I couldn't find the Habitat Conservation Forum, so I will post this here... (moderator: feel free to move)
Having just spent time there last week and seeing the harsh winters that these animals live through, this news does not sit well with me at all.
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MONTANA SLAUGHTERS 33 YELLOWSTONE BISON
Agencies Capture and Kill Using U.S. Tax Dollars
For Immediate Release, March 15, 2006
Contact Stephany Seay or Dan Brister, 406-646-0070
WEST YELLOWSTONE, MONTANA. The Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) captured thirty-three of America's last wild bison yesterday afternoon and sent them all to slaughter this morning without testing them for brucellosis antibodies.
The bison had been grazing along the north shore of Hebgen Lake since early January, and showed no sign of moving further away from the Park. They are the same group that the DOL chased onto the thin ice of Hebgen Lake on January 11, when 14 broke through and two drowned.
Video and photos of that incident are available at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/bisonicephotos.html.
Yesterday the DOL set up a make-shift capture facility on private land, and after aggressively hazing more than forty bison, captured thirty-three, loaded them onto three livestock trailers and trucked them to the Duck Creek capture facility located just a mile from Yellowstone National Park. The DOL transported all the bison to slaughter this morning.
During the capture, BFC patrols documented DOL agents recklessly jumping in front of running buffalo, stressed from being harassed. "It's amazing that no one was gored or injured," said Dan Brister of the Buffalo Field Campaign. "The agents showed no regard for the bison's wild nature. One of these days someone is going to get hurt."
In February, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer ordered the DOL to release nine bison that were captured by the agency. In recent weeks, Schweitzer has been quoted in the media saying capture and slaughter along the Park's western boundary (where Montana is the lead agency) is "not the direction we want to go."
"We've been hearing so much about Governor Schweitzer's increased tolerance for bison," said Brister. "Today we learned just what the governor's words are worth." Brister went on to ask "Why did the DOL bother pulling ten bison from the icy water in January if their intention was to send them to slaughter anyway?"
The DOL, the lead agency along Yellowstone's western boundary, has been extremely secretive in regards to bison management activities. The DOL hasn't had a public relations officer since October and hasn't updated its web site since then. A spokeswoman with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP), a participating agency involved with yesterdays capture operation, refused to share her knowledge of events, saying that it was the DOL's place to do so.
"The level of secrecy is appalling," said BFC's Stephany Seay. "This bison management scheme is 100% taxpayer funded and each agency is accountable, yet the public is kept in the dark on the details surrounding the harassment and slaughter of America's last wild bison."
Since fall, bison management activities have caused the unnecessary deaths of 931 wild bison, while 87 wild bison calves have been removed from the population and placed into a quarantine facility. The Yellowstone bison herd, America's only continuously wild herd, now numbers fewer than 3,500. Wild bison are a migratory species native to North America and once spanned the continent, numbering an estimated 30 to 50 million.
Posted by Thomas Creel on March 21, 2006 at 4:23 PM
What's the source for this report? It seems a bit politically charged to me...which makes me suspicious about the accuracy in reporting all the facts.
Well, here's the web site:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/
Given that 24000 people die each day from hunger related causes, I don't think this is a cause I will be supporting.
"The bison captured this week are in addition to the nearly 850 animals sent to slaughter earlier this year after being captured near Yellowstone's northern border."
Given that 24000 people die each day from hunger related causes, I don't think this is a cause I will be supporting.
How are the two related? Tons and tons of produce is being deliberately destroyed all the time to artificially maintain prices and profitablity for farmers. Why not start there?
Also, an acre of land growing grain can feed a lot more people than an acre of land used for grazing. Why not start with wiser land management?
Slaughtering the last remaining wild buffalo to feed the hungry seems like a pretty far fetched idea to me.
Guy
Posted by Thomas Creel on March 22, 2006 at 9:21 AM
Yeah Christian, that is a less politically charged article that at least gives a few reasons for the oppositions opinion. The first one was nothing but PR by an interested party that came nowhere near "reporting."
Posted by Richard Wong on March 22, 2006 at 11:32 AM
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Given that 24000 people die each day from hunger related causes, I don't think this is a cause I will be supporting.
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The difference is that we can afford to lose 24,000 people and maintain a more than sufficient population. Not that it has any relevance to the posted topic.
