| Island
Park, Idaho- Four wild bison were captured
in Idaho and transported to Yellowstone National Park
today in an operation conducted by the Idaho Department
of Agriculture, Department of Fish and Game, Highway
Patrol, and the Fremont County Sheriff's Department.
Shortly
after 8am, three of four bison that were grazing to
the west of Highway 20 near Island Park were shot with
tranquilizers, loaded onto a livestock trailer and transported
to the Park's west entrance near West Yellowstone, Montana.
The fourth bull was captured at 10am and transported
to a service road inside the park where the trailer
holding the other three was waiting.
Citizens
were prevented from witnessing the release.
Idaho
maintains a "zero tolerance" policy for bison entering
the state. In past years bison migrating into Idaho
have been shot and killed because of fears that they
could transmit brucellosis to cattle.
According
to Park biologist John Mack, "There has never been a
documented case of a bull bison transmitting brucellosis."
Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) volunteers have been standing
with the four bulls while they have been out of the
park to protect them and to document any actions taken
against them. BFC activists witnessed today's capture
and videotaped as the bison were tranquilized and dragged
onto the trailer.
"They would have killed them if we weren't out here
this morning," said BFC volunteer Valerie Coulter. "Idaho
didn't want to be thrust into the bison slaughter spotlight
with our video footage of them killing four bulls."
"Elk,
also known to carry brucellosis, are allowed to move
freely between the park and surrounding states," stated
BFC spokesperson Dan Brister, "but the minute a buffalo
steps out it is either killed or pushed back into the
park." Jim Coefield, of The Ecology Center, Inc. said
"the presence of these buffalo in Idaho, so far from
Yellowstone's boundary, lays bare a fatal flaw in federal
and state Bison Management Plan: buffalo are a migratory
species. The Plan dictates that bison remain inside
an arbitrary boundary, kow-towing to the cattle industry's
dictates that they still want control of the West. As
the salmon swims to the sea and the goose flies south
for the winter, buffalo should be allowed to migrate
to their ancestral feeding grounds outside of Yellowstone
National Park."
Buffalo
Field Campaign volunteers defend the buffalo on their
traditional habitat and advocate for their protection.
BFC is the only group working in the field every day
to stop the slaughter of Yellowstone's wild buffalo.
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