests of his beloved livestock industry buddies but it will not eradicate brucellosis.

And to reiterate Tom's point:

"Brucellosis ceased to be a serious health threat to humans when we began pasteurizing milk in the 1940s. And unlike mad cow disease, brucellosis infected meat is actually safe to eat."

Dave Skinner wrote: "Wow, Ralph, you really do loathe livestock producers. Tell me, did you move to Idaho for purely rational reasons, or if you are (gasp) homegrown spuds, do you STAY for purely rational reasons?"

Dave. I have lived in Idaho and Utah all my life except for 4 years. My family on all sides were early settlers (between 1852 and 1890).

I stay in the area because I love the outdoors. Livestock producers on the public lands are, in my view the single biggest factor preventing the return of abundant stream fishing and wildlife.

The sense of privilege and superiority many producers have, and unwillingness to compromise, is abetted by the livestock organizations more than the individual cow or sheep farmer.

Like so many other threads, this one is quickly getting off track. I think the original idea was a restoration of public lands to the benefit of bison and the presumed detriment of cattle. So let’s be clear here about what we are talking about. First, Montana doesn’t rank in the top ten states for beef cattle production that account for almost 60% of the beef in the US:
Number Head (in millions) % of U.S.
1. Texas ----------13.8------- 14.3%
2. Kansas ---------6.7 --------6.9
3. Nebraska ------6.6 --------6.8
4. California ------5.5 --------5.6
5. Oklahoma -----5.4 --------5.6
6. Missouri -------4.3 --------4.5
7. Iowa -----------4.0 --------4.1
8. South Dakota 3.7 --------3.8
9. Wisconsin -----3.4 --------3.5
10. Colorado -----2.8-------- 2.8

From an economic point of view then, cattle are not where this state has a comparative advantage. On the other hand, our large tracts of nondegraded open lands are an asset few other states enjoy and have in the past been shown to be significant sources of prosperity for the state. This prosperity includes monetary and nonmonetary goods and services. This doesn’t necessarily mean the state shouldn’t produce beef – we should do so where it doesn’t compromise our other assets (as it does around the GYE) and we should do it in a manner that capitalizes on our clean environment and water quality. For example, we should differentiate our beef from that raised in Kansas feedlots and charge a higher price for the rancher. The cattle industry isn’t very creative in this respect.

The other thing we are talking about it public lands. There is no doubt that not restoring open lands is, long term, an irrational course of action. The array of ecosystem services derived from intact ecosystem functions makes sense on multiple levels. Bison are part of that restoration. If Montanans were to get out in front of large scale land and economy restoration it would stimulate our economy beyond anything the current state of cattle production. This would include a new agricultural program, natural landscapes, growth of social capital, and energy. I agree with others in this thread – the present governor doesn’t look like the guy to do it.

Tom,
I am a 4th generation rancher, we utilize public lands. Your comments have angered me. It seems that your contempt for ranchers has clouded your common sense. Wildlife and livestock can co-exist. We take pride in the fact that the natural resources are in better shape today then it was 100 years ago. We have more wildlife today then ever before. This is from personal observation from a man who lives, works and plays in the country daily. We are part of the Undaunted Stewardship program, and live the motto, " take care of the land, cause if you don't, it won't take care of you. We (ranchers) try to leave the enviroment better then before. We are currently at odds with APF and their attempt to control and own 500,000 acres to use as a bison preserve. Getting to the point, any resource needs to be managed, like it or not the free range days are over, YNP has done a poor job of managing numbers and overgrazing is the norm not the exception. If we managed our land like the Park Service does, we would have been out of business long ago. Manage what you got, do not solve the problem by aquiring more land and shutting out enterpises that keep common folks on the land. I am afraid that the APF will follow in YNP footsteps and do more damage then conservation. Learn from history don't try to reinvent the wheel. MFE

