Bison Update
Yellowstone Bison and the Fate of the Royal Teton Ranch Lease
By David Nolt, 4-10-08
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| A young bison near West Yellowstone. Photo by David Nolt. | |
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Though winter seems reluctant to leave, spring in Yellowstone National Park is not far off. With it will come a much more livable environment within the park’s interior, and it couldn’t come quicker for bison; the 2007-2008 winter has been a deadly one for bison seeking forage outside the park’s borders as the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) agencies, led by the Montana Department of Livestock, captured and slaughtered over 1,000 genetically pure Yellowstone bison to stop the animals from spreading the disease brucellosis to cattle. To date, however, no such transmission has been documented.
This winter has also been a tough one for the IBMP. Last month the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found key deficiencies within the IBMP as well as the signatory agencies’ implementation of the controversial management plan. The GAO faulted the agencies for not adequately adapting their management to allow for greater tolerance of bison outside the park – a charge which was also recently echoed by 69 landowners on the cattle-free Horse Butte Peninsula.
As changing land use and attitudes toward bison open the possibility for reduced conflict between bison, cattle and humans on the west side of the park, a potential deal on the north side of the park could allow bison to follow a traditional migration corridor for the first time in a long time. But the deal is short some $1.5 million from the federal government, and it is also not without criticism from bison advocates.
The Royal Teton Ranch comprises almost 9,000 acres north of Gardiner, Montana and is owned and operated by the Church Universal and Triumphant. Conservationists and the state of Montana raised $1.3 million as part of a 30-year lease negotiation to remove cattle from 2,500 acres of the ranch and allow bison to migrate to the crucial winter range on adjacent public lands. The remaining $1.5 million needed to complete the deal was expected to come from the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), but the agency recently announced it could not come up with the cash, leaving the deal in limbo.
“Federal agencies have a responsibility to fulfill the funding of this agreement,” says Tim Stevens, Senior Program Manager for the National Parks Conservation Association’s Yellowstone field office. “Bison have been making these movements from time immemorial. It’s our long-term vision that there will be no more hazing of bison back into the park.”
Stevens calls the deal “a huge step in the right direction” – provided, of course, it is funded – but like most deals, it also comes with some strings.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP) is in the process of re-drafting the deal and would not release a copy. A fact sheet released by MFWP reveals only the basics: the deal will be in compliance with the IBMP; a limited number of seronegative (brucellosis-free) bison will be allowed onto private lands – outside of YNP on the west side of the river; fencing will be constructed to avoid property damage and human safety risk associated with bison movement north of YNP and north of the RTR; the number, time and status of bison moving north of YNP as prescribed in the IBMP will be limited. The deal will also allow for adaptive changes in the lease as called for in the IBMP.
According to those familiar with the draft, the lease is slated to allow 25 bison to migrate north in the first year and more in subsequent years. However,any bison lucky enough to leave the park will have to be captured, tested and slaughtered or vaccinated if they are seropositive. Seronegative bison will then be fitted with telemetric collars and females will be fitted with vaginally-implanted transceivers to monitor any possible brucellosis-induced abortions. For Glenn Hockett, bison advocate and Gallatin Wildlife Association president, the devil of this deal is in the details.
“The most important failing of this process is that it is not public,” Hockett says. “We are being told by the promoters of this deal that this is a ‘huge step forward.’ Rather, it appears to be a very temporary, bureaucratic and very expensive baby step funded in part with public dollars.”
Hockett points out the possibility of purchasing 80 acres from the Royal Teton Ranch on the east side of Highway 89 and allowing bison to migrate along an existing public right-of-way in the form of a rarely used county road on the west side of the Yellowstone River.
“Why are we paying so much for something that we already own [the public right-of-way along the county road], and framing it in a temporary deal that still requires bison be needlessly and relentlessly hazed, captured and slaughtered?”
Hockett also contends the lease is imbedded with the “failed policies and intensive livestock-style management paradigm” of the IBMP, which will prevent “long-term, meaningful success.” Hockett and the GWA have been some of the most outspoken critics of the IBMP. A GWA plan to allow bison to roam freely in areas west and north of the park calls for a greater focus on protecting cattle in those areas, and, for Hockett, the Royal Teton Ranch lease only perpetuates the status quo of treating wild bison like livestock.
“If everything goes right over the years and all the bison ‘behave,’ the best-case scenario will take us to Step 3 of the existing IBMP where only 100 untested bison will be allowed to use the corridor and the small acreage of public land in Zone 2 west of the river and south of Yankee Jim Canyon,” Hockett says. “Thus in a year like this one, instead of 1,300 bison being captured by the government and sent to slaughter, the government would capture 1,200 bison and dispose of them accordingly.”
Tim Stevens disagrees.
“The RTR agreement will allow bison access to thousands of acres on winter range that hasn’t seen bison in many, many years,” Stevens says. “We would argue that is getting to the point where we are treating bison as wildlife.”
Amy McNamara, National Parks Program Director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC), agrees with Stevens.
“The primary goal is to see bison managed like other wildlife,” McNamara explains. “I think it’s a step in the right direction for both bison and the taxpayer. It will reduce the conflict with cattle and provide bison with additional habitat. It’s not a solution in and of itself. It’s part of a larger solution.”
McNamara and the GYC have been instrumental in creating the lease, and she emphasizes, although the deal will be in compliance with the IBMP, it contains flexibility to allow change in the future should the IBMP change.
McNamara admits the deal is expensive, but says it is important to keep in mind the current costs of hazing and slaughtering bison – some $2 million per year, according to the GAO report.
Also at issue here is the often ignored and little understood presence of brucellosis in elk. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks does not have comprehensive statistics for the seroprevalence of brucellosis in elk, but elk do carry the disease and are even suspected of transmitting it to cattle.
So, if elk carry the disease, why the double-standard for bison and why spend millions of dollars on the RTR lease when herds of elk freely move through the area?
Stevens and McNamara both acknowledge the presence of brucellosis in elk and the existing “prejudice” toward bison. Both also cite the massive elk feedgrounds in Wyoming, which are a haven for breeding disease.
“The spotlight has been disproportionately shown on bison,” Stevens says. “Bison are easier targets.”
Stevens says any attempt to manage elk like bison are currently managed would find a short lifespan in the face of sportsmen who revere elk. Still, the question remains: why pursue the current IBMP and RTR lease when elk are, apparently, as culpable as bison?
Stevens and McNamara argue the lease is realistic under the current management environment, and they say it will set the stage for greater tolerance of bison outside the park. And they are prepared to fight for the RTR lease.
“We’ve waited eight years for a negotiated agreement,” McNamara explains. “If this deal doesn’t go through, I’m afraid this opportunity won’t come back. I think the plan [IBMP] is vulnerable to litigation if the agencies don’t respect their adaptive management obligations.”
Though Hockett supports the idea of a bison corridor, as suggested in the RTR lease, he insists the lease is not the right solution to the problem.
“Essentially, it appears we would pay over $3 million dollars for a corridor across lands where the public already owns an interest in a wildlife corridor conservation easement, existing public lands or a public right-of-way in the form of the existing county road.”
