Yellowstone Bison Management Plan

Decision Imminent
Advocate for an Environmentally Preferable Alternative
Act by July 8, 2024

Yellowstone National Park has released its’ final environmental analysis for a plan on how buffalo will be managed for years to come. The release starts a 30-day “waiting period” after which Regional Director Kate Hammond will make a momentous decision on the future of our country’s last wild buffalo herds.

What you can do.
Contact Kate Hammond and Cam Sholly before July 8.

Kate Hammond, Regional Director National Park Service
12795 West Alameda Parkway
Denver, CO 80225
(303) 969-2500
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Cam Sholly, Superintendent Yellowstone National Park
Attn: Bison Management Plan
PO Box 168
Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190
(307) 344-2002
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Urge the Regional Director and Superintendent to create an “environmentally preferable alternative” that causes the least damage to, and best protects wild buffalo and the Yellowstone ecosystem by:

Managing wild buffalo like wild elk. Cease costly and wasteful government management actions.
Getting Yellowstone National Park out of the business of harassing, trapping, domesticating, and slaughtering wild buffalo, which suppresses the herds, and impedes migration to National Forest habitat.
Safeguarding genetic diversity by conserving at least 2,000 to 3,000 adult buffalo in each herd. More must be done for the Central herd whose numbers have been perilously low since 2008.
Independently studying genetic variation and herd integrity, and how “management” factored in changing Yellowstone’s population structure from “genetically distinct bison subpopulations” to “one interbreeding population.”
Implementing projects with the Custer Gallatin National Forest and American Indian Tribes to restore connectivity to habitat, and respecting buffalo’s freedom to roam National public trust lands.
Building infrastructure for wildlife safe passages.

Background

In January 2022, Yellowstone National Park published a notice asking for public scoping comments on a new bison management plan that reflects all of the changed circumstances and the best available science since the outdated plan went into effect in 2000. The Park’s notice also terminated an attempt, begun in 2015, to write a new plan with the State of Montana. BFC submitted detailed comments and a proposal asking that the public be given a chance to comment on an alternative to manage wild bison like wild elk. Download BFC's scoping comments from February 28, 2022 (PDF).

In August 2023, Buffalo Field Campaign and Western Watersheds Project collaborated in developing joint comments on the Park’s draft plan which can be downloaded here: BFC and WWP Comments Yellowstone National Park Bison Management Plan Draft EIS, September 20, 2023 (PDF 614kb)

Read Yellowstone National Park’s Final Environmental Impact Statement, June 2024 (PDF)

Read Yellowstone National Park’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement, August 2023 (PDF)

Read Yellowstone National Park's newsletter, January 2022 (PDF)

Read Yellowstone National Park's notice in the Federal Register, January 2022 (PDF)

Go to Yellowstone National Park's Bison Management Plan web page.