| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 4/08/08 |
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Bison
plan a total failure that needs fixing
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
4/08/08 |
If
any of the state and federal bureaucrats involved still
doubted that this winter's slaughter of roaming Yellowstone
Park bison was a situation run amok, they now have the
authority of the federal Government Accounting Office
to further convince them.
The GAO issued a scathing report last
week that faulted both federal and state agencies for
not letting bison roam out of the park in areas that were
set aside for just that purpose in an interagency bison
management plan adopted in 2000.
The report cited a significant lack
of progress on this thorny issue, despite the fact that
$16 million has been spent on bison management since 2002.
Some $13 million of that was spent on land and conservation
easements where bison typically roam outside the park,
according to the report, even though bison are still prevented
from venturing onto these parcels of land.
State officials slaughtered 1,400 bison
this winter - a record. This wholesale slaughter has been
prominently featured in animal-rights activists' TV ad
campaigns that have tarnished the state's reputation nationwide
- something that a state that depends on tourism for a
substantial portion of its economy can do without.
The GAO report just stands as further
evidence that the much-touted and longawaited interagency
bison management either, a) has never been fully implemented,
or b) was never up to the task it was designed for.
Either way, Gov. Brian Schweitzer would
be well advised to use the clout his predecessor, former
Gov. Marc Racicot, exercised and reconvene the interagency
bison committee that originally formulated the management
plan.
That committee should be directed at
the very least to enforce the bison management plan as
it was conceived.
A management plan that controls bison
numbers effectively without any intervention from government
agencies is probably a ways down the road.
But we won't know what further tweaking
the plan needs until plan adopted in 2000 is fully implemented.
And it's apparent that hasn't happened yet.
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