Though the fate of the RTR lease is uncertain, growing calls for new bison management practices seem to indicate change might be on the horizon for the last large, genetically intact population of American bison. The National Parks Conservation Association, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Gallatin Wildlife Association all envision a day when bison are not hazed, captured and slaughtered upon crossing the invisible line that forms Yellowstone National Park. But it also appears getting to that day could mean more than compromising with cattle producers and the IBMP agencies.
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Comments
So we get 25 branded and dehorned buffalo "allowed" to access a bit of habitat that appears much smaller than the claimed acreage, and of course they have to be dead or otherwise removed by tax day. Assuming this goes off without hitch, the next year we get 50, and then 100?
Buffalo must be as impatient as I am, as last week 50 decided to pioneer this route on their own, and were relentlessly hazed away for their efforts. I guess they didn't get the "fact sheet" either.
Or, we could protect the handful of cattle in the area, encourage sound risk mitigations like delayed grazing turnouts, adult vaccinations, and above all keeping elk out of cattle feedlines (all but non-existent in the GYA anyway), allow bison to access conflict-free PUBLIC lands and create a huge asset around them, not least with a bona-fide hunt.
These suggestions are mocked as "naive" by supporters of this so-called deal, who claim we'll set the whole process back a decade. But it's taken nearly that long to get us THIS?
The 2 million+ they spend every year on hazing, hauling and slaughtering, not to mention the cost of processing etc. could also be put towards fencing of CATTLE pastures to keep Bison and elk out. A one time expense, that could again SAVE money over the long run. Fencing pastures on the west side would NOT affect any migration corridors, for the mere fact that those pastures do NOT border each other they are spread out.
Why is it so hard for these 'intellectuals' to see that they could be saving money helping ranchers, and allowing the Bison to do what they do? They need to dig the wax out of their ears, and open their eyes. The public is beginning to see the foolishness in this, but in the meantime they continue to KILL every Bison that exits the west side of the Park. Ridiculous YES.
Telemetric collars and vaginal implants? Livestock vaccine administered to wildlife? Who knew that getting treated like wildlife offered so many perks? Are these people for real?
Then maybe we could learn where the STUPIDITY starts.
Bison definately are the victim here. The new deal for the bison is a road to nowhere and a lot of wated money to CUT. I predict there may be elk transmitted brucellosis to cattle in the Madison River valley before too long as there are large herds of wild elk near cattle in the early summer high risk period.
There is no natural control for bison unfortunately so it is up to man to be responsible and control their numbers.
The same should be done for the excess wild elk in Rocky Mountain National Park. Ranchers must not get their way. Wild bison and wild elk and all things wild must be allowed to roam where they will.
Second point - I entirely agree with Glenn on the issue of money. It's extortion. NPCA and GYC are selling these buffalo down the river (so to speak) for a pyrrhic victory against an industry and a government that simply wants to defuse interest in an unjust situation. These organizations were awfully silent early this winter when it mattered, and now this is what they are pushing? With friends like these ...
However, having said that, there is a lot of passion here and a lot of knowledge about this issue in this discussion. Are people here interested in continuing that passion in organizing. We already have great local groups pursuing this, but members of those groups have recognized the need for even more grassroots support.
We're trying, at least in Bozeman, where a new group is starting, focused now exclusively on the Yellowstone buffalo issue. This sort of effort has been supported by other buffalo advocates (like BFC) as a good strategy toward bringing new organizing energy on this issue.
We're meeting this coming Wednesday at 7 PM (see bozemanactivist.wordpress.com for more details.
Finally ...
I'm upset, too. There are now 1,510 buffalo killed this winter. This nonsense has been going on for years. It's breaking my heart again; buffalo I just saw are now in capture facilities and still being sent to slaughter. That's why I personally feel the need to put my organizing abilities to this issue.
So, let's do something.
Susan; Where do you come up with "Yellowstone should have a carrying load of about 1,500 head of bison and it is approaching 5,000 head"? There is over 2 million acres of land within the Park. There is NO where NEAR 5,000 Bison in the Park. You are suggesting that we turn Yellowstone Park into a 'glorified' canned hunt? You must be joking. Who is going to decide who and when they can go in there and have this 'carnival' shoot?
There have been 1,527 Bison Killed, either by 'hunters' or with our Tax dollars i.e. APHIS, and according to the 'authorities' about 500 have died from winter kill. That's over 2,000 Bison taken out of the original 4700 they claimed to have been in the Park.
The Park is NOT a petting Zoo or a zoo of any sort, it was put in place to PROTECT AND PRESERVE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS, Not become a glorified shooting gallery. You start killing the Bison and the elk and then where does it stop? We start changing the Thermal features etc. to make them more 'attractive'? Change the smell of the Fountain Paint Pots so it will draw more people? Drill out Old Faithful, so it shoots Higher? Pave over all the unstable areas so people won't be stupid enough to walk off the boardwalks, and boil themselves? Cover the Grand Canyon so people don't fall off the edges?
There are Not too many Bison, there are too many people trying to 'Play God in Yellowstone'.
There is no need to worry about the elk, the wolves are taking care of that. Yellowstone is a finite piece of real estate, it doesn't extend forever. The buffs have to be contained there, perhaps starvation is preferable to you to having them shot. the fact remains, no matter how you shake it, the buffalo leave when they are running out of graze and room. You can't empirically increase the borders to suit yourself.
Certainly having a traditional hunt for the various tribes of American Indians inside of the park every fall would be a good alternative. You couldn't get much more natural than that.
Outside the Park, we should have different objectives. One of those is to reestablish wild herds of bison that can be managed, indluding with hunting, as any other big game. Cattle-free areas of mostly public land are available near the Park and perhaps on the CMR National WILDLIFE Refuge. Wild bison do not have to be a wildlife species extirpated from Montana.
The CUT deal for the RTRanch property has not seen the light of public scrutiny. What will it cost, including in commitments from public agencies for fences and subsequent "management"? Exactly what will the public gain, that it does not already own? And what does the contract commit our public agencies to in the future? The contract only strenthens the already-failing IBMP, prohibiting establishment of wild bison in Montana, and committing us to this costly fiasco in subsequent years. Montana FWP, let the public see the proposed contract, including all the maps and attachments. We want to know what we are getting into.
Bison should have never been stopped at the Park boundary. When and why this policy changed from the days of my grandfather is probably unknown. However, what is known is the whole bison harassment issue is based on politics not wildlife management. Bison managed by well-accepted wildlife management policies would be allowed to migrate just as they historically have along with the elk, deer, bears, and wolves. Thanks to groups like GYC, NPCA and some others buying into this falsehood that bison are some how different from other wildlife; the Department of Livestock sold the show.
How much longer before the DOL controls the hunting operations of elk like currently do with the bison hunt. As for “any attempt to manage elk like bison are currently managed would find a short lifespan in the face of sportsmen who revere elk.” I would not be so sure. We have seen hunters turn their backs to the bison why would they do differently for the elk. Elk can be hunted anywhere in the state. Given the lack of support for bison by hunters, their clubs, and federations, I doubt the hunters will care much. I say this as life-long hunter. Hunters were given the bison hunt back (under the control of DOL) because it was foolishly thought they would rise to the support of the bison and their migrations into Montana, they did not.
It is time to stop all this political posturing to get serious in finding solutions to the issue of wildlife management. GWA as been pushing grassroots win-win solutions at the politicians and their buddies only to be rebuffed repeatedly. They have not given up nor should they. They speak for the wildlife not their grant donors and political backers. One good start is to get the DOL of livestock completely out of the business on managing wildlife, turn all responsibilities of wildlife management including disease control back to the FWP. DOL should be taking care livestock and leave the wildlife to the FWPs.
