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West Yellowstone, Montana
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Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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Endangered Species Act
Protecting the Yellowstone bison under the Endangered Species Act is necessary to protect and restore this last wild American bison herd in their native range.
Please TAKE ACTION NOW TO HELP AMERICA’S LAST WILD BUFFALO!
Introduction | Background | Why ESA Protection? | Take Action | Indigenous Support
ESA Contact Info | Talking Points & Supporting Science | More Information | Bison Habitat

Photos by Seamus Allen 2007
INTRODUCTION
The American buffalo, or bison, once roamed North America 30 to 70 million strong. Today, less than 4,500 wild American buffalo remain in the United States, mainly within the confines of Yellowstone National Park.

Since the mid-1980’s agents from Montana’s cattle industry and the federal government have slaughtered wild bison migrating from Yellowstone National Park. This ongoing slaughter threatens the survival of the last wild American bison.

On August 15, 2007 the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued a finding (USFWS FINDING), in response to a hand-written petition submitted by a citizen from Minnesota, Mr. James Horsley, (Download Horsley's Petition, PDF, 8 pages, 1.7MB) on January 5, 1999, urging the government to protect the Yellowstone population - the last wild buffalo left in America - under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

FWS found that the wild population of American buffalo currently living in and around Yellowstone National Park meets the criteria of a Distinct Vertebrate Population Segment (USFWS Distinct Vertebrate Population Segment page). Buffalo Field Campaign has been circulating a petition (Download BFC's ESA PETITION, PDF, 1 page, 152kb) for years to bolster support for protecting the Yellowstone population - America's last wild buffalo - as a Distinct Population Segment. Importantly, USFWS acknowledges that Yellowstone National Park is the *only* place in the U.S. where wild bison have continuously existed since prehistoric times.

Unfortunately, USFWS has failed to adequately consider the wild buffalo's historic range, which spanned hundreds of millions of acres across North America. Under a policy announced in March 2007 that undermines the intent of Congress, the FWS redefined how it determines whether a species is “in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.”

In its finding, USFWS defined significant range only where bison currently exist: the interior of Yellowstone National Park and the Gardiner Basin, north of Yellowstone. Historic bison range be damned.

We the people have an opportunity to help USFWS change their minds and reconsider their decision. The task before us now is to urge USFWS to thoroughly research what the bison’s historic range is, what habitat has been lost and what must be recovered. We must - and we can - clearly demonstrate that the Yellowstone bison population - and its historic native range - is endangered and warrants Endangered Species Act protection.


WHY ESA PROTECTION FOR YELLOWSTONE BISON?
Yellowstone buffalo are the last continuously wild American buffalo left in the United States. Once numbering an estimated 30 to 70 million, and ranging from the Appalachian Highlands to the Chihuahuan Desert in northeastern Mexico, across the Great Plains into the Rocky Mountains to the Great Slave Lake in Canada, today wild buffalo are ecologically extinct throughout nearly all their native range. Yellowstone is the last stronghold for the wild American buffalo. This remnant population represents the last of our nation's wild buffalo, not simply inhabitants of the Yellowstone region. Yellowstone is where 23 individual buffalo escaped the horrendous 19th century slaughter and their near extinction.

Now is the time to help gain strong protection for America's last wild buffalo! Please see the action item below. Read through the talking points and supporting evidence. Submit your comments to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS Contact Information). Please pass this on to everyone you know. This is a great opportunity to make a real, lasting difference for America's last wild buffalo and their native habitat!

Background Information
Click here to go to our Endangered Species Act Background Information page


TAKE ACTION! TELL FWS TO PROTECT WILD BISON UNDER THE ESA!
Please contact the USFWS today!  Let them know you support James Horsley's petition.  Urge them to grant Endangered Species Act protections to the Yellowstone buffalo, and strongly encourage them to reconsider their current position not to protect wild buffalo and their habitat under the ESA.  USFWS's finding is deficient and lacking serious scientific consideration of the full range of threats that imperil the wild American buffalo's survival. The agency must be encouraged to gather and use the 'best available science' when making their decision.   Our task is to identify important and substantial information that clearly demonstrates that the last wild buffalo, those remaining in Yellowstone, and their native, historic range, deserve protection under the ESA.  Include any information you feel is important to the history and future of wild buffalo in America.  Submit stories, maps, books, papers; any information we can submit to the USFWS to help them realize that the Yellowstone herd is, indeed, endangered, and deserving of ESA protection.

