| WEST
YELLOWSTONE- Thursday, March 25, the Department
of Livestock sent 8 buffalo to slaughter from their
trap in the Duck Creek drainage after baiting 10 buffalo
with hay on March 23 and holding them in the facility
for 48 hours. Four were bulls and four were pregnant
cows.
2
calves who were released onto Horse Butte walked into
the new capture facility today, which is not currently
operating. The Duck Creek trap is located approximately
100 yards from Yellowstone Park's boundary. Currently
there are over 25 bison inside the park in the Duck
Creek drainage who will possibly attempt to migrate
outside of the park using this natural migration corridor
to access lower elevation habitat outside of the Park.
Snow inside the park at Duck Creek is beginning to melt,
and some forage at the creekside is becoming accessible
for the buffalo.
"DOL hay is luring buffalo outside of the park who might
otherwise stay inside and eat their accustomed food
for this time of year. The DOL's practices baiting their
facility with hay is more about job security than disease
management," said Sue Nackoney, Buffalo Field Campaign
spokesperson. Only six of the buffalo tested positive
for exposure to brucellosis, two of the pregnant females
tested negative for exposure to brucellosis. The tests
determine exposure to the disease, not the ability of
a test-positive bison to transmit the disease.
"Obviously buffalo are not being killed because of brucellosis.
These buffalo would have to walk almost 10 miles and
wait there for over 3 months before there was even any
chance of a contacting a cow. Buffalo are back in the
park by summer, and local ranchers are showing flexibility
about the return time for their cows to the area. Yesterday's
killings only show that policies of bison management
are becoming more far-fetched all the time, policies
that will only end in tragedy for more buffalo before
the end of the winter," said spokesperson Sarah K. Chalmers.
Groups of buffalo on the Madison River have already
begun to migrate back to the park.
DOL
has completed construction of a new trap on Horse Butte,
a peninsula in the Gallatin National Forest, the same
area where they release bison who have been captured
and released. "The complicity of the United States Forest
Service and the Governor of Montana on this issue blatantly
shows the public that conservation is not the concern
of these offices," Chalmers said.
Top
of Page |