In 1902, they imported tame buffalo from Texas and Montana, these animals were kept in corrals at Mammoth initially, then about 1920 they were taken to the Buffalo Ranch in the Lamar. They were turned out during the day and put back in the corrals at night. About 15 bulls were taken to Mammoth in the summer for the tourists to look at. A footnote in the 1932 edition of Chittenden's Yellowstone National Park states that congress authorized the removal of excess buffalo as their numbers exceeded a thousand.. they were still trying to keep them inside of Yellowstone except for those disposed of.
Just a little history FYI.
He never said his Grandfather was still alive. And you don't have a clue the Age of Tim.
one of my Grandfathers homesteaded on the Horse Butte in the early 1900's My other one fought in the Spanish American War. I'm not very old yet.
I do every day in the spring, for months at a time.
In 1871 they used horses to travel. In 2008 the DOL uses horses on some of the hazing operations, and when the Bison hit the timber behind my house, to escape the haze, these agents on horseback can't even find them. They sure didn't just poof and disappear into thin air but these Agents would sure think so. The Agents come out of the timber just shaking their heads because they 'lost' 20 Bison. Whether you want to believe it or not, after these Agents leave and go to another area those same 20 Bison come back out of that timber. I can stand by my back fence and hear those Bison in the Brush, and the Agents have just ridden by.
A herd of Bison can be there one minute and completely invisible the next. They are slow but constant. You said they saw tracks but no Bison. Well I see tracks all the time and don't see the Bison that made them but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
Because there are no records means there were no Bison? Come on.
I suppose you believe the dime store novels that were written about the outlaws, and those 'savage' indians too?
Not all 'records' were acurate.
you need to learn how to research. Maybe get some new stories. The ones you tell are kind of thin. I found the following with barely 10 min of searching.
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/bison/chap3.htm
Maybe you should get your nose out of the books, and actually get out and experience some of this life. Oh that's right you despise everything that has to do with Bison, just like the cattlemen of years past did (and some still do) the sheep.
Please evaluate this statement and tell us what it means,
"Osborne Russell, writing in 1835, mentions the large numbers of buffalo (bison) seen in both the Red Rock and Mud Lake areas (Haines 1955). Doane (1876) comments that "buffalo skulls are strewn by thousands —" in the Yellowstone valley about 40 miles north of the park. Accounts of wild bison adjacent to and within the park, dating from 1860 through 1902 (Appendix II), leave no doubt that substantial numbers of bison inhabited the Yellowstone Plateau at all seasons, and long before the killing of the northern herd of Great Plains bison in the early 1880s."
Please enlighten us with you vast store of historical knowledge.
It's not like those tracks will last forever.
I think the issue is something of a non-issue. First of all, it's not an issue in terms of actual policy. Carrying capacity is simply not the reason used for the IBMP. However, that shouldn't limit us. Perhaps, it should be the way for determining the number of bison in the park.
Yet, even then, no matter how you slice it. Wherever carrying capacity is, it doesn't say how one should treat wildlife in the park. I actually tend to believe that carrying capacity is quite low and that there is a lot of evidence that the high numbers of ungulates have in fact hurt vegetation in the park as well as many of the smaller animals who depended on that vegetation.
But, is that justification for slaughter? No, it says nothing, merely that range is hurt if a certain number of animals are confined to a particular range. It could suggest that we let animals roam to expand their range, or it could suggest that we manage animals to a certain number. No matter what carrying capacity actually is, the question about the proper place of wildlife remains the same. It's not a scientific question; it's a values question.
I think that the fact that bison want to move out from Yellowstone is good enough for me. There is no reason at all not to let them. Every reason we can come up with smacks of an arrogance we cannot rationally defend. That in letting them move out there might be fringe benefits to the vegetation and other animals in the park would be great.
Before the park, indigenous peoples followed the herds and went through the park on their way to hunting grounds. The indigenous people who lived in the park preferred bighorn sheep, who seemed to be far more numerous than they are now. We no doubt would have no idea how to go back to those times (nor is that ideal - kind of like what one finds in the Leopold Report - any less arbitrary), but we can look to see if the rationale that governed the mis-decisions then are still governing them today. And, if they are, we should change them. Absolute control over environment, over wildlife, over land was seen as the great hallmark of civilization. But, in its wake was genocide, the destruction of the North American environment, and ironically Yellowstone National Park. How is that different than what the livestock interests are pulling today in their zealous war against the bison who have brucellosis? What has changed?
Let them roam; whether the park can or cannot support a particular number, ever supported a particular number, or whether the cousins who were ancestors of these bison ever moved through these corridors is absolutely irrelevant. Right now, these animals want to move. We have no ground to stand on in not letting them.
Aren't there already too many borders already?
Furthermore, a number of migrating bison were shot today by government agents sometime before noon this morning. These Montana bison had nearly made it to the wildlife-friendly winter ranges on the 5,000 acre Dome Mountain Ranch just below Yankee Jim Canyon. I was told the owner and manager would not have let the DOL trespass on their property to harass or kill Montana bison. As the manager put it, these Montana bison were 300 yards from making history.
Again, we saw vast herds of elk, mule deer, antelope and other wildlife that depend on this habitat provided by both wildlife friendly private and public landowners in the area. This is all part of a critical corridor to the 4,789 acre Dome Mountain Wildlife Management Area which was purchased with sportsmen’s dollars where hundreds if not thousands of elk are already wintering. All this critical winter range is for some unknown reason mapped as a drop dead zone for Montana bison under the existing and failed interagency bison management plan. What a shame and thoughtless waste.
The private and public property rights of those who truly cherish wild Montana bison are being arrogantly stomped on here by both State and Federal politicians and government agents. This is ridiculous. The Montana governor and Congressional delegation needs to hear from all of us.
Let the bison be. There is a vast public and private landscape here where Montana bison would be welcome if we would just let them be. Where we need to, let’s protect a few cattle and the private property owners who have yet to make a little room for wild Montana bison in their hearts.
The reasons they are using for this extermination of OUR American Icon hold no water, and the public is figuring that out. Brucellosis excuses are blown so far out of proportion, and that is the only excuse they have FEAR of a disease, that is NO threat to humans when precautions are taken, nor a threat to cattle when they do a few simple preventative measures, that are NOT costly just plain common sense.
"There is no natural control for bison unfortunately"
thats BS,, there is something called wolves that do indeed prey on the bison, and the mollie pack in the pelican valley of Yellowstone specializes in them.. so if you will just let a few things happen naturally and stop shooting and "controlling" things. Man is not the only method of control..
You make some good points. Here is my question. What will it take to wrest power from the cattlemen? They have a stranglehold on millions of acres of public land throughout the west.It's a shame that generations of Americans have been and will be robbed of our rich natural heritage because of the rancher's wants and needs. I'm all for hunting and would love to hunt sustainable, healthy bison herds myself someday. But I don't want hunting just for the sake of making ranchers happy. Hunters, animal lovers, and wildlife watchers have all been and apparently will continue to be robbed by the ranching industry.
To try to take it any other way is illegal in this country.