The "carrying capacity" for the Park is somewhere around 2000 bison. There are close to 5000 now. So, unless something is done, the effect of those additional 3000 bison will be eventually seen in the vegetation and streams within the Park. If you look into the history of the northern range, high elk numbers in the absence of predators has affected the cottonwoods, willows, and the Lamar River as well. The wolves are beginning to change that dynamic in terms of elk, but they haven't started taking bison in appreciable numbers. So it wouldn't hurt my feelings to see more bison taken out. Even if the brucelleous argument is kind of hokey (and it is), the only way to accomodate more bison is to accept then on National Forest and eventually treat them as a game animal. As long as the cowboys have the political clout they do, that's not going to happen in Montana. Besides, if their range is expanded, then the brucellous argument becomes more real. So there's no good solution, but some kind of management to control numbers is one of the better options. Bison as a species are not in any kind of danger.
Without going into the bison issue specifically, the statement that "... an acre of land growing grain can feed a lot more people than an acre of land used for grazing..." involves several erroneous assumptions.
1) Land used for pasture could all be used for growing food for humans...not true. Herbivores can graze where agriculture is impossible to unwise.. Shortgrass prairie (where the bison are now) is not suitable for grain production. Mid and tall-grass prairie may not be suitable, depending on soil type and rainfall patterns. The Dust Bowl of the 30s, and subsequent smaller wind-erosion events, are an indication of what goes wrong when humans mismanage land that should not be plowed.
2) All that matters for "wiser land management" is how much food for humans per acre land could produce...not true. Permanent grassland produces more benefit to humans than the meat of the animals grazing it. The most obvious is the effect of permanent grassland on water resources, but this is closely related to soil structure, depth, etc. Permanent grassland doesn't dump tons of silt into rivers, doesn't contribute to the nitrogen overload, doesn't require the use of pesticides...makes the air and the water cleaner. Even on appropriate soils, changing from grazing to row crop or grain production involves the use of non-renewable resources (to run the machinery, to make the machinery, etc.), produces air pollution, soil pollution, water pollution, and degrades the soil. Note: I'm talking about well-managed grasslands stocked with appropriate numbers of grazing animals--not feedlots. I loathe feedlots...they're ugly, smelly, unnatural habitats for unhappy cattle and produce meat that isn't as healthy... but then I have the luxury of eating my own beef. The land my cattle live on would not make a crop of wheat, corn, or soybeans, even *with* machinery, chemicals, etc. Farming was tried, a hundred years ago, and quickly wore the land out. But reasonable management allows the cattle to thrive, and improves the land (and incidentally, provides habitat for wildlife that a field of grain or rows of soybeans wouldn't.).
As for the bison...land managers often have to cull a population to keep it at the carrying capacity...but it should be done with the least possible stress to the animals.
Yes, but while the park might have a "carrying capacity," let's really face the fact that "the plains" do not have a carrying capacity. Most of this is being driven by the cattle industry in states where one can probably not be elected to public office without their support.
Bison as a whole might not be a threatened species, but wild bison are not plentiful. So, we "manage" their population because of a disease that only females transmit and there have been no reported transmission cases. Yet, elk carry it as well, yet nothing is done there?
How can you take an wild animal that has been habitualized to human contact for over 100 years (stock from the park I mean), and then allow it to roam freely outside the park and then treat it as game for hunting. That would be like treating domesticated livestock as game, you would just walk up to it and shoot it... funny thing is, while I say that I know that there would be people lining up to get permits.
I don't profess to have all of the facts, far from it... but all of this is quite confusing to me.
Sorry, but you're wrong when you say "the plains doesn't have a carrying capacity." ALL land has a carrying capacity for each species, and each combination of species.
It's true that the carrying capacity of the entire great plains is much larger than the area now designated for wild bison...but it's still limited.
And the difficulty with the "Buffalo Commons" proposal to return large swatches of the former prairie to native prairie and wildlife is that others than farmers and ranchers use the plains now. Opposition to returning a north-south strip of the country to bison habitat comes from more than the cattle industry.
If bison were easier to handle (so you could test them for various diseases and be sure you got the same one out of the herd later) then concerns about brucellosis, the spongiform encephalopathies, etc, would make less sense...but if I were running a certified brucellosis free herd next to an abundant population of wild animals who might be carrying brucellosis...I'd have concerns. (My cattle are in a TB-brucellosis free herd...such animals are worth more money because of that fact, but you have to be able to show that your animals haven't been in contact with those whose status is unknown.)
BTW, for those of you who hunt as well as take pictures, there's increasing concern about a prion-carried disease in wild cervids (deer, elk, moose, etc.), in which the prions may be in meat away from the neural tissue. (A real downer...I have friends who have exotic and native cervids both on their place, and venison chili is my favorite.)
You're certainly more versed in this subject than I am. I am speaking in very general terms.
