| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 4/12/08 |
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Current
bison policy should be abandoned
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
4/12/08
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Chris
Naumann is co-owner of Barrel Mountaineering in downtown
Bozeman.
Over the past eight years, the Interagency
Bison Management Plan (IBMP) has proven to be fundamentally
flawed. The partnership of five state and federal agencies
- National Park Service, USDA Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service, United States Forest Service, Montana
Department of Livestock, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
- have failed to meet even its most basic objectives while
squandering over $15 million.
The culling of nearly 1,400 bison this
winter alone represents the highest level of slaughter
since the 19th century and exemplifies that the IBMP needs
to be abandoned and replaced with a truly adaptive strategy
that recognizes cattle must be more aggressively managed
than bison.
The current IBMP claims its primary
objective is to preserve a viable and free-ranging population
of wild Yellowstone bison. This objective and the
management techniques being implemented under the IBMP
are blatantly contradictory. "Wild" and "free-ranging"
by definition are the antithesis of containment and domestication,
yet the IBMP relies on the capture and detainment of bison thus
reducing them from migratory wildlife to tamed livestock.
Over a year ago, in a report to the
House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public
Lands, the Government Accountability Office, concluded:
"A key condition for the partner agencies to progress
further under the plan requires that cattle no longer
graze in the winter on certain private lands north of
Yellowstone National Park and west of the Yellowstone River
to minimize the risk of brucellosis transmission from
bison to cattle."
With this observation, the GAO implied
a simple solution to this unnecessarily complicated management
plan: shift the focus from managing bison to controlling
cattle.
Despite no documented cases of cattle
contracting brucellosis from bison, the transmission of
the disease could occur during bison calving season
if cattle were to come in direct contact with bison after-birth.
Bison calving season occurs during a predictable
time each spring in very limited geographic areas of the
greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Therefore, in order
to minimize potential brucellosis transmission, common
sense dictates that managing the few hundred head of cattle
that exist in the bison's historic winter and calving
range would be much more practical and cost-effective
than attempting to control several thousand wild animals.
To simplify and streamline efforts aimed
at keeping Montana cattle brucellosis-free, the Interagency
Bison Management Plan should be dismantled allowing
each state and federal agency to contribute to a solution
within the parameters of their individual mandates.
Subsequently, the Forest Service should
not renew the special use permits allowing the operation
of the bison capture facilities on public land. In
turn, the Forest Service, in conjunction with the Montana
Fish, Wildlife and Parks, should identify the extent of
the bison's range, and pursue land acquisitions and
easements to establish and protect bison habitat
outside of Yellowstone National Park.
Bison should be exclusively managed
by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks just like every other
big game species, such as elk and deer. This could be
accomplished by implementing a comprehensive bison-hunting
season including hunter access to private land using the
successful block management program. Bison hunting
tags should be available to residents and nonresidents
at a premium fee congruent with the trophy status of bighorn
sheep and mountain goats.
Concurrently, the Department of Livestock
should concede that they have no business capturing, vaccinating
and culling bison, but rather should adhere to their primary
mandate of managing cattle. Dissolving historic but presently
unused grazing allotments north of Yellowstone National
Park and revising those in use to begin later in the summer
would keep cattle isolated from calving bison, thus preventing
the transmission of brucellosis.
By simply retooling the Interagency
Bison Management Plan concept to primarily control
the distribution of cattle rather than that of bison,
Montana could effectively preserve a viable wild population
of Yellowstone bison and maintain the state's
brucellosis-free status.
Prolonging the IBMP will only prove
to be increasingly controversial, while on the other hand,
implementing the simple solutions currently on the table
will allow Montana to regain its dignity in the eyes of
the world.
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