Exactly what heritage are you robbed of? Who has been feeding you guys this kind of propaganda that you think gives you the right to go in and take another person's property? This is still the United States of America, where that sort of thing is not done. I can't imagine who is brain washing people to the point they feel they have the right to use and take other folks property.
again you mention private property owners rights. On that I agree. It's Private Property, and we should NOT be harassed nor should the Bison that occupy it.
So why does the Cattle Rancher get his rights respected but the rest of us don't?
As in The west side of the Park that has tens of thousands of acres of land that has no and will have no cattle on it. What about US?
Just because we don't own any cattle any more, and wish to have the Bison help us out we don't count?
You obviously just hate Bison, Because if it were brucellosis, like you keep trying to tell us, then you would be advocating for the slaughter of all the elk. And especially the elk since they have passed it and the Bison have not.
Anyone that thinks Bison will over run the area again is a fool.
The Grizzlies take a toll on the Bison. And that is a fact. I have friends that are in the park everyday all year long grooming trails and plowing roads etc. that see this.
The cattle rancher takes the public's land when they graze the cows on it. what's the difference there?
No way can anyone stop erosions, that happens everyday everywhere. When animals are allowed to roam the erosion is not as severe. The rivers and streams are constantly causing erosion, the Tourists and locals are spreading weeds at a higher rate than the Bison destroy, why not target them. Outfitters and guides, people walking, riding bikes etc. it's all part of what goes on on this earth. Rain that falls in buckets and causes mudslides etc. so quit blaming bison for what is happening to the ground.
The Creator put those bison here. he didn't put the cattle nor the sheep (domestic) here the 'white' man brought them. You know more than the creator? I don't think so.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
~ Upton Sinclair, 1935
FYI, My grandfather is dead. He died in 1983 at 93. He lived in the Madison and Gallatin valleys his whole life. The famaily has lived in the area since the 1890s. You must be pretty old also to know what it was like back then.
Ann, ok, so now I understand where you are coming from, it's all money to you. By the way, you do not have the right to keep wildlife on your property if they want to leave, and it is certain that you could not keep them contained and from spreading the disease far and wide.
I fail to understand why you guys are not willing to deal with the disease itself. If you put half the effort into finding a way of eradicating brucellosis as you do trying to find a way to spread it to cattle, we might get somewhere.
Once again you are being deliberately obtuse, and that is giving you the benefit of the doubt. Ann asked you why the Montana dept of livestock should be able to go onto another persons private property i.e. Horse Butte, where there are no cattle, its on a peninsula so no where else the bison could get to, and destroy those bison....during calving.
And conversely Marion, if you can, answer in a straightforward manner why the Montana DOL is not doing the same thing with migrating elk, which has been proven to transmit the disease to cattle where bison have not.
Now remember Marion, a straightforward answer when you don't try to use you threadbare tactics of deflecting the subject to blame it on everything else but the topic at hand.
Please.
Again you don't understand anything. I never said I 'keep' wildlife on my property, But if they are on it I don't want ANYONE chasing them around. The peninsula I live on is absolutely no risk to the cattle industry in any stretch of the imagination.
Bison have never been proven to spread the disease in the first place. Yet you still skirt the Elk issue. If you were so worried about the disease, Which I highly doubt, then why don't you do what you tell everyone else to do address the disease in the CATTLE, and work on the vaccine FOR the cattle. It's a cattle disease. Quit throwing the money needed to improve the vaccine, or build fencing around the cattle pastures on these ridiculous extermination practices. Marion IF you are so worried about the Disease being spread to cattle Get those Elk feedlots in your state SHUT DOWN.
The quote I put above, is exactly how these Agencies work Pork Barrel spending.
It's not only the Bison being destroyed, it's our tax-dollars being thrown down the tubes too. You mean to tell me the wasting of all that money doesn't bother you? Had they focused on the real threat , the Elk, then there wouldn't have been any outbreaks by wildlife. BUT NO they are putting all those efforts in the wrong place.
Can you show me any one that has totally lost their livelihood to Brucellosis in any of the three states that have had an out break?
I bet not. The Morgan's are back in business, as are the other ranchers that were affected. It may not be what it was but then what is? They still were reimbursed for EVERY animal that went to slaughter. (maybe if they hadn't wasted so much money on Bison procedures, they could have paid the Ranchers a higher price for each one) Unlike what may have happened if they weren't 'exposed'. (such as death of their cows by other means)
Again any loss of cattle because of the disease is NOT the Bison's fault. It is the policies of APHIS that are to blame.
Explain to me, why in this day and age, and the knowledge they have about the transmission of the disease, and how NOT to get infected yourself, that the 'authorities' insist on killing steers, Bulls, etc.?
I'll tell you my thought is because that way they still have the Rancher by the 'short' hairs, and in their control. Another FEAR tactic at it's worst.
By the way I am 100% in favor of trying to eradicate the disease from the entire population of wildlife before we end up with a widespread epidemic in the whole area. We don't know how much effect predatory birds and animals may have on the spread of disease by carrying tissue for distances, it could be devastating.
Current bison policy should be abandoned
Chris Naumann is co-owner of Barrel Mountaineering in downtown Bozeman.
Over the past eight years, the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) has proven to be fundamentally flawed. The partnership of five state and federal agencies — National Park Service, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, United States Forest Service, Montana Department of Livestock, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks — have failed to meet even its most basic objectives while squandering over $15 million.
The culling of nearly 1,400 bison this winter alone represents the highest level of slaughter since the 19 th century and exemplifies that the IBMP needs to be abandoned and replaced with a truly adaptive strategy that recognizes cattle must be more aggressively managed than bison.
The current IBMP claims its primary objective is to preserve a viable and free-ranging population of wild Yellowstone bison. This objective and the management techniques being implemented under the IBMP are blatantly contradictory. “Wild” and “free-ranging” by definition are the antithesis of containment and domestication, yet the IBMP relies on the capture and detainment of bison thus reducing them from migratory wildlife to tamed livestock.
Over a year ago, in a report to the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, the Government Accountability Office, concluded: “A key condition for the partner agencies to progress further under the plan requires that cattle no longer graze in the winter on certain private lands north of Yellowstone National Park and west of the Yellowstone River to minimize the risk of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle.”
With this observation, the GAO implied a simple solution to this unnecessarily complicated management plan: shift the focus from managing bison to controlling cattle.
Despite no documented cases of cattle contracting brucellosis from bison, the transmission of the disease could occur during bison calving season if cattle were to come in direct contact with bison after-birth. Bison calving season occurs during a predictable time each spring in very limited geographic areas of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Therefore, in order to minimize potential brucellosis transmission, common sense dictates that managing the few hundred head of cattle that exist in the bison’s historic winter and calving range would be much more practical and cost-effective than attempting to control several thousand wild animals.
To simplify and streamline efforts aimed at keeping Montana cattle brucellosis-free, the Interagency Bison Management Plan should be dismantled allowing each state and federal agency to contribute to a solution within the parameters of their individual mandates.
Subsequently, the Forest Service should not renew the special use permits allowing the operation of the bison capture facilities on public land. In turn, the Forest Service, in conjunction with the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, should identify the extent of the bison’s range, and pursue land acquisitions and easements to establish and protect bison habitat outside of Yellowstone National Park.