It seems a shame to me that the fate of a wild indigenous species that is threatened (perhaps not in the literal sense of the word) can be impacted by brecellosis concerns about trasmitting a disease that they have not proven to transmit to yet.
What of the thousands of elk that freely roam the area that can also carry and transmit the disease? I find that stance to be outrageously inconsistent. According to the NPS, about 30k elk spend the summer in Yellowstone and 15-22k winter in Yellowstone... probably double that in the surrounding areas. Compare that w/ the 3-5k wild bison left.
Could it be that there is a cottage industry around the game hunting of elk that is not in place for buffalo? Certainly seems to me that the law of averages would stipulate that elk would be more likely to transmit than buffalo. Tho' I profess to know nothing about animal behavior or how the species might interact.
That's the other thing... there are virtually no cattle being raised in the area where the bison are migrating. They are leaving the park near West Yellowstone in the winter... there are no cattle there in the winter whatsoever.
Discussion
11 repliesHaving just spent time there last week and seeing the harsh winters that these animals live through, this news does not sit well with me at all.
---
MONTANA SLAUGHTERS 33 YELLOWSTONE BISON
Agencies Capture and Kill Using U.S. Tax Dollars
For Immediate Release, March 15, 2006
Contact Stephany Seay or Dan Brister, 406-646-0070
WEST YELLOWSTONE, MONTANA. The Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) captured thirty-three of America's last wild bison yesterday afternoon and sent them all to slaughter this morning without testing them for brucellosis antibodies.
The bison had been grazing along the north shore of Hebgen Lake since early January, and showed no sign of moving further away from the Park. They are the same group that the DOL chased onto the thin ice of Hebgen Lake on January 11, when 14 broke through and two drowned.
Video and photos of that incident are available at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/bisonicephotos.html.
Yesterday the DOL set up a make-shift capture facility on private land, and after aggressively hazing more than forty bison, captured thirty-three, loaded them onto three livestock trailers and trucked them to the Duck Creek capture facility located just a mile from Yellowstone National Park. The DOL transported all the bison to slaughter this morning.
During the capture, BFC patrols documented DOL agents recklessly jumping in front of running buffalo, stressed from being harassed. "It's amazing that no one was gored or injured," said Dan Brister of the Buffalo Field Campaign. "The agents showed no regard for the bison's wild nature. One of these days someone is going to get hurt."
In February, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer ordered the DOL to release nine bison that were captured by the agency. In recent weeks, Schweitzer has been quoted in the media saying capture and slaughter along the Park's western boundary (where Montana is the lead agency) is "not the direction we want to go."
"We've been hearing so much about Governor Schweitzer's increased tolerance for bison," said Brister. "Today we learned just what the governor's words are worth." Brister went on to ask "Why did the DOL bother pulling ten bison from the icy water in January if their intention was to send them to slaughter anyway?"
The DOL, the lead agency along Yellowstone's western boundary, has been extremely secretive in regards to bison management activities. The DOL hasn't had a public relations officer since October and hasn't updated its web site since then. A spokeswoman with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP), a participating agency involved with yesterdays capture operation, refused to share her knowledge of events, saying that it was the DOL's place to do so.
"The level of secrecy is appalling," said BFC's Stephany Seay. "This bison management scheme is 100% taxpayer funded and each agency is accountable, yet the public is kept in the dark on the details surrounding the harassment and slaughter of America's last wild bison."
Since fall, bison management activities have caused the unnecessary deaths of 931 wild bison, while 87 wild bison calves have been removed from the population and placed into a quarantine facility. The Yellowstone bison herd, America's only continuously wild herd, now numbers fewer than 3,500. Wild bison are a migratory species native to North America and once spanned the continent, numbering an estimated 30 to 50 million.
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/
Given that 24000 people die each day from hunger related causes, I don't think this is a cause I will be supporting.
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/03/16/news/wyoming/35-bison-caught.txt
or the Helena Independent Record
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/01/20/montana/a07012006_05.txt
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/03/15/montana/000bi.txt
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2006/03/16/outdoors/c02031606_03.txt
How are the two related? Tons and tons of produce is being deliberately destroyed all the time to artificially maintain prices and profitablity for farmers. Why not start there?
Also, an acre of land growing grain can feed a lot more people than an acre of land used for grazing. Why not start with wiser land management?
Slaughtering the last remaining wild buffalo to feed the hungry seems like a pretty far fetched idea to me.
Guy
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given that 24000 people die each day from hunger related causes, I don't think this is a cause I will be supporting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The difference is that we can afford to lose 24,000 people and maintain a more than sufficient population. Not that it has any relevance to the posted topic.
