| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 3/27/08 |
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Bison
activists arrested
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
By Chronicle Staff
3/27/08 |
Two
women protesting the slaughter of bison at Yellowstone National
Park were arrested Wednesday after chaining themselves
to a stairway inside a park visitor center.
Park spokesman Al Nash said the women
were cut loose and booked by park police on charges of
disorderly conduct and interfering with agency functions.
The women were being held in the Mammoth
Hot Springs jail, pending an arraignment this morning.
On Wednesday, fellow activist Nathan
Drake, who is with the Buffalo Field Campaign, identified
the women as West Yellowstone residents Catherine
Simonidis, 22, and Miriam Wasser, 20.
Drake, arrested in February for a similar
protest at Horse Butte near West Yellowstone, said Simonidis
and Wasser are bison activists, though not members
of his group.
Drake was arrested after chaining himself
to a gate used to capture and hold bison. He was charged
with obstructing a peace officer, resisting arrest and
criminal trespass, all misdemeanors. He is out on $5,000
bail pending disposition of his case.
The Buffalo Field Campaign, which
has worked for years to stop the slaughter of bison, released
a written statement Wednesday about the women's arrests.
In the statement, Wasser said she was motivated to civil
protest in the hopes that it would bring attention to
the bison slaughter and stop it.
"This issue is black and white,"
Wasser said in the written statement. "The Park Service
is meant to protect and preserve wildlife in National
Parks, not indiscriminately slaughter hundreds of buffalo,
or compromise their wildness by quarantining and holding
them in pens."
Wasser also sent a letter to Yellowstone National
Park Superintendent Susan Lewis, according to the news
statement. In the letter, Wasser asks Lewis to withdraw
from the Interagency Bison Management Plan.
Adopted in 2000, the plan was created
to protect cattle in grazing areas near the park from
contracting the disease brucellosis through contact with
bison.
More than 1,200 Yellowstone bison have
been killed this year, primarily through the management
plan, but some through hunting. The bison sent to
slaughter were captured leaving the park in search of
food at lower elevations and sent to slaughter.
On Wednesday, park service staff shipped
to slaughter 22 bison from the Stephens Creek facility
near Gardener, according to an update released by Nash.
Those bison had all tested seropositive for exposure
to brucellosis.
Park staff also are holding a number
of bison at the facility, including 15 radio-collared
and 17 sero-negative animals, for release at spring green-up.
All bison testing sero-positive for exposure to brucellosis
will be shipped to slaughter.
The Associated Press contributed to
this report.
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