Bison should be exclusively managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks just like every other big game species, such as elk and deer. This could be accomplished by implementing a comprehensive bison-hunting season including hunter access to private land using the successful block management program. Bison hunting tags should be available to residents and nonresidents at a premium fee congruent with the trophy status of bighorn sheep and mountain goats.
Concurrently, the Department of Livestock should concede that they have no business capturing, vaccinating and culling bison, but rather should adhere to their primary mandate of managing cattle. Dissolving historic but presently unused grazing allotments north of Yellowstone National Park and revising those in use to begin later in the summer would keep cattle isolated from calving bison, thus preventing the transmission of brucellosis.
By simply retooling the Interagency Bison Management Plan concept to primarily control the distribution of cattle rather than that of bison, Montana could effectively preserve a viable wild population of Yellowstone bison and maintain the state’s brucellosis-free status.
Prolonging the IBMP will only prove to be increasingly controversial, while on the other hand, implementing the simple solutions currently on the table will allow Montana to regain its dignity in the eyes of the world.
You seem to duck the fact that of those 2-3% of elk, they HAVE transmitted to cattle. Of the 50% (they say) of Bison have NOT.
So again the focus is in the wrong place. Slaughtering every Bison they get their hands on is NOT going to eradicate the disease. They don't even test them they just kill them. There is a new Brucella test kit that is faster and more accurate but of course APHIS doesn't want to use it because they like the control by fear that they have over the ranchers.
You will NEVER be able to eradicate brucellosis. What disease has EVER been eradicated? Besides new, and stronger strains are always developing on their own.
Timothy; Thanks for posting that. It is so true, and such an EASY solution, SAVE money SAVE wildlife SAVE cattle SAVE the face of this state to the rest of the world.
I do have to add that most domestic livestock have already calved. At least in this county, they started calving in Feb. And The Bison are just now starting.
Yet there still won't be any livestock in this area for over two months, and by that time the risk is GONE.
What Glenn posted yesterday evening just breaks my heart.
Bottom line is it has NOTHING to do with disease. It is a control issue, and a grass issue.
Why do express your opinion daily on the subject of ranchers property rights and how so many different groups are trying to subvert that but all the sudden you have no opinion at all when the livestock industry forces there way onto an individuals private property, posted at that, violates every tenet of private property there is.
still waiting on a straightforward answer, however I probably won't live that long.
horse butte has no cows. no grazing leases. It is on a peninsula. So DOL entering posted private property violates nothing. Is that what you are saying.
The numbers go down exponentially with each year's hazing and indiscriminate reductions. This is because any population under siege entrenches itself. Think of walled cities.
My alma mater, Yellowstone, knows only the downside of science when it comes to “management” of its bison.
There is no thought of what the effect is on their bison herds in the summer after the rangers in the winter play hoot-and-holler cowboy chasing buffalo on the boundary and thinking of themselves as the Marlboro Man ….as they slap their useless lariats against their chaps and saddle.
Biologists see no connection between what the rangers are doing and how the bison herd families in Lamar Valley are behaving. The bison now bunch up in the summer on the river bottoms instead of traveling back into the smaller glens and ridges they used to occupy. Many Lamar bison now graze out this winter range in the summer because the cows heading these families, that use to disperse to their own homes, have to think of protection first during the sensitive early developmental calving stage of the year.
These bison associate any human being on a horse with those rangers that hazed them before. So when any backcountry user rides into these important protective home areas in the summer, the result is bison families moving away. The Indians stayed away from the cow-calf herds until the rut if they wanted these animals to come back the next year.
Combine this harassment with busting up families via indiscriminate slaughter of these families and one ends up with masses of scared and scarred individuals. These are individuals who can not learn from their mothers what the vast selection of vegetation is available to them in these summer homes because their mothers are dead. The relatives who now care for them are scared to venture forth out of the “walled city”. Yellowstone’s ecological sustainability is threatened because of what Yellowstone biologists and administrators are doing on its boundary each winter. Its bison are becoming Grassivores instead of Herbivores.
Why aren’t Yellowstone biologists reading the historical narratives of America’s hunter gatherers or talking to human population dynamics experts to help them understand what they are causing before they use tax payers dollars to put 38 radio collars on bison… that will give them useless information? The movements and behavior of these harassed, destroyed families would be akin to studying the movements of human refugees after a war.
No, Yellowstone’s bison summer and winter lands shrinks with each year of implementing the Interagency Bison Management Plan. Thus, Yellowstone ends up with more and more dysfunctional bison families following others in lemming their way to the boundary each snow covered year.
Then one asks, “Shouldn’t numbers of bison be going down with this loss of utilized habitat”? Think of slums within these walled cities and all the people in these dens of human desolation. Lives are bad but numbers increase. It is because every population tries to reach evolutionary extended family stability. There are no artificial substitutes to counter the chaos in these slums, such as corporations or structured government, for extended family life. It comes down to reaching for stability by human extension.
So when everyone talks carrying capacity for bison in Yellowstone Park we all need to remember Yellowstone bison, in the condition they are now in, can not do what they are capable of ecologically. It is not their fault. It is the fault of decision makers in Yellowstone Park.
Bob, I am at a loss to understand the concept of controlling buffalo herds decreasing the loss of habitat. The buffs are overgrazing even with the elk numbers plunging every year. Can you enlighten me on the connection between less animals creating less availabel habitat? Surely you do not support the idea that any animal must be allowed to breed indescriminately and never be controlled?
So your position is that Montana DOL entering on private posted property in an area where there is no cattle grazing, no grazing leases, on a peninsula where there is no chance of coming in contact with cows is perfectly acceptable and the land owners have nothing to complain about because after all it is the Department of Livestock, right.
If it's your land, you have the right to do as you please as long as it isn't against the law. If you are taking care of all those animals, and they are on your property, then that is your choice. If they get off your property, then it is no longer on your property, and that is when something needs to be done.
There are covenants in most places, if you agree to those covenants, and still buy then you are bound by those laws.
Where I am We have the Patent on this land, as well as being grandfathered in. I want my private property rights respected. I respect other peoples property rights.
Once again you try your tired and false tactic of sidestepping, ignoring, or blaming something else if it goes against your god of gods, the cow.
The only issue with Yellowstone bison is that they are more than the landscape can feed. So moving them onto private property to winter is not an answer, with or without cows. The Feds had the opportunity to buy the Forbes ranch long ago, and dropped the ball. So it was sold to the Church Universal and Triumphant. When Govt can't get its act together, in anything, it always ends like this. Bison are the Iraq of the NPS. The long, intractable losing deal, every year. Bison breed every year, and all the bison killed this year will be replaced in two years. And it all starts all over again. Meanwhile, not addressing the real problems results in millions spent every year to not solve the problem The American way of today. Poor Park management covered with million dollar bills, the only things green in Gardiner in April. Nobody responsible, nobody held accountable. The problem gets studied more. No grass is allowed to grow, let alone put out seed, but the bison seed takes and more bison arrive each spring, to be little brown balls hiding in no grass as the herd grazes forward to where the critical distance is surpassed, and all the little brown butterballs run ahead and plop down once again in the middle of the adult group.