1) Land used for pasture could all be used for growing food for humans...not true. Herbivores can graze where agriculture is impossible to unwise.. Shortgrass prairie (where the bison are now) is not suitable for grain production. Mid and tall-grass prairie may not be suitable, depending on soil type and rainfall patterns. The Dust Bowl of the 30s, and subsequent smaller wind-erosion events, are an indication of what goes wrong when humans mismanage land that should not be plowed.
2) All that matters for "wiser land management" is how much food for humans per acre land could produce...not true. Permanent grassland produces more benefit to humans than the meat of the animals grazing it. The most obvious is the effect of permanent grassland on water resources, but this is closely related to soil structure, depth, etc. Permanent grassland doesn't dump tons of silt into rivers, doesn't contribute to the nitrogen overload, doesn't require the use of pesticides...makes the air and the water cleaner. Even on appropriate soils, changing from grazing to row crop or grain production involves the use of non-renewable resources (to run the machinery, to make the machinery, etc.), produces air pollution, soil pollution, water pollution, and degrades the soil. Note: I'm talking about well-managed grasslands stocked with appropriate numbers of grazing animals--not feedlots. I loathe feedlots...they're ugly, smelly, unnatural habitats for unhappy cattle and produce meat that isn't as healthy... but then I have the luxury of eating my own beef. The land my cattle live on would not make a crop of wheat, corn, or soybeans, even *with* machinery, chemicals, etc. Farming was tried, a hundred years ago, and quickly wore the land out. But reasonable management allows the cattle to thrive, and improves the land (and incidentally, provides habitat for wildlife that a field of grain or rows of soybeans wouldn't.).
As for the bison...land managers often have to cull a population to keep it at the carrying capacity...but it should be done with the least possible stress to the animals.
Elizabeth Moon
Texas
Bison as a whole might not be a threatened species, but wild bison are not plentiful. So, we "manage" their population because of a disease that only females transmit and there have been no reported transmission cases. Yet, elk carry it as well, yet nothing is done there?
How can you take an wild animal that has been habitualized to human contact for over 100 years (stock from the park I mean), and then allow it to roam freely outside the park and then treat it as game for hunting. That would be like treating domesticated livestock as game, you would just walk up to it and shoot it... funny thing is, while I say that I know that there would be people lining up to get permits.
I don't profess to have all of the facts, far from it... but all of this is quite confusing to me.
It's true that the carrying capacity of the entire great plains is much larger than the area now designated for wild bison...but it's still limited.
And the difficulty with the "Buffalo Commons" proposal to return large swatches of the former prairie to native prairie and wildlife is that others than farmers and ranchers use the plains now. Opposition to returning a north-south strip of the country to bison habitat comes from more than the cattle industry.
If bison were easier to handle (so you could test them for various diseases and be sure you got the same one out of the herd later) then concerns about brucellosis, the spongiform encephalopathies, etc, would make less sense...but if I were running a certified brucellosis free herd next to an abundant population of wild animals who might be carrying brucellosis...I'd have concerns. (My cattle are in a TB-brucellosis free herd...such animals are worth more money because of that fact, but you have to be able to show that your animals haven't been in contact with those whose status is unknown.)
BTW, for those of you who hunt as well as take pictures, there's increasing concern about a prion-carried disease in wild cervids (deer, elk, moose, etc.), in which the prions may be in meat away from the neural tissue. (A real downer...I have friends who have exotic and native cervids both on their place, and venison chili is my favorite.)
Elizabeth Moon
Texas
You're certainly more versed in this subject than I am. I am speaking in very general terms.
It seems a shame to me that the fate of a wild indigenous species that is threatened (perhaps not in the literal sense of the word) can be impacted by brecellosis concerns about trasmitting a disease that they have not proven to transmit to yet.
What of the thousands of elk that freely roam the area that can also carry and transmit the disease? I find that stance to be outrageously inconsistent. According to the NPS, about 30k elk spend the summer in Yellowstone and 15-22k winter in Yellowstone... probably double that in the surrounding areas. Compare that w/ the 3-5k wild bison left.
Could it be that there is a cottage industry around the game hunting of elk that is not in place for buffalo? Certainly seems to me that the law of averages would stipulate that elk would be more likely to transmit than buffalo. Tho' I profess to know nothing about animal behavior or how the species might interact.
That's the other thing... there are virtually no cattle being raised in the area where the bison are migrating. They are leaving the park near West Yellowstone in the winter... there are no cattle there in the winter whatsoever.