| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
|
| News
Article - 12/29/99 |
 |
| |
|
|
| Lawyer
says killing bison legal in Montana
By Scott McMillion, Bozeman Daily Chronicle
12/29/99
|
It's
open season on bison when they wander out of Yellowstone
National Park. Go ahead and shoot. All you need is willpower
and a big gun. The state of Montana doesn't have the authority
to stop you.
That's the way Bozeman attorney Bill Bartlett sees the
situation.
Whether it intended to or not, the 1995 Montana Legislature
left a loophole that means its legal to shoot wild bison
in Montana, Bartlett maintains.
"It appears that buffalo are unregulated vermin in
Montana and have the same status as gophers, which are
shot up by the buckets full each spring," Bartlett
said in a press release Tuesday.
He is representing Dale Koelzer, the 80-year-old West
Yellowstone man accused of shooting a bull bison on his
property. He said it threatened to ram his pickup truck.
Not surprisingly, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife
and Parks sees things a little differently."Bison
are still defined as game animals," said Bob Lane,
the chief legal counsel for FWP.
Koelzer at first denied and later admitted to shooting
the animal on his property just outside Yellowstone National
Park Sept. 27. It was found there the next morning by
members of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group of long-term
bison protesters in the area. The animal was without its
head, part of the hide and its genitals.
Bartlett referred to the protesters as "buffalo hippies."
FWP wardens gave Koelzer three citations for illegally
hunting, possessing and wasting a game animal. Bartlett
maintains FWP doesn't have the authority to do that. He
cites a 1995 law that transferred bison management authority
from FWP to the Montana Department of Livestock.
That law says, according to Bartlett, that all bison originating
from Yellowstone are "a species requiring disease
control" and are to be managed by DOL. But the law
doesn't specifically address shooting by the public.
All other wild bison come under the authority of FWP.
But there aren't any other wild bison in the state.
"If... the buffalo is a DOL buffalo it is not a crime
to hunt, possess or waste it," Bartlett wrote in
a legal brief filed Tuesday.
Not so, said Lane, the FWP attorney.
He maintains that bison, like grizzly bears, are legally
defined as a game animal in Montana. You can't legally
shoot them out of season and because there is no season
that means you can't shoot them at all, he said.
"We've given no authority for hunting, so you can't
shoot them," he said, adding that anybody who decides
to do so faces prosecution.
Koelzer has had a contentious relationship with FWP --
and with bison -- for years.
He and a neighbor, Roland Whitman, fed hay to elk in the
area for decades, ignoring pleas from biologists who said
the practice was bad for the elk.
The hay also attracted bison and when Koelzer and Whitman
asked FWP to remove the bison, FWP officials refused.
In January 1995, Whitman, who was 82 at the time, killed
a bison in his yard and was cited. Justice of the Peace
Scott Wyckman later dropped the charges after Bartlett
argued Whitman had a right to protect his property. County
prosecutors said they would appeal Wyckman's ruling but
later agreed to a plea bargain that deferred prosecution.
In October 1995, Koelzer shot two bull bison on his Duck
Creek property but was not prosecuted because he had obtained
DOL permission to kill them. Those carcasses wound up
in the West Yellowstone dump.
Between the two shootings, the Legislature had transferred
authority over bison from FWP to DOL and made it illegal
to feed wild elk.
Bartlett maintains his client is caught in a "buffalo
imbroglio" created by feuding state and federal agencies,
the governor and "a rag-tag collection of buffalo
hippies."
"At one time or another they each visit Dale Koelzer's
back yard," Bartlett wrote. "Every now and then
those special interests unite against a common enemy.
In this case it is 80-year-old Dale Koelzer. Four years
ago it was 82-year-old Roland Whitman who found himself
at the bottom of this confused heap."
DOL runs a bison trap on Koelzer's property and Buffalo
Field Campaign has called on the agency to sever all ties
with him.
Bartlett said his client could probably pay a fine and
put the incident behind him but believes FWP has no authority
over bison.
"Maybe this will wind up in the Supreme Court,"
Bartlett said.
Top
of Page |
|
|
|
|
|
|