MFE: Not sure exactly what part of my letter leads you to conclude that I have contempt for ranchers. I agree that we don't need to eradicate all livestock to make way for wildlife, and I'm sure you'd agree we don't need to eradicated all wildlife to accommodate livestock. If you mean what you say, that "wildlife and livestock can coexist", then why would you oppose APF's efforts to create a single wild bison preserve in Montana? Now Hank Rate, a livestock rancher who lives right outside Livingston, HE believes bison and livestock can coexist, he understands that brucellosis is not a real concern where bison are concerned, and he would happily allow bison to cross his land. Is that what YOU mean? Or do you instead mean that they can coexist on the planet, just not in Montana? I totally respect stockgrowers right to raise livestock on their own private ranches, but your rights end at my nose, and killing wild bison for the sin of stepping on Montana soil, even though that soils is on my public lands, puts my nose out of joint. Why is it that my respect for ranchers must include their impositions on public lands I have just as much a right to as you do? I want public wildlife on public wildlands, not private livestock. How is that disrespectful of your right to own and operate a ranch on your private land? I get confused on this whole property rights thing...

Oh, but Tom, your actions illumine thine contempt. WWP..um, Jon Marvel? There's a man with deep, abiding "respect" for livestock producers, youbetcha.
And for you to say "coexistence" when you just got through with a sheep versus bighorns lawsuit? Two faced hypocrisy. You guys are just hoping to use disease as your pry bar in whatever devious manner you can. That's what your column is about, period. Fooey.

Ken,

So water is the difference. Good. Why would that be any different with cattle if that's the difference ? I still fail i'd still like to a greater fair

Dave: Very revealing response. When in doubt, launch personal attacks having nothing to do with the questions asked. Of course we need to keep domestic and wild sheep separate, given the lethal consequences to wild sheep from a single contact. I suppose you are in favor of wiping out all of Montanas bighorns to allow domestic sheep access to public wildlands, right? And WWP is a radical environmental group because we are working to prevent bighorns from being wiped out once again by domestic sheep? Who's the radical here, Dave? And please explain the relevance of the sheep issues to cows and bison. Oh, wait, that's right -- any bison that comes into contact with a cow in Montana dies. Not from disease, of course, but because of our eco-terrorist government. What EVER, dude!

Yeah, let's introduce wild sheep and then boot the sheepherders from anywhere within miles. That'll engineer Utopia. And the relevance is that you are looking at another disease vector to accomplish the same thing...eliminating the enemy fleets from your precious Sagebrush Sea.
You Rangenet people are something else. Too bad there's no loser liability under EAJA, no bonding requirements. Just keep tossing them up there, to Judge Winmill especially, and see what sticks.

Let me see if I get this right. The urban experts know the answers to ecotopia. And man is in the way. Get rid of man, and it then makes no difference if the tree makes a noise or not, when it falls.

That has to explain the 40% or more urban kids don't graduate high school, which for too many means a life on the make or dole. Scam, steal, and have your hand out. Public opinion is based on urban idiots and the uneducated class. Like that picture of the guy holding up his Iphone to take Mrs. Prez Obama's picture as she doled out grub at the soup kitchen. I can buy food for a month on what the Iphone hook up monthly bill costs. No wonder the guy was in the soup line. But, hey, equal opportunity to take something for nothing. Which brings me to all these NGO outfit protecting this and that: why don't you pay taxes like the rest of us on your earnings? Do you get free health care as a paid shill for the protection of a public resource? Your retirement? Any of that taxed? Me thinks the "N" is a phony designation. There is no "non" there. NGOs walk and work lockstep with the Federal agencies, and now sit on policy boards. But without the legal oversight of Congress. Backdoor Democrap government is all that you are. The Brown Shirts of ObamaNation.

