Yellowstone Says It Will Slaughter Bison!

BFC photo

Yellowstone National Park is back to enjoying another blood bath within the next week or 2.
The last big slaughter was winter 2007-2008 in which the park gladly helped kill 1,631. Due however to public outcry the park decided killing bison in the park and around the park wasn't good for PR, so Yellowstone quit.

Now, however park officials say, keeping bison numbers under control is key to increasing public tolerance for the animals. read more


The current number of bison as of last summer is estimated to be 3,700 according to YNP. In 2010 the population was estimated to be 3,900.

Please contact YNP Superintendent Dan Wenk yell_superintendent@nps.gov or call him 307-344-2003
and tell him NO SLAUGHTER!

Idaho Declares Disaster Emergency

"The uncontrolled proliferation of imported wolves on private land has produced a clear and present danger to humans, their pets and livestock, and has altered and hindered historical uses of private and public land, dramatically inhibiting previously safe activities such as walking, picnicking, biking, berry picking, hunting and fishing."

Excerpt of Otter's Declaration Letter

Idaho Conservation League commented:

This action is over the top, even by Idaho standards.

Gov. Otter enacted H0343 to deal with this drama. Here's a snippet:

 67-5807. GOVERNOR -- EXECUTIVE ORDERS. (1) Pursuant to this act, the governor may issue executive orders and proclamations and amend or rescind such orders and proclamations. Executive orders and proclamations have the
force and effect of law. A disaster emergency may be declared by executive order or proclamation of the governor if the governor finds any of the following:

(a) Any Canadian gray wolf within the state is a carrier of a disease harmful to humans, livestock, pets and wild game and that there is a risk of transmission of such disease to humans, livestock, pets or wild game;
(b) The potential of human–wolf conflict exists and that the Canadian gray wolf is frequenting areas inhabited by humans or showing habituated behavior toward humans;
(c) That the potential for livestock–wolf conflict exists and that the Canadian gray wolf is frequenting areas that are largely ranchland with livestock or showing evidence of habituated behavior toward livestock;
(d) The numbers of Canadian gray wolves are such that there is an impact to Idaho big game herds as identified in the wolf management plan of 2002, and that there is evidence that increasing the number of wolves beyond one hundred (100) has had detrimental impacts on big game populations, the economic viability of the Idaho department of fish and game, outfitters and guides, and others who depend on a viable population of
big game animals;
(e) The numbers of big game animals have been significantly impacted below that of recent historical numbers and that there has been a measurable diminution in the value of businesses tied to outfitting and other game or hunting based businesses.

Gov. B.S. Says He "Cares" About Bison

In an interview with Politics Daily, MT Gov. Brian Schweitzer was quoted with such humble remarks it makes a person sick and frustrated.

"This is a buffalo, OK. This is not a human," he said. "But I care about them, too. I feel a special responsibility."

"I picture them in five years being reintroduced in some of the wildest places in Montana and living like the wildlife they are, free of disease and fending for themselves as they have for 12,000 years."

 

"Our plan is not to move brucellosis out of the Yellowstone basin ... Is it trying to teach folks in Washington, D.C., that a good-neighbor policy means you listen to your neighbor? Dang tootin'. Do I think they will hear us? No telling,"

Temporary Halt to Slaughter

Bison slaughter on hold as park reviews lawsuit

By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press Matthew Brown, Associated Press – 

BILLINGS, Mont. –

Officials halted plans Friday to ship bison to slaughter from Yellowstone National Park after saying they first had to review a court challenge filed by wildlife advocates. Almost 400 of the animals were being held in corrals inside the park for testing to see if they have been exposed to the disease brucellosis.

Colin Campbell STOP the SLAUGHTER!

Here's a letter my mother wrote to the acting superintendent of Yellowstone National Park.

Stop wasting taxpayers hard earned money abusing and killing members of the Yellowstone Bison Herd.  The brucellosis excuse is a LIE to U.S. taxpayers.  You already know that there has not been even one documented case of genetically pure, wild bison giving this disease back to the cattle who brought it here to begin with.  Cattle imported from Europe by our European immigrant ancestors.

You are perpetuating the Dept. of Interior's racist war from the 1800's, when the complaint was that Indians and Buffalo are taking grassland away from cattle.  Stop carrying on in the dysfunctions of your predecessors.

Let the Buffalo Roam!

                    Take Action!

Please take a moment right now and urge Yellowstone's Acting Superintendent Colin Campbell and your US Senators and Representative to stop the slaughter of the Yellowstone bison, America's only continuously wild population. 