So on a friend's ranch, this week it was bangs testing all the cows, tattoos, tail blood taking from every cow. Protecting the market place from bangs disease. A healthy food supply. That landscapes can no longer be managed, that wildlife cannot be managed, is not serving either the animals or mankind. The largest herd of anything is 300 million people in these United States. They also have basic needs going unmet. If the bison meat feeds some, what a great deal. We have an election upcoming where all running have ideas of how to meet unmet needs. Perhaps a Bison candidate should run.
The Park is a wreck. Any ranch or grazing allotment allowed to become degraded to the extent the Park is at this time would be put out of business. A disgrace. And they have exclosures to show how bad it really is. And exclosures are themselves wreckage of preserved vegetation. If nothing crops the inside of the exclosure, over time that vegetation declines due to no animals eating and pruning, stimulating new growth. Ugly, terrible, an embarrassment. The bison have the cupboard bare, are eating the paint, and you can expand their range forever, and they will just devastate more land as their numbers grow. Like the wolf faeries, the bison people want no population limits. That never will work except, perhaps, following the nuclear winter. And then no one will even care.
Ann knows that there are still way too many animals eating browse in the Park. The liberal paradox: propose shooting as a means to control animal populations and liberals want to shoot the messengers. So far, the Park elk and bison deal is a lose/lose, the effective counterpart to being responsible for taking action, as by a bureaucrat or elected official. The no action action. The hide until retirement action, in order that someone else make the no action decision. Doo dah...doo dah... If you were to put a human face or expression on those bison trying to find that elusive blade of grass, dead or alive, it would be "shoot me now. please." The bison only need now to have a zebra uniform and a little zebra pill box hat and a tattoo. Like we said in the pickup truck this morning, the only thing shorter than summer in Tom Miner Basin has to be a set of bison teeth after a winter of trying to find that single blade of grass, of any color, in that rock garden of overgrazed National Park so many hold so dear.
I think Jim Bailey adequately addressed most of your points early on in this discussion. However, do you consider bison a Park animal? How would you apply your thoughts to limiting elk, mule deer or grizzly bears to the Park? Shall we contain the bald eagles as well? What is the current population status of wild bison in Montana?
I do believe access to habitat (especially critial habitat), maintenance of year round populations of bison in the Upper Yellowstone, Gallatin And Madison valleys and public hunting are very viable alternatives to this heavy handed and expensive government intervention. This represents a scientific minimum in my mind.
Time for a nap.
Marion, you wrote,
"Who has been feeding you guys this kind of propaganda that you think gives you the right to go in and take another person's property? This is still the United States of America, where that sort of thing is not done. I can't imagine who is brain washing people to the point they feel they have the right to use and take other folks property".
Marion, I'm afraid you've fallen victim to the very propaganda you deny is real. The "brainwashing" is called "EMINENT DOMAIN". I suggest you look it up.
And since when do Bison or any animal have to abide by laws, and who explains these laws to these animals?
You started it my dear now finish it.
The second issue is that bison go through fences like a hot knife through butter. The problem is that breached fences do neither cattle nor bison justice. The livestockman has to repair fences at his cost, while bison eat his forage. The disease issue can be overcome, but not without expense. The commons demands that ranchers pay for use, and turnabout should be nothing more than fair play. To this point, fair play is not a part of the discussion.
The Park is at elevation, and grossly lacking in sufficient winter range for its animals. In fact, even summer range is overused. The result is a moonscape devoid of decent forage for the present animal population, and many missing elements of a complete and working ecosystem. Adding wolves to reduce deer, sheep, elk, and all else but bison will never address the bison reproduction rate on a limited landscape, nor will it make a complete ecosystem. The missing Crow, Sheep Eaters, Blackfeet, Nez Perce, all kept the bison population in some sort of check, and moved them about the countryside.
The countryside is now a mixture of land ownerships, the best of the winter range owned by ranches and ranchettes. The preponderance of the public land is USFS and subject to rules other than the National Parks'. That USFS land was created from the whole cloth of the unclaimed public domain. Not suitable for year 'round living, even by folks a lot tougher than I ever thought of being. Snow, ice, forests, high parks, all were sufficient summer range for livestock while hay for the other nine months of the year was grown on homesteads and ranches. That was the lot of man and land early on, and trying to turn back the clock today is a monumental task that there is most likely neither the monetary capital or political capital to bring about. You most likely cannot get there from here.
Bison are not a high mountain animal in the most part, and efforts to take Yellowstone genetically pure bison and move them to a great expanse of grasslands and coulees, where they thrive, is probably the best for bison. And that can be done. So why are we not trying to do the things that can be done, and not trying to do things that will never get done....like lowering the elevation of Yellowstone NP...
By the way Ann, I used bad language, the buffs are not allowed to run free in Montana by law, but they can go out of the park into Wyoming and Idaho, and until they get chased back or caught in Montana.
How could we have a 'Bison hunt' if they weren't allowed to be in Montana?
There have been Bison in this area for centuries, they seem to have gotten along quite well in this altitude, until the 'white' man showed up.
So your position is that Montana DOL entering on private posted property in an area where there is no cattle grazing, no grazing leases, on a peninsula where there is no chance of coming in contact with cows is perfectly acceptable and the land owners have nothing to complain about because after all it is the Department of Livestock, right.
???
Also Marion you have repeatedly said that the disease has been eradicated everywhere else there are buffalo herds.
Sources please.
It is NOT eliminated everywhere else. The pigs in the south are infected and running at large.
Wake up. There is no way to eradicate the disease or ANY disease as far as that goes. Can you name enven ONE disease that has been eradicated? I bet not.
The disease issue is bogus.
They are about a year away from an effective vaccine. How or where they got that information is beyond me. It could be just another tactic of APHIS to quiet the public. But that is where they need to focus the money and efforts, is in the vaccine, and in the meantime put up FENCES around the cattle pastures.
They need to focus on the cattle.
If you really think the disease can be eradicated they will need to kill ALL the elk as well. (not to mention every living breathing thing in the south because of the pigs)
In the mean time there are thousands of elk IN the cattle pastures along the Madison River to Ennis.
Marion you need to start working WITH the authorities and get your FEED LOTS SHUT DOWN. You people are BREEDING the disease. IF you were so concerned for the actual Brucellosis issue you would be lobbying and fighting to do just that. But instead all you think about is killing the Bison. You are as FICKLE as APHIS.
What it boils down to is that any thing that threatens your god, the cow, has to be eliminated. Any thing that is done in the name of the Livestock industry is perfectly fine with you, other peoples property rights or views be damned.
That about covers it, does it not, Marion.
It has been proven there are TWO distinct (different) herds of Bison in the Park. Lamar Valley, and the Pelican herds. And in their own words (again) they would not allow the herds to get below 2000. Well I hate to break it to you but they have reduced the herds (both of them ) to way less than that. SO actually the Park could handle at least 4000 Bison (in their own decisions) So again MORE proof the authorities are lying to the public. You can't refute that.
Your belief in the Disease issue really being an issue makes me think you believe Hillary and the 'sniper fire, cork-screw landing' in Bosnia.
It just ain't so!
HA HA HA I knew it, But they are both about the same for being factual.
re your last: now that is something for a prevaricator such as your self to say.
Perhaps most troubling is that there has been no public scrutiny of this pay them again, expensive deal to nowhere, to and across land or public right-of-ways we already own for just a short period of time (only until April 15th each year) for just a few intensively livestock-manipulated bison (only 25 sero-negative bison). These bison must be first hazed, captured, blood tested, pregnancy tested, vaccinated and if female and pregnant, telemetrically collared and vaginally implanted with a birthing transceiver. Their family members who test sero-positve will be slaughtered and eaten by someone.
