| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 3/12/05 |
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| Yellowstone
Bison Hunt
CNN.COM Transcript, For international news segment
3/12/05 |
SIEBERG:
Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. Bison are thriving in Yellowstone
National Park, but they run into trouble when they wander
outside the park.
Ranchers are afraid that the bison will spread disease
to their cattle, and
some hunters would like to bag a buffalo. Gary Strieker
reports on the
debate.
GARY STRIEKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are
now more than 4,000
animals in the nation's largest herd of wild free- roaming
bisons, usually
called buffalo. They're protected inside Yellowstone National
Park, but what
happens when they wander outside the park has caused a
running dispute
between neighboring cattle ranchers and those who want
to give buffalo more
freedom to roam. Last year, Montana authorities approved
a plan allowing
hunters to shoot buffalo outside the park, and many hunters
supported it.
SANDORD SHROUD, HUNTER: I like it. I think it's something
they should have
done here a while ago.
ROGER KOOPMAN, HUNTER: The bisons, ultimately, are being
killed, they have
to be killed one way or another.
STRIEKER: The plan was cut back to permit only ten buffalo
to be killed this
year, but in November, a new governor was elected, democrat
Brian
Schweitzer, who called the hunt a public relations nightmare
and canceled
it.
GOV. BRIAN SCHWEITZER (D), MONTANA: That's not a hunt.
Montanans know what a
hunt is. A hunt is a free chase.
STRIEKER (on camera): Some say the governor has caved
into pressure from out
of state animal rights group, but there are hunters here,
who are who also
oppose the bison hunt at this time.
(voice-over): They remember the last public hunts, more
than a decade ago,
when wildlife authorities escorted hunters so close to
buffalo they couldn't
miss.
JOE GUTKOSKI, HUNTER: It was a slaughter, and hunters
do not participate in
wildlife slaughter.
STRIEKER: Ranchers in Montana worry that buffalo leaving
the park could
spread a disease, brucellosis, to their cattle. While
there's never been a
recorded case of buffalo transmitting brucellosis to cattle,
Montana
Livestock and Wildlife Officials insist it is a real threat.
Authorities
chase wandering buffalo back into the park. Captured buffalo,
testing
positive for disease, are sent for slaughter, more than
260, last winter.
Some caught it persecution of buffalo, and they hope the
new governor will
stop it.
MIKE MEASE, BUFFALO FIELD CAMPAIGN: The governor's on
the right track,
stopping the buffalo hunt, but he needs to do more.
STRIEKER: They say it's time to give buffalo more free
access to public
lands bordering the park and more effective ways to control
brucellosis
without harassing buffalo. The governor has provoked a
storm of criticism by
suggesting all buffalo in the park should be rounded up
and replaced with a
new herd of brucellosis-free animals. He's now backed
away from the plan,
and is getting good marks from all sides for being open
to new ideas.
SCHWEITZER: Ideally, we would like the last free-ranging
herd of bison left
in North America to be healthy and to have the opportunity
to range outside
the park.
STRIEKER: Only then, he says, should the public be allowed
to hunt buffalo,
but to reach that point, he'll first have to deal with
Montana's powerful
cattle ranchers.
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