Colin Campbell, Yellowstone National Park
PHONE: 307-344-2003
EMAIL: colin_campbell@nps.gov

400 Bison to be SLAUGHTERED!

BFC Photo Week of Jan. 30th-Feb.3rd

Buffalo Field Campaign

Yellowstone Bison
Update from the Field
February 3, 2011
------------------------------
* Update from the Field: Park Service Captures 400 Bison; BFC Files Emergency Injunction to Stop Slaughter
* ‘Corridor to Nowhere’ Fails to Provide Habitat and Wastes Millions of Dollars
* VOLUNTEER!  Please Join BFC on the Front Lines!
* Last Words
* By the Numbers
* Helpful Links
------------------------------ 
* Update from the Field:
Park Service Captures 400 Bison; BFC Files Emergency Injunction to Stop Slaughter

Friends of the Buffalo,

On Friday the Park Service released the 62 bison that they captured in the Stephens Creek trap starting the first week of January.  Sadly, this was a hollow gesture.  On Monday Park Rangers herded approximately 300 bison, including many of those released just three days earlier, into the trap.  On Tuesday they captured 21 more.  Wednesday another 20 were trapped.  Today BFC field patrols report that 45 to 50 additional bison were captured, bringing the approximate number of bison currently confined in Yellowstone’s trap to 390.

These buffalo, members of America’s only continuously wild population, are currently confined behind cold steel walls where they are being treated like cattle.  Feeding them hay and alfalfa, running them through squeeze chutes, and testing them for antibodies to brucellosis, Yellowstone officials have announced they will slaughter some, and possibly all, of these irreplaceable creatures.

Twenty-seven more buffalo have been killed by state and tribal hunters along the Park’s western and northern boundaries, bringing the total number of hunt kills documented by BFC patrols to 128.  A buffalo died from wounds suffered inside the Stephens Creek trap on January 12 and another was shot by Department of Livestock agents on January 24^th, bringing this winter’s total kill to 130.  If the Park Service decides, as they have hinted, to slaughter all the buffalo in the trap, this would represent the loss of more than 520 bison, or 15 percent of the entire population.  And it is barely February.


A Yellowstone Park Ranger chases buffalo toward the Stephens Creek Trap in Yellowstone National Park.  Photo copyright 2011 Jim Macdonald/BFC
Click here to view a slideshow of photos from this week.

Alarmed by the prospect of such a heavy loss and its impact on the genetics of America’s only continuously wild bison population, BFC teamed up with some of our closest allies this week to file an emergency legal injunction to prevent the Park Service from sending the buffalo to slaughter.

We have been waiting for a final decision from federal Judge Charles Lovell on the merits of our lawsuit challenging the Interagency Bison Management Plan since September and have been forced to file this injunction by the Park Service’s recent actions.  We are asking the court to stop the agencies from killing bison in and around Yellowstone National Park and to discontinue the use of traps like the one at Stephens Creek to capture, confine, and ship bison to slaughter.

In addition to running field patrols in both West Yellowstone and Gardiner and our urgent work in the courts, we have been making many trips to Helena to testify against a slew of anti-bison bills in the state legislature.  HB 214 and SB 207 would classify all wild bison in Montana as livestock, SB 184 would permit “the use of bows and arrows” to hunt wild buffalo in Montana, and SB 148, which fortunately appears to have died in committee, would have made it legal for Department of Livestock agents to enter private property without notifying and against the objections of the landowner to haze wild bison.   

We've set up a web page to track these and other buffalo bills in the 2011 Montana legislature and encourage your timely involvement and participation in protecting America's last wild buffalo. 

Buffalo Field Campaign is doing everything we can to prevent a repeat of the winter of 2008, when more than 1,600 bison were killed.  But we are only as strong as you, our supporters.  Please pick up the phone, send an email, support our efforts with a tax-deductible donation, or join us in the field to help us protect the buffalo.  We can not do it without  you.

Take Action!

Please take a moment right now and urge Yellowstone's Acting Superintendent Colin Campbell and your US Senators and Representative to stop the slaughter of the Yellowstone bison, America's only continuously wild population. 

Colin Campbell, Yellowstone National Park
PHONE: 307-344-2003
EMAIL: colin_campbell@nps.gov

Use this link to find and contact your US Senators and Representative.

Share this email with them and urge them to take immediate action to protect our last wild buffalo.

For the Buffalo,

Dan Brister
Executive Director
Buffalo Field Campaign

 ------------------------------
* ‘Corridor to Nowhere’ Fails to Provide Habitat and Wastes Millions of Dollars

For some of the buffalo currently awaiting their fate in the trap, the first month of 2011 was a living nightmare.  Never has management of the wild Yellowstone bison been such a heavy-handed and intensive failure.  One group of buffalo in the trap has had it particularly hard, having already been captured, tested, marked, tagged and—for the females—invaded with vaginal telemetry devices at the beginning of January as part of an ill-conceived plan we call the Corridor to Nowhere.  Described in more detail in last week’s Update, this project has been doomed from the start to be a wasteful failure.

