There's only one bison wandering outside of Yellowstone National Park so far this winter, but already there have been two confrontations between the Montana Department of Livestock and the group of protesters living near West Yellowstone. "Because there's not a whole lot going on, this has been taken to a lot more personal level," said Tiffany Brown, spokeswoman for the protest group, Buffalo Field Campaign, which opposes the state's efforts to haze wandering buffalo back into the park.

The first confrontation occurred Jan. 24, when DOL officials on snowmobiles were hazing a bull bison near the Madison River. DOL spokeswoman Karen Cooper said the department was operating under an interim management plan for the buffalo, which wander out of Yellowstone in search of food. The department tries to keep them from getting close to domestic livestock, because there is concern the buffalo will spread the disease brucellosis.

If hazing fails to move any bison, the holdouts are captured for testing. Those that test positive for exposure to brucellosis are shipped to slaughter, and others are returned to the park.

Protesters at the first confrontation were telling the officials there was no need to haze bull bison because they can't transmit brucellosis, Brown said. "It was a pretty emotional encounter," she said, adding that part of one woman's leg was run over by a snowmobile driven by a DOL agent. Thewoman plans to press assault charges, Brown said, but Brown provided no further details.

The same buffalo was involved in the second confrontation, which occurred Sunday. That confrontation also started with DOL agents hazing the buffalo back into the park. Officials from other agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service, were also present.

Members of the Buffalo Field Campaign stood in front of the snowmobile of a DOL employee, Shane Grube, to prevent him from chasing the buffalo, said Highway Patrol Sgt. Mitch Tuttle in West Yellowstone.

Dan Brister, another protester, said no one was arrested or cited in that confrontation, which ended with the lone buffalo escaping across a creek and -- as it has done before -- disappearing into a thickly wooded area that snowmobiles cannot penetrate. Bison normally leave the park's western border in large numbers later in the winter or in the spring. Brister said the protesters were talking to their attorney about the confiscation of one of the videotapes the protesters were shooting during the second confrontation. "They (officials) took one 60-minute tape," Brister said. "They said they thought it may contain evidence. ...They mentioned a possible obstruction charge. They weren't any clearer than that."

Tuttle said the protesters "were going to be cited, or could be cited, for obstructing a peace officer, and what it shows on that videotape is evidence of a crime. On Monday, nobody seemed to know the whereabouts of the videotape -- it seemed to be floating somewhere in official limbo. However, the group said it was given a receipt for the tape by a Gallatin County sheriff's deputy stationed in West Yellowstone.

Nobody in this office knows anything about it, said Capt. Don Houghton in the Gallatin County sheriff's office in Bozeman. But he added the West Yellowstone deputy was on his day off, may not have filed a report yet. Tuttle said the highway patrol does not have the tape.

"It probably was, or will be, turned over to the Gallatin County attorney's office," he said.

But Gallatin County Attorney Marty Lambert said, "Nobody in this office has heard of this." Lambert said that officers probably would not need a warrant to seize potential evidence of a crime, and that a report of such an incident, requesting action by his office, might take weeks.

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