| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 4/07/05 |
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| Bison
pushed back into Yellowstone
By Mike Stark, Billings Gazette
4/07/05 |
More
than 250 bison were pushed back into Yellowstone National
Park on Wednesday, perhaps the most bison moved in a single
day by the Montana Department of Livestock.
Meanwhile, eight bison captured Tuesday will be taken
to slaughter and three young bison will be transported
to a bison quarantine facility near Gardiner.
The activity marks the beginning of a typically busy spring
as more bison wander out of Yellowstone's west border.
The bison are hazed and captured as part of a state and
federal effort to keep Yellowstone's bison from transmitting
brucellosis to nearby cattle. So far this year, more than
1,000 bison have been pushed back into Yellowstone and
22 have been sent to slaughter.
The bison migration tends to heat up in April and May
as they crunch westward through pockets of deep snow in
search of food.
This is the time when it starts getting crazy, said Stephany
Seay, of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group that advocates
for bison and monitors government management actions.
Government agents on snowmobile and horseback spent much
of Wednesday morning pushing back 259 bison at Horse Butte
and near the Madison River rim area.
At the end of March, 216 were hazed back into Yellowstone,
but state livestock officials said they couldn't find
a record of moving more than 259 in a single day.
This is probably the largest, said Karen Cooper, a spokeswoman
for the Montana Department of Livestock.
By Wednesday afternoon, many of the bison had already
turned around and were headed back toward public land
at Horse Butte, where there typically are no cattle until
June, according to the Buffalo Field Campaign.
Twenty-four bison that were captured Tuesday at the Duck
Creek facility near West Yellowstone were tested Wednesday
for exposure to brucellosis.
Of those, 13 tested negative and were released. Eight
tested positive and will be sent to slaughter where their
meat, heads and hides will be donated to tribal organizations.
Three calves were set aside for the experimental quarantine
facility that was established this year at Corwin Springs,
just outside Gardiner.
The 400-acre pilot project is meant to determine whether
a quarantine system could be used to find brucellosis-free
bison to start free-ranging herds in elsewhere in Montana
and the United States.
The Buffalo Field Campaign has voiced concerns that the
quarantine facility will domesticate Yellowstone's wild
bison and that the hazing on Yellowstone's west border
upsets natural migration patterns and puts bison at risk
as they move across a nearby highway.
On average, about 1,500 bison are hazed back into Yellowstone
each year along the park's western edge. Many exit the
park and are hazed several times during the spring.
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