After enduring all the horrors of the trap for two weeks, 25 buffalo were “released” and chased by horses down a narrow, electric fence-lined passage further away from the park to a place called Cutler Meadows, an overgrazed pasture denuded of life from years of cattle grazing that impacted soils and killed off native grasses.  For anyone to actually think that wild bison, the very definition of a migratory species, would stay in this area exhibits a striking lack of understanding for the nature of bison.  The fact that the National Park Service, MT Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, National Parks Conservation Association, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Montana Wildlife Federation supported and paid $3.3 million for such an ill-conceived plan shows how little these agencies and groups understand the nature of wild bison.

Almost as soon as they were hazed to Cutler Meadows the buffalo started to leave.  A group of 11 wasted no time in swimming across the Yellowstone River for a reunion with family members that have been penned inside a quarantine facility for several years.  The buffalo inside the pens came to the fence and stood near their still wild kin.  Agents on horseback quickly arrived and hazed the group back across the Yellowstone River.  The buffalo then re-crossed the river only to be hazed again.  Agents used cracker-rounds (explosive charges fired from guns), more powerful explosive charges, and even threw rocks at the buffalo in their attempts to chase them back to Cutler Meadows.

The next day buffalo crossed the river again and were again hazed back.  And the next day.  And the next.  Every day for more than a week the buffalo left Cutler Meadows and every day government agents chased them back.  One of the buffalo, refusing to be hazed, was shot.  Another ran into the hills and has not been seen since.  On January 28 the agents decided they’d had enough.  Using the quarantine pens as a trap, they captured a group of 13 bison, loaded them onto cattle trailers, drove them across the river and released them.  The buffalo, also having had enough, of this so-called tolerance headed south toward the Park, where they joined up with 90 other bison.  All of these buffalo, along with hundreds of others, were captured this week and now find themselves back in the trap at Stephens Creek.

Please take immediate action to prevent their slaughter

------------------------------
* VOLUNTEER!  Please Join BFC on the Front Lines!

 
Buffalo Field Campaign's multifaceted approach to helping protect our nation's last free-roaming population of bison often leaves us spread thin for volunteers. We are finding ourselves in need of experienced volunteers to join us on patrols of the Yellowstone boundary. The last call for return volunteers was answered with a tremendous and much needed response. THANK YOU!!!!! If you can again - or are able to for the first time this season - come home to Horse Butte, Sandy Butte, the Madison River, your community, your Campaign, and to your buffalo. We all need you and miss you.

volunteer@buffalofieldcampaign.org
406-646-0070

------------------------------
* Last Words

We can live with the animals. Buffalo are part of the overall picture.  If you don't want them, go get a farm in Iowa.

~ Hank Rate, bison-friendly rancher, from Bozeman Daily Chronicle article "Gardiner-area Ranchers Weigh in on Nearby Bison"

Have a submission for Last Words?  Send to bfc-media@wildrockies.org. Thank you all for the poems, songs and stories you have been sending; you'll see them here!

------------------------------
* By the Numbers

AMERICAN BUFFALO ELIMINATED from the last wild population in the U.S. which currently numbers fewer than 3,800 animals.

2010-2011 Total: 131

2010-2011 Government Slaughter: 1
2010-2011 State & Treaty Hunts: 128
2010-2011 Quarantine: 0
2010-2011 Shot by Agents: 1
2010-2011 Highway Mortality: 1

2009-2010 Total:  7
2008-2009 Total: 22
2007-2008 Total: 1,631

BISON TO BE SLAUGHTERED-ACT NOW!!

BFC Photo

Yellowstone Park Rangers captured 340 of America's last wild bison this week, including the one in this photo. Park officials say they will send some of the buffalo to slaughter and hold some in the pens until spring. 

Please take action now and urge the Park Service to set the buffalo free:
CONTACT: Acting Superintendent Colin Campbell
PHONE:    307-344-2003
EMAIL:    colin_campbell@nps.gov

From a Montana "Native"

This is a letter my mother wrote to the Acting Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, Colin Campbell.

My name is Julia Vincent. I live in Helena, Montana. My grandparents were Montana homesteaders. My mother's family settled on Indian Lands in Daniels County. My father's parents homesteaded along the north fork of the Flathead river. My grandfather, Ray Vincent, was acting superintendent of Glacier National Park. My father, John D. Vincent, was a foreman and a ranger in The Park.

More genetically pure bison are being sent to slaughter. Continued reduction of the size of the herd is weakening them through inbreeding. In the 1800's, the D.O.I. was complaining that Indians and Buffalo are taking grassland away from cattle. This mentality remains in control to this day. The attacks on genetically pure bison are fueled by fear, not by reality. Taxpayers' money continