Thursday morning, the Department of Livestock conducted a hazing operation of wild bison at Horse Butte and along the Madison River Valley, just west of the Yellowstone National Park. The Department of Livestock used a helicopter, ATVs and Horses to haze the approximately 31 bison to Yellowstone National Park.

One BFC volunteer was arrested for allegedly entering a closed area surrounding the Horse Butte capture facility during the operation.

During the spring, Cow and calf bison take their natural migration pattern along the Madison River out of the park to the national forests Horse Butte peninsula. They typically give birth to their young and return to their habitat within the park by late spring. Their migration to Horse Butte provides them and their young with green grasses that have yet to sprout in higher elevations of the park. This area that the bison migrate was set aside by Congress in 1926s Gallatin Land Agreement as the greater Yellowstone ecosystem for the use of the National Parks wildlife during winter and spring. The Madison River Valley is well known for its pristine habitat.

This winter and spring BFC volunteers have, on numerous occasions, sited elk, deer, pine martins, beaver, moose, Golden and Bald Eagles and countless species of waterfowl including Trumpeter Swans, Great Blue Herons and Sand Hill Cranes.

The river valley leading to Horse Butte serves as prime reproducing and foraging habitat for Yellowstone and National forest wildlife. This morning the DoL helicopter repeatedly flew at treetop level and violated a no fly zone over the Horse Butte area in their efforts to haze a group of bison which included at least five pregnant cows due to give birth in April and May.

Today marks the fifth time in two months that DoL has used a helicopter in this delicate ecosystem. The hazing is part of the Bison Management Plan that was developed over a ten-year period by the National Park Service, National Forest Service, and the State of Montana. The plan will spend over $40 million in taxpayer money in the next fifteen years. Rather than focusing on solutions, this new plan only perpetuates the myth of brucellosis and the slaughter and mistreatment of the last wild buffalo.

Buffalo Field Campaign is opposed to the repeated and unnecessary hazing of these animals, and remains adamant that bison be granted the same rights as other wildlife. BFC volunteers have observed that bison hazed back to the park during past DOL operations quickly return to the same area. Each hazing action further places pregnant cows at a high risk for abortion and disrupts crucial migratory and sensitive reproductive patterns of all wildlife in the area.

The Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) is the only group working in the field, everyday, to stop the slaughter of Yellowstone's wild buffalo. Volunteers defend the buffalo on their traditional winter habitat and advocate for their protection. Our daily patrols stand with the buffalo on the ground they choose to be on and document every move made against them.

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