2018 11 22 02 001 APHIS BFC StephanySeay photo

Putting it mildly. A female buffalo expresses her people’s sentiment towards the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service.

Buffalo Field Campaign’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit continues to divulge more evidence of how unfit the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is in having any role managing our National Mammal, the wild buffalo. Thank you to attorney Daniel Snyder and our legal team at the Charlie Tebbutt law firm who have been of tremendous help in disclosing the public’s business.

APHIS’s offensive statements (provided here, APHIS's Bastard Bison, PDF, excerpted below) show a callous disregard for buffalo. At the same time APHIS sought Yellowstone National Park’s help in taking more buffalo for their birth control study using GonaCon, a chemical sterilant, they didn’t want any obligation placed on them to get rid of the “bastard” buffalo under their care.

APHIS’s GonaCon study was shut down by their higher ups in the bureaucracy for running afoul of agency rules (See our article Good news for wild buffalo in Gardiner basin.). The buffalo taken from the wild under permit from Yellowstone National Park were killed or shipped to Colorado for more “study.”

However, APHIS remains entrenched in buffalo management through the taxpayer moneys they annually dole out to the Montana Dept. of Livestock. APHIS Funding MDOL Bison Operations 2018 (PDF).

We can and must take action for the buffalo. Contact your representative in the U.S. House.

Ask them to cut-off taxpayer moneys and axe APHIS’s on-going cooperative agreement with the Montana Dept. of Livestock to fund their buffalo management scheme.

APHIS has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to the Montana Dept. of Livestock to remove all wild buffalo that migrate into the state. The spigot of American taxpayer funding has been running nonstop for two decades.

There’s an action we can take to stop it! The U.S. Congress has the power to cut-off the free taxpayer funding pipeline that is destroying our last wild buffalo in Montana. Please contact the U.S. Congress today!

Thank you for taking action on behalf of our National Mammal, the buffalo.

From: Rhyan, Jack C - APHIS
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 3:21 PM
To: Clarke, Patrick R. - APHIS
Subject: RE: Conference call about GonaCon (2nd rendition) ? Elk study at Brogan's?
Off the top of my bald head:
I like the bastard question best. I think with those we donate their little bastard carcasses to the food bank, as they have no special value for conservation.
Jack
PS: we might should delete these emails.
~ ~ ~
From: Clarke, Patrick R. - APHIS
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 2:52 PM
To: Rhyan, Jack C - APHIS; Frey, Rebecca K - APHIS
Cc: Nol, Pauline - APHIS; McCollum, Matthew P - APHIS
Subject: RE: Conference call about GonaCon (2nd rendition) ? Elk study at Brogan's?
This may be a dumb question...... but why aren’t the seronegative bison that graduate from the GonaCon study (and have met the BQFS protocol)....why aren’t they wildlife and the property of FWP just like the BQFS graduates? What makes them different when they came from the same source?
Which brings up another question....some females were bred by SD bulls.....what do we do with their negative offspring? (i.e. the impure Yellowstone bastards!)
P. Ryan Clarke, DVM, MPH
Regional Epidemiologist-GYA
USDA-APHIS-VS-WR
406-388-5162
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From: Clarke, Patrick R. - APHIS
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 8:28 AM
To: Rhyan, Jack C - APHIS; Frey, Rebecca K - APHIS
Cc: Nol, Pauline - APHIS; McCollum, Matthew P - APHIS
Subject: RE: Conference call about GonaCon (2nd rendition) ? Elk study at Brogan's?
They give us ownership in article VI (A), but then dictate what happens to the bison 4-5 years later. Remember how we were stuck feeding and caring for BQFS for a year+, because we could not get rid of them.
We do not want to be stuck with thse animal for months and months and months with out certain deadlines in place.
P. Ryan Clarke, DVM, MPH
Regional Epidemiologist-GYA
USDA-APHIS-VS-WR
406-388-5162