I have not seen a blade of grass left on the north end of Yellowstone NP by October.in the twenty or so years I have been there in late fall or winter. It is a gravel bar with bison poop piles. The bison eat it all. And there are long term exclosures right there to show how damaging bison are to the environment. The issue is that YNP has too many bison, and will forever. Unless hunted or otherwise killed. Which is how they were moved about before Eurocentric manifest destiny zealots killed most of them. Before the immigrants, Indians hunted them. Bison ran from Indians hunting them. Indians had to be somewhat nomadic to improve the odds of being close enough to kill the bison they needed to live. I have no idea how they did that before the horse came ashore with Spanish conquistadores. But there had to be a change in how bison interacted with the environment. Maybe, before the horse, bison did camp out until there was nothing left, and then moved on, leaving behind a severely disturbed chunk of the landscape that took years to recover, and went on to mess up another chunk, in an endless destruction path that kept trees from growing on the grasslands, stopped fires from burning it all, and forced renewal on the landscape. The question is: who gives a damn? Kansas is going to be growing wheat and cows for a long time. And so is the rest of the land coveted, unless of course, the crazies, the Rockheads, the usual suspects of overeducation and little job opportunity, somehow wrest control of the land they covet from the devil ranchers and farmers, and return it to Eden. Of course, all those birds still have to winter in South and Central America where the ag industry will move to. There will be unintended consequences of magnitude, as there always are. Modelers have a real problem with those. And models show it.

My sociological question would be how interested in Eden are the new immigrants to the US, from anywhere. They moved here to use resources, to work, and to practice their customs and cultures. If they become the majority, and are breeding like that is possible sooner than most would think, will their interests be in preservation or use? There isn't a roadless area in my State that is not right now hosting an illegal dope grow by Mexican drug cartel personnel. Don't go scouting the bow season without being armed. Cougars and bears aren't packing. The dope growers are. If you trip over drip tube in the Wilderness, get the hell out of there...and punch in a waypoint on your gps for the cops....If it is worth a million bucks street value, I want the half million in taxes up front. Our schools are without adequate funds.

Maybe to accomplish the state goal, what is needed is for all fences to come down. No fences allowed. Then it all becomes a commons, and just like it was. Everyone can get some disease. My doctor brother says we are now being exposed to tuberculosis strains that defy antibiotics. And strains of staph, MRSA, that will kill many who don't have adequate immune responses. No quarantine before entry to the US today. No yellow flag installations. Hell, very little border enforcement at all. So your health is being impacted by a porous border, and all the universal health care in the world will not save you from that. And, if you favor no border enforcement, you will get what you wanted and deserve. The cow deal with Bangs disease is a minor player in the public health sector. Larger is Mexican doctors handing out antibiotics like candy, and no peasant keeps on taking the antibiotics for their full prescription term, but only until they feel better. That is breeding drug resistant strains of common diseases that will kill you long before undulant fever.

It is sort of strange to realize that maybe bison are the only victims of strict border enforcement in the country. And for good reason. Too bad we don't put the same effort, albeit with non lethal outcomes, on our political borders with neighboring countries. The disease prevention result would be worth the money and time.

Dennis McDonald is the chair of the Dem party in MT, and as I recall it, both Schweitzer and Baucus pressed for him to fill that position. (Correct me if I'm wrong...I'm sure someone will.)

“I view Yellowstone as a large ranch,” said Dennis McDonald, immediate past-president of the Montana Cattlemen’s Association (MCA) and currently representing Region I (Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon) on the R-CALF board of directors.

McDonald said he pushed the brucellosis resolution through R-CALF and takes pride in the fact that the MCA is putting pressure on federal agencies to eradicate brucellosis in both bison and elk in the Greater Yellowstone. McDonald acknowledged that such a task would be “more problematic” for elk, but insisted it is doable with bison.

McDonald said large-scale test and slaughter programs, combined with vaccinations, is what is needed to protect regional cattlemen from economic penalties caused by losing their brucellosis-free status. He acknowledged that a large-scale test and slaughter program would mean the death of hundreds, perhaps thousands of animals.”
From 12/15/06 at
http://www.newwest.net/index.php/main/article/r_calf_wants_brucellosis_eradication_in_yellowstone/

McDonald hopes to run against Rehberg as our lone U.S. Representative. Unless McDonald has had a change of heart in the intervening 2-1/2 years since those statements were made, where the bison issue is concerned, he and Rehberg are interchangeable. But aside from that, how much if any of Schweitzer's failure where bison are concerned is due to McDonald's influence?

Good Letter, trouble is logical thinking and wise spending is NOT a prerequisite for any politician, let alone being honest about anything. Back scratching for money lined pockets is.
This is very important so I will post this slowly; Brucellosis/bangs/undulant fever is easily CUREABLE in humans now.