Upon release of the 25 sero-negative bison, they will be allowed to walk down a narrow fenced corridor on lands we already own either as public Forest Service lands, lands under previous conservation easements protected as "wildlife corridors" or a county road, which is a public right-of-way we already own. Then despite there being no cattle in the area the bison must "behave" and stay in a little area known as "zone 2" south of Yankee Jim Canyon and west of the Yellowstone River. They will be monitored by government agents around the clock and forced to stay put. As well, no other "untested" bison can enter the area, which is part of the traditional winter range. In a year like this instead of slaughtering 1500 bison, give or take, the government would have slaughtered 1475 bison.
Unless all these bison "behave" we start over again next year with just 25 livestock-manipulated bison being allowed through the narrow corridor we already own. Even in a best case scenario we will never seen more than 100 bison for just a short period of time in a small area of Montana.
There are too many bad aspects of this deal to list them all here. If anyone you would like to discuss this in more detail I can be reached at 586-1729 in Bozeman. I would also be happy to send anyone more documentation on the problems associated with this deal. As well, if you have an interest, I would be happy to share a larger, win-win sustainable solution for wild Montana bison in southwest Montana that includes public hunting.
I would be interested, but I have a problem. I am taking care of my aged Mother, (dementia and blind) and I am confined to our home. Not a prisoner but close. If there is anything I could do from my home, I am willing to give it a shot.
My time is constantly changing because of her condition, Phone calls for me are out, because of her constant needing attention.
I'll do what I can, as I can. But because of her condition, I'm not able to make full commitments.
You are doing plenty protecting and speaking for the buffalo that call Horse Butte home. Best wishes for you and your mother.
I agree with you on some, but question your sources on the over grazing. IF the Bison were allowed to migrate out, such as in the spring for calving, and in the winter when the snow is too deep, there would be NO overgrazing. There are over 2 million acres of Park, I understand not all of it is 'grazeable' But if you break it down, 4000 bison in 2 million acres is 1 bison for every 500 acres cut that in half because of areas that don't have grass (inside the Park) and that's still 1 bison per 250 acres. take another 100 off just because, and you still have 1 per 150 acres.
Again I understand hunting as a means for population control. But for people to try and say that it is because of the Bison that the ground is being ruined is wrong. It isn't because of the Bison it's because they won't allow them to migrate as needed to allow the park to recoup. The Bison are trying, it's the HUMANS that are not allowing them to. So don't blame the bison for 'destroying the Park put the Blame where it REALLY needs to be put on STUPID HUMAN POLICIES.
We have thousands and thousands of acres that are completely void of cattle that need to be grazed, if for nothing more than the fire hazard. They need to be allowed to migrate.
Ann's right. Overgrazing is due to lack of winter range. Rick Wallen, YNP, confirmed this at a HOBNOB meeting back in 2005.
If Marion is still out there, "do you operate a cattle ranch"? I'm just curious.
I believe a majority of landowners, both public and private, actually want bison on their properties. No one has ever asked which private landowners would tolerate or even enjoy seeing and benefiting from wild Montana bison on their property. The opportunities to turn wild Montana bison into an asset in southwest Montana are enormous.
I, and the Gallatin Wildlife Association have said this before, access to habitat and public hunting is a sustainable and respectful solution, which can be implemented by respecting private property rights on both sides of the issue. Protecting a few cows in a few locations for a short period of time (Feb. through June 15) is a win-win solution. The three wildlife management areas we own in the Upper Madison (Wall Creek), the Upper Gallatin (Porcupine or Gallatin WMA) and the Upper Yellowstone (Dome Mountain WMA) frame a great habitat and public hunting solution. Let 'em roam.
A false dichotomy if ever there was. Also, this:
Yellowstone has used a natural management philosophy since the 1960s. This policy has been severely attacked by many local citizens, elected officials, and in the controversial 1986 book Playing God in Yellowstone, by Alston Chase. From a wildlife standpoint, Yellowstone National Park is poor winter habitat with its high elevations that produce bitterly cold and snowy winters. Wildlife have always migrated outside the park in the winter for lower and better feeding ranges. The question of whether the Yellowstone range is overgrazed remains a controversial scientific issue. The National Academy of Science report concluded that the scientific evidence does not demonstrate that Yellowstone bison are starving (National Academy of Sciences, 1998: Section II: 25). Instead, the report cites studies which demonstrate Yellowstone bison are in excellent body condition and that range degradation is not occurring. http://www.forwolves.org/ralph/bison/bisonpap-mcbeth.htm
The west side of the Park The Horse Butte peninsula residents (22,000+ acres of land) WANT the Bison here. We enjoy having the 2000lb.+ Bison walking through our yards. That is why MOST of us are here, because we enjoy WILDLIFE. (I am here also because my grandfather homesteaded part of this) It has always been my home. I love having the grizzlies, Bison etc. here.(fewer people would make this an ideal place to be)
The Park Servce along with all the other IBMP partners are LYING. They never even talked to any of us on this side of the park. I'm not sure but I would put money on it that there are more land owners that would prefer the Bison than there are NOT. I would also venture a guess that if you tallied up all the acres there are fewer with cattle than without.
Karrie, I think I can answer that for you, No she doesn't have nor has she had cattle she's a sheep person. And If I'm not mistaken she isn't actively doing that anymore.
You can find Suzanne's phone number in the Gardiner phone book, I assume, or go onto the Yellowstone NP website.
I think there has been too much working in a hole with this issue and each side does their own thing without talking to others involved in the issue.
The National Park Service needs to be a better neighbor. I still think a hunt is a logical way to rid the park of excess bison and provide a revenue for wildlife management.
Frankly, wildlife can roam anywhere they like but some property owners have created such a stink about the roaming bison that the shooting policy went into place, and that is wrong.
Anyone moving into an area they know is filled with wildlife has a moral and ethical responsibility to adjust to the already established environment and to maintain it to the best of their ability.
We have bear, moose, elk, wolves, coyote, bison etc. living here. You learn to be more aware of your surroundings. You don't put garbage outside for bear to get into. You don't plant edibles that you know animals will be attracted to unless you're willing to let them eat it. If someone didn't want wildlife accessing their "yards" here, we'd have more fences.
Simply put, if bison need to access roads for easier travel via my yard, I let them. If they like my "grass", I let them eat it. I wish they'd do it more often. No more mowing. If they find shelter from the wind behind my house, so be it. If they get in mine or my dogs way, we move. If they block my drive, I quietly ask their permission to leave, start the truck and go on my way.
Put your suspicions to rest. I pray these animals learn they're safe on my property. You wouldn't believe how much you can learn from watching these animals and how grateful you become when you're allowed into their lives as well.
Free roaming bison is possible as Glenn says. Only it needs to be done correctly and by the management of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, not the livestock industry.
Glenn, you've always had it right. I highly respect you and admire your integrity and perserverance.
Hope to see you tomorrow.
Karrie
Yes. Neighbors on Horse Butte organized a few years back. We call ourselves Horse Butte Neighbors of Buffalo, HOBNOB. We've already talked with representatives from each participating agency, we support bison management be changed from DOL to FWP and we support MORE HABITAT for an established bison herd for hunters.
Although personally I hate having hunters in the area due to safety concerns I know it's a plausible solution as Glenn stated.
I haven't gotten anything done today because of this. I'm turning off for awhile.
Over and out......
Karrie
The people that had cattle on the Horse Butte Peninsula from the early 60's till two years ago, had NO problem with the Bison on the Ranch. FW&P;came into their property, on the day they were removing the catle for the winter, and threatened the family with quarantine if the Family didn't allow them to kill the Bison that were down by the gate, the family didn't care if the Bison were there until this happened. Thus the family had to allow it. When those Bison where killed, they left the gut piles in the field. FW&P;added to the risk possibility by doing that when the Bison would have left the property on their own, leaving NO chance of transmission. Although we all know that the time of year they did this there was absolutely NO risk of transmission anyway.
So, this shows you the bullying tactics that have been used towards ranchers in order to kill Bison.
Marion?
(sarcasm intended)
Private landowners are allowed to do with their land as they see fit but more needs to be done to educate landowners in the fact that wildlife walking on their land does not belong to them as the cattle and sheep do. The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks should be the ones to manage wildlife throughout our state, not private landowners. If bison destroy fence, then there should be a fund to pay for repair of the fences but bison should be allowed to roam.
I think that a fund should be established for ranchers to contribute to if wildlife are injured due to domesticated animals, but I know that will never happen.
As for elk, they are already being killed by the wolves that were allowed to be planted in Yellowstone in 1995. The wild elk populations are crashing in Yellowstone, as is the hunting opportunities.
I feel that the Budget that the DOL has to haze, capture, haul to slaughter etc.,, could be that FUND. As well as vaccine costs, fencing costs, testing costs. The only fence I've had to fix because of the Bison here, is when the DOL has run the Bison through the fence. The DOL refuses to come back and repair the damage that they caused.
There are thousands of head of Elk over along the Madison River to Ennis in the cattle pastures, with nothing being done about them. Not only are they eating the grasses in the cattle pastures they are calving there too. They killed off all the wolves over there.
I'm not saying I was for or against the Wolves being reintroduced, but they are here, and we need to handle them as they start trouble. But to just go out and shoot on sight that is not the right thing to do. I for one would not hesitate to kill a wolf IF it were endangering my livestock. But I would be more apt to shoot AT instead of shooting it to give it another chance, and to learn that domestic are not the easy meal they seem to think.
I just read this article again and with this comment the comment total will break 100. I want to personally thank you for all your excellent coverage of the bison issue. I hope you understand how important your coverage has been in getting the word out on some of the simple, cost effective and respectful solutions that exist for wild bison in southwest Montana if we just get out of their way. Thank you very much.
I whole-heartedly agree with Glenn.
We are in the middle of a heck of a snow storm right now, and the Horse Butte is still full of snow. The Bison out here are struggling, But at least they haven't been harassed for a few days. That could be because there is a Governor's conference on Tourisim in town, and they don't want to look bad, but who knows.
I also would like to thank you for your articles.
yesterday i attended the Prayer Ceremony conducted by Arvol Looking Horse just outside the Stephens Creek capture facility ... it was a beautiful ceremony ... the strong blowing wind throughout the prayers felt cleansing: sweeping away the anger and the hurt of all the death-mantras of the agencies.
when we were driving from the ceremony to the community center for our luncheon, we passed herds of elk, antelope and mule deer ... never in my wildest dreams would i think that if i came back the next day that they wouldn't be there on the landscape ... so different with the buffalo: when i see them on the bluffs, on the butte, anywhere on the earth, i feel honored to be in their presence ... and then i am filled with anxiety --- will they be there tomorrow? will they be needlessly killed because of the livestock industry's political power structure driving the IBMP? ... and then the deep sadness returns ...
when i got home there was the daily email update from YNP -- another 20 buffalo had been shipped to slaughter hours before the ceremony ... over 1,400 have now been slaughtered; 112 sero-negative calves are in the buffalo jail at Corwin Springs; 7 buffalo have died in the capture facility; 6 bulls were shot last week near Yankee Jim Canyon and 1 on the Hoppe ranch. During the only time buffalo were able to roam somewhat free, from November 15th to February 15th, 166 were killed by state and tribal hunters ...
Governor Schweitzer and YNP Superintendent Suzanne Lewis today announced a press conference at Gallatin Field at 1:30 on Thursday for "an historic announcement about the IBMP" ... if the deal is done on the RTR we will still be spending $2+ million dollars next year hazing, capturing, slaughtering or quarantining all the other buffs not considered tame-life enough to be in the exclusive group of 25 tested, tagged, vaginally probed, collared buffalo allowed to roam NOT FREE for four months on lands which will have no cattle grazing for 30 years ...
here on the west side of the park the migration to calving grounds on Horse Butte is just beginning ... a few new-born calves have been seen ... but we know that we haven't seen anything yet from the DOL agents whose blood lust seems to make them salivate at calving time ... one has to wonder how they can live with themselves, after hazing pregnant cow buffalo and new born calves via their helicopters, ATVs, snowmobiles, horses, pick-ups -- a truly un-fair chase, a chase to the death.
the so-called conservation groups who think the RTR deal is a tiny step forward are swirling in delusion ...
buffa-love to glenn, karrie, ann, robert, pronghorn and all the others, especially BFC staff and volunteers, who bear witness to this catastrophe every day and whose outrage leads them to courageously speak out forcefully against the buffalo genocide.
barb in west yellowstone
Susan from Blue Mountain in the Bitterroots
Had they allowed the Bison to graze outside the park in the years past, there wouldn't be such a die off from lack of forage, as well as the fact that the Bison would have been in better shape to withstand last years winter.
Two years ago we had more snow, and longer periods of colder temperatures.
I also wonder, where is the Sierra Club and other national organizations while this abuse is going on? Or are they spending all their time trying to stop housing developments in California? Shame on them for turning their backs on this situation.
So, is there an organization that we should all be supporting that has the capabilities to lobby the right individuals to make the necessary changes?
The national organizations with the ear of the government just sold the buffalo down the river yesterday.
Read it and weep.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2008/04/yellowstone-national-park-bison-agreement-how-big-step-forward-it
Also, the current buffalo census may be as low as 1,436.
See this:
http://www.yellowstone-online.com/2008/04/1436-to-2300-yellowstone-buffalo-left.html
Want to help organize? BFC and other small local groups are the ones to support,
Is another good place to contact the Gallatin Wildlife Association?
There are many organizations out there which makes it difficult to sort through...
You can reach Glenn Hockett, Volunteer President of Gallatin Wildlife Association, at (406) 586-1729 or .
Buffalo Field Campaign at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org
Karrie
I will contact both of these organizations and get involved beyond this blog. I hope others will do the same.
It would be great if these organizations were represented at the Designing the New West conference coming up next Thursday and Friday at Gallatin Gateway. As the area around Yellowstone continues to grow and change, wildlife issues must be taken into account as well in order to preserve the wonderful natural environment that is drawing people to the region.
Contact Mr. Schweitzer at and . You can also log onto the Governor's website and find out which phone number to call. Do both.
I'm always polite but firm. I have already told Mr. Schweitzer of my displeasure so you must, also. And, I urge you to suggest to him to allow an increase of hunti