INFORMATION YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE:
* Scientific, legal, historical, literary articles and books.
* Indigenous story lines on bison occupying the Plains and Mountain ecosystems in the West.
* Video, audio and photos.
* Population surveys, habitat maps, genetic and biological data.
Petitions, letters, faxes, emails, and phone calls of support to the USFWS can make a difference for America's last wild bison!

WILD BISON NEED INDIGENOUS SUPPORT!
The USFWS ignored any cultural significance of the bison to indigenous peoples. First Nations must be heard. Help us fill in the storylines of yesterday! Many Americans have only a contemporary understanding of the buffalo's historic range. Tribal members from the Indigenous Cultures who evolved and coexisted with the buffalo can contribute significantly, helping to fill in the many gaps that still exist, by sharing stories, songs, and indigenous knowledge of the buffalo's ancestral landscape and significance, what the people and the land have suffered in their absence, and what their return would mean.


SEND YOUR COMMENTS TO:
Michael Stempel
Assistant Regional Director, Ecological Services
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
134 Union Boulevard
Suite 645
Lakewood, CO  80228
mike_stempel@fws.gov
(ph) 303-236-4253
(fax) 303-236-0027


ESA TALKING POINTS & SUPPORTING SCIENCE:
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's finding does not consider how and by what migratory routes bison came to occupy the Yellowstone Plateau. This is a critical discussion - missing from their finding - on wild bison's native range in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Without this discussion, the American people have no way to judge whether bison are endangered within all or a significant portion of their native range.

Dr. Mary Meagher, Yellowstone National Park's bison biologist for more than 30 years, believes that at the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, glacial retreat opened up range for bison migrating from surrounding river valleys who followed plant green up to the Yellowstone Plateau. Yellowstone's unique geothermal features opened winter range for bison to occupy the habitat year round.

Paradise Valley, along the Yellowstone River, is one of the river valleys with documented bison jumps and other archaeological evidence of bison inhabiting range that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service did not consider in its finding.

"The Lamar Valley and the Yellowstone River Valley north of the park (Figure 4.1) to Livingston and beyond was an important area for bison and Native peoples throughout the Holocene. This system can be considered the original Northern Range for Yellowstone bison, functioning as an ecological continuum of grasslands that likely supported seasonal migrations by bison as far south as the high elevation ranges in the Upper Lamar Valley. Davis and Zeier (1978:224) described the lower Yellowstone Valley as an exceptional area for Native people to gather, drive and kill bison. Eight bison jumps and three kill sites have been documented south of Livingston. The closest jump site to YNP is 25 km north of the park boundary. It was used during the late prehistoric period between 1,700 and 200 b.p. (Cannon 1992). There is evidence of a human use corridor from the Gallatin and Madison River drainages into the interior Yellowstone National Park. Several major bison kill sites are located in the Gallatin Valley outside of Bozeman Montana."
C. Cormack Gates et al, THE ECOLOGY OF BISON MOVEMENTS AND DISTRIBUTION IN AND BEYOND YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, A Critical Review With Implications for Winter Use and Transboundary Population Management, April 2005.

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's finding fails to consider the biology of bison, their nomadic nature and migratory instinct, knowledge and memory of destination, evolutionary significant characteristics of a wild bison herd.

Long distance migration, what defines wild bison as a nomadic, herd animal that once thundered across the plains, is gone.

In The Last Mile: How to Sustain Long-Distance Migration in Mammals, (Conservation Biology, Pages 320-331, Volume 18, No. 2, April 2004) Joel Berger examined the "ecological phenomena" of accentuated treks of native ungulates in Yellowstone and found that 100% of historic and current routes for bison are lost.

Bison corridors and habitat on National Forest lands surrounding Yellowstone National Park still exist but the US Forest Service has yet to manage public lands for wild bison. Gallatin National Forest, for example, which borders much of Yellowstone National Park, does not even mention wild bison in their forest management plan.

Migratory corridors and natural selection of habitat is critical to maintaining the bison's herd habitat and genetic fitness, and making a sound determination on the bison's native range.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service also fails to consider that wild bison as a native wildlife species are at risk of genomic extinction.

A vast number of the 500,000 bison you see on the land today have been bred with cattle. Conservatively, wild pure bison managed as a wildlife species number around 4,500 in the United States, and only one herd remains that has continuously occupied its native range since prehistoric time: the Yellowstone bison.

The extensive prevalence of cattle genes in bison populations, habitat fragmentation, limited range and population sizes, isolated populations, artificial selection, intensive management and fenced ranges, and non-native disease are just some of the risk factors of ecological extinction that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service failed to consider in its finding.