Bison have no problem with the disease brought in by domestic cattle so why spend a bunch of money on the Bison trying to eradicate it. It will NEVER be eradicated from the planet any more than any other disease has been. You spend some of the time and money on a better vaccine for the cattle. IF/when you get that vaccine then go waste your time messing with an animal that is surviving just fine with or without the disease. Where would we be if they did all vaccines the way they are trying to do with Brucellosis, could you imagine the Rabies? They would STILL be trying to capture rabid bats, coons, skunks, and vaccinate. Instead they got a domestic vaccine, and it works pretty darn good. Thus we aren't throwing a bunch of money away chasing wild things. Brucellosis is no where near what rabies is.

We still eat the Bison that are infected, the infected cattle that have been slaughtered were put into the food chain. I doubt many people go out and milk a Bison for beverage, and we all know that pasteurization of domestic milk makes it perfectly safe. Why don't the Ranchers question the old policies of APHIS? Why does the Rancher allow APHIS to 'scare' them about a disease that is no worse than getting the flu?
Why is the Rancher cowering to APHIS? Why does anybody let an entity get away with bullying?
Why are they still focusing on Bison when there has never been any proof they have passed anything? Is it just plain ignorance? or Are the 'Montana-cowboys' trying to prove how naive, and what 'dudes' they are?
The Ranchers, the Stockman's Association, The Department of Livestock(although the DoL are just the flunkies and are doing what they are told) Are letting APHIS blow an awful lot of money on wildlife, instead of spending it for and on the cattle.
In all these years of focusing on the Bison the Elk have snuck in and caused the loss of Free Status.
Still the focus is put against Bison.
There have been numerous herds of Cattle infected, why didn't the University in Wyoming, or Montana State in Bozeman or even down in Texas(all these supposed cattle states) take one of those herds for a 'test herd' and study the disease for a possible cure in cattle? But NO, stuck in the old way rule of kill kill kill. For Gawd's sake don't try to learn something from it KILL it.
IF the disease really were The 'cattle-ranchers' concern, they wouldn't give a tinkers dam about any 'migration-corridor' They would put fences up and keep all danger out. (At least the REAL rancher and not the hobby rancher would) A one time expense, i.e. fencing is an investment like buying a combine. Expensive but would pay for itself. You have to repair fencing on a regular basis anyway. doesn't matter what kind it is. But if they did that they would lose the money they get from outfitters and hunters for hunting elk, hmmmmmmmmm think that might be why elk are being ignored?

HELENA? Ever get charged by a Black Angus without horns? They are just as deadly or dangerous than any Bison. Ever had a moose come after you? You going out and destroy them too?

jdj; I don't see Wyoming nor Idaho on that list either. I've always thought that these states wouldn't be a drop in the bucket of total USA cattle production. Now I'm more sure than ever.

Until the Rancher gets a backbone (again IF they really are worried about disease)
and demand APHIS to 'pony-up'. APHIS is going to continue to be the 'Bernie Maddoff' of the livestock industry.

But NO, stuck in the old way rule of kill kill kill. For Gawd's sake don't try to learn something from it KILL it.

Halalujah!

Good article Tom --- just one misnomer when you refer to hunter, what you really should be saying is shooter. Any hunter worth their salt is just as interested if not more in the habitat, fair chase and respect of free roaming wildlife as they are the kill. Since bison are not allowed to roam freely in Montana there is no fair chase, no respect, and no habitat it should be a shooter you refer to. The bison hunt is also a misnomer, it really just a organized killing for the livestock industry(they control the hunt) in the ongoing slaughter of bison.

"The bison hunt is also a misnomer, it really just a organized killing for the livestock industry(they control the hunt) in the ongoing slaughter of bison."
Anything they can't sell--or sell to--is considered unnecessary to industrialists...

Wrong headline, scrap it. Otherwise good letter. How about some action, now?

Hi there,

I will move to switzerland within the next 3 month. Anyone has some advice what internet provider I should go for. Most likely I be based in Zurich but I will be on the road alot. Thanks in advance.

S.