| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
|
| News
Article 3/26/04 |
 |
| |
|
|
| Buffalo
Kill To Control Disease Questioned
Environmental Groups Dispute Risk to Cattle
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 26, 2004
|
For
most Americans, buffaloes are icons of an era when much
of America was wild and unspoiled.
So far this year, National Park Service and Montana Department
of Livestock employees have shot 278 of the roughly 4,200
wild buffaloes that roam the park's confines. The program
-- a boon to neighboring cattle owners and a bane to environmentalists
-- has been in place for nearly a decade. But as the number
of dead bison mount, criticism of the practice has grown.
"If people knew what's going on in Montana they would
be appalled," said Buffalo Field Campaign spokesman
Ted Fellman, whose group that has documented the roundup
in an effort to halt it.
Fellman and other buffalo advocates note that there has
never been a documented case of brucellosis transmission
from buffaloes to cattle in the wild.
The current roundup is part of a bison management plan
established in 2000 under an agreement among five agencies:
the National Park Service; the Department of Agriculture's
Forest Service and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection
Service; the Montana Department of Livestock; and the
state Fish, Wildlife and Parks division. The plan calls
for protecting privately held cattle without inflicting
excessive damage.
Once rangers spot a significant herd of buffaloes leaving
the park, they swoop down on them in helicopters, snowmobiles
and all-terrain vehicles. While park officials initially
try to herd them back into the park, when they cannot
do that they steer them into pens for brucellosis testing
and the kill.
The fact that 4,200 buffaloes now reside in Yellowstone
is a kind of victory in itself: While roughly 35 million
bison roamed the United States in the mid-1800s, the number
dwindled to 23 by 1902. There are herds elsewhere in the
country, but they are privately held and are not purebred.
"The resurgence of buffalo is one of the great conservation
victories of our history," said Charles Clusen, director
of the national parks for the Natural Resources Defense
Council. "But that doesn't excuse the indefensible
slaughter of buffalo today."
The conflict between bison and local farmers arises each
winter, when buffaloes leave the park in search of food.
According to Clusen, there are about 180 cows in areas
immediately adjoining the north side of Yellowstone and
an additional 100 to the west. But Karen R. Cooper, a
spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Livestock, said
a much grater number are at risk. She said there are 170,000
cattle in the three counties that border Yellowstone,
which is located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, and
that Montana, unlike Wyoming, has so far remained free
of brucellosis.
Steve Pilcher, executive vice president of the Montana
Stockgrowers Association, noted that cattle -- at 2.5
million, they are more numerous than people in the state
-- are "very important to the state of Montana's
economy."
"It's probably the best of a bad situation,"
Pilcher said of the buffalo kill.
Cooper said the agents try first to bring the buffaloes
back into the park, before rounding them up for brucellosis
testing. But at times the buffaloes refuse to go back,
she said, and must be herded into pens. "It's absolutely
crucial to be brucellosis free for the cattle industry,"
she said.
Estimates for the cost of the operation vary: environmentalists
peg it at $3 million a year, while Cooper said Montana
officials had set aside $800,000 for the operation this
year.
Federal and state officials give the meat and hides of
the slain buffaloes to area tribes, but some are now refusing
the gifts, said Fred DuBray , executive director of the
InterTribal Bison Cooperative. "When they're killing
the buffalo in Yellowstone, a lot of tribal people feel
they're killing part of us," DuBray said. "We've
discouraged our membership from accepting that; we felt
we were being used." Several academics and environmentalists
said elk pose the same or greater risk of transmitting
brucellosis to cattle, but do not attract the same attention
from authorities.
University of Florida professor Paul L. Nicoletti said
outbreaks in cattle in Idaho and Wyoming were traced to
elk, not buffaloes. "The elk are more a risk of transmission
than bison," Nicoletti said. "There has never
been a conclusive case of brucellosis in cattle that was
transmitted by the Yellowstone bison."
Cooper did not dispute that claim, but she noted that
a buffalo did infect a cow in an experiment at Texas A&M
University. Buffaloes also represent a much greater risk,
she said, because 40 to 50 percent of buffaloes test positive
for brucellosis, compared with just 1 to 3 percent of
the elk herd.
Both sides predict that more bison will be rounded up
and killed before the season is over, but if some lawmakers
have their way, it could be the last time. In Congress,
Reps. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and Charles Bass (R-N.H.)
have authored legislation that would impose a
three-year moratorium on the buffalo kill and carry out
a $43 million land exchange in the northern section of
the park. That would provide the buffaloes with a larger
area to roam, keeping them away from cattle.
Top
of Page |
|
|
|
|
|
|