Curtis Freese along with several scientists writes in the Second chance for the plains bison, (Biological Conservation 2007): "Small herd size, artificial selection, cattle-gene introgression, and other factors threaten the diversity and integrity of the bison genome. In addition, the bison is for all practical purposes ecologically extinct across its former range, with multiple consequences for grassland biodiversity. Urgent measures are needed to conserve the wild bison genome and to restore the ecological role of bison in grassland ecosystems."

"Today, the plains bison is for all practical purposes ecologically extinct within its original range."

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service utterly failed to discuss the ecological importance of bison and the vital, keystone role they play in maintaining ecosystem health and function. Congress had intended that the Endangered Species Act protect not just the species but the ecosystem they reside in: "to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved."
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode16/usc_sec_16_00001531----000-.html

Extirpation of bison from their native range is an indicator that the prairie ecosystem they played a part in forming is also at risk of extinction.

"Bison were a keystone species of the prairie ecosystem; significantly affecting the way the prairie grassland ecosystem evolved and playing an important role in maintaining it. Wild bison remain ecologically extinct in Montana. The State of Montana Department of Livestock has prevented the natural dispersal of wild bison into Montana from Yellowstone National Park because of disease issues while no attempts are underway to restore the species outside of this controversial region. Current management of private, state and Federal bison herds is leading towards domestication of bison that threatens their wild character and limits important natural selection processes."  Position Statement of the Montana Chapter of The Wildlife Society on Wild Bison in Montana, signed by the Executive Board of The Montana Chapter of The Wildlife Society, and adopted April 11, 2000.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service puts great faith in the "contingency measures" of the Interagency Bison Management Plan and its "successful management" to prevent the loss of the Yellowstone bison population.

The on-going slaughter of large numbers of wild bison under the interagency plan may threaten the genetic viability and integrity of the Yellowstone bison herd's subpopulation structure.

Scientists have identified two distinct breeding grounds that help maintain genetic diversity within the bison herd. However, there is no evidence that the interagency plan has considered bison subpopulation structure in its management decisions and actions.

"The current practice of culling bison without regard to possible subpopulation structure has potentially negative consequences of reduced genetic diversity and alteration of current genetic constitution both within individual subpopulations and the overall YNP bison population."

"Since bison are known to naturally assemble in matriarchal groups including several generations of related females and the most recent calf crop (Seton 1937; Haines 1995), it is possible that the culling of bison at the YNP boundaries is non-random with respect to family groups, a practice that over sufficient time may lead to systematic loss of genetic variation."

"The caveat, however, is that caution must be practiced in the management of populations with substructure to ensure the maintenance of both subpopulation and total population variation. The YNP bison population has not previously been managed with this consideration in mind. For example, 1,084 bison were removed from YNP in the winter of 1996-97, representing a 31.5% decrease in total population size. Even more troubling, however, is the inequality in the reductions across the Northern and Central herds. While the Northern herd suffered a loss of approximately 83.9% (726/825), the Central herd was reduced by only around 13.9% (358/2,571; Peter Gogan pers. comm.). If in fact the Yellowstone bison population is represented by 2 or 3 different subpopulations, disproportionate removals of bison from various subpopulations might have detrimental long-term genetic consequences." Natalie Dierschke Halbert, The Utilization of Genetic Markers to Resolve Modern Management Issues in Historic Bison Populations: Implications for Species Conservation, December 2003.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION TODAY!

MORE INFORMATION:
For additional science conservation, habitat maps, and historical manuscripts on bison visit our habitat page. http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/habitat.html

Download James Horsley's Petition (PDF, 8 pages, 1.7MB) January 5, 1999

Download USFWS FINDING (PDF, 6 pages, 100kb) August 15, 2007

USFWS PRESS RELEASE August 17, 2007

TEXT VERSION OF USFWS FINDING:
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/E7-16004.htm

Congressional findings and declaration of purposes and policy of the Endangered Species Act:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode16/usc_sec_16_00001531----000-.html

Information on the USFWS Policy Regarding the Recognition of Distinct Vertebrate Population Segments Under the Endangered Species Act:
http://www.fws.gov/endangered/policy/pol005.html

THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON,
By William T. Hornaday, Superintendent of the National Zoological Park, 1889
An eBook courtesy of Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17748/17748-h/17748-h.htm

3/10/04- Bison have nowhere left to roam, New Scientist, by Dan Whipple
The migration of America's great mammals is being cut off by encroaching human habitation and energy plants and pipelines.

Bison Habitat
Click here to go to our Bison Habitat page

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