WEST YELLOWSTONE- Construction of a new Department of Livestock operated capture facility is nearly complete. The DOL will use the trap to capture, test, and slaughter at least half of Yellowstone's bison who migrate onto their critical winter habitat on the Gallatin National Forest on Horse Butte. The facility has been permitted to operate during the winter for the next ten years.

The Gallatin National Forest, particularly in the Horse Butte area, provides critical winter habitat for Yellowstone wildlife, particularly buffalo. Currently the warm south-facing slopes of Horse Butte provide the most plentiful available forage for migrating buffalo. There are over 30 buffalo grazing on the exposed ground on the Butte within a half mile radius of the capture facility. Horse Butte is a peninsula on Hebgen Lake, NW of West Yellowstone, and is an active bald eagle nesting site. Biologists with the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks have been daily documenting eagle nesting activity . The area also provides habitat for additional threatened and endangered species such as the grizzly bear and peregrine falcon. The facility is located within 1/4 mile of a bald eagle nest, which is actively used by a pair of bald eagles.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued a Biological Opinion authorizing a "take" of the nest, which will allow the impact of operating the facility to displace eagles from nest site and render the site inactive. However, the permit to the nest was issued assuming that construction of the facility would be complete during nesting season, which began February 1. Construction of the facility involves heavy machinery, soil disturbance, a generator and floodlights that illuminate the area at night. "Hazing operations are likely to seriously impact the viability of the nest site near the facility, as well as two other nest sites on Horse Butte.

Buffalo Field Campaign will be making sure that the DOL follows all hazing restrictions designed to protect the eagles required by the permit," stated Pam Uihlein, Eagle Monitoring intern with the Ecology Center in Missoula. "The land on Horse Butte was originally protected in the 1926 Gallatin Land Agreement as winter range for buffalo and other Park wildlife due to the foresight of legislators who understood that the boundary of Yellowstone Park does not reflect the ecosystem boundary.

Yet we are seeing the protections for wildlife fall by the wayside in order to protect cattle interests. There is no reason why buffalo, eagles, bears, and all other wildlife should not be able to exist on these lands without interference by the Department of Livestock," stated Sue Nackoney, Buffalo Field Campaign spokesperson. "The DOL are placing unfair restrictions on the area, local residents have been threatened with arrest for walking out to see what is harping to their backyard, and volunteers have been arrested by DOL agents for walking buffalo down the 610 road, all in the name of building an unnecessary and intrusive new capture facility," stated Mike Mease of Buffalo Field Campaign.

"Buffalo Field Campaign will be here as long as it takes to remove the DOL as overseers of wildlife and until the buffalo are given the freedom they deserve." Recent modifications to grazing allotments on the Gallatin National Forest prohibit the return of cattle until 30 to 60 days after buffalo leave the allotments, and no earlier than June 15. The summer grazing on Horse Butte amounts to 172 cow/calf pairs. This grazing allotment brings in less than $800 to the U.S. Treasury.

The state of Montana has requested up to $500,000 per year from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the operation of the bison trap for the purpose protecting its brucellosis-free status (a status given by the USDA to states which have no brucellosis in their cattle herds). However, the USDA does not have the legal authority to revoke Montana's status based solely on the presence of potentially exposed wildlife in the state. The facility will capture and test buffalo who migrate to the peninsula. The agencies claim that the operation of the capture facility will help with the "urgent need" to reduce bison mortality. However, in the winter of 1996-1997, the use of these facilities sent hundreds of buffalo to slaughter.

All pregnant females, regardless of whether they test positive for brucellosis, will be shipped to slaughter. All other buffalo testing positive will be shipped to slaughter.

More than half of the buffalo captured in a similar trap at Duck Creek this year by the DOL have been slaughtered while only 13% have actually carried brucellosis. "Just as humans vaccinated against polio will develop anti-bodies without ever actually having had the disease, an animal exposed to brucellosis may develop anti-bodies and test positive under the tests administered by the DOL , without ever having developed brucellosis," said Buffalo Field Campaign spokesperson Cris Mulvey. Only culture tests determine if an animal is actually infected with brucellosis. Such tests are conducted at the slaughterhouse by the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

According to APHIS, only 2 of the first 17 buffalo slaughtered this winter actually carried the disease. Of the 65,000 public comments submitted on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for long-term bison management, the majority were not in support of government policies of trapping migrating buffalo. The decision to build the capture facility will commit resources to a 10 year plan, although management agencies have not yet decided upon an action alternative from the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for long term bison management. Only the government's preferred action alternative includes plans for building a capture facility on Horse Butte. Video available upon request. Scanned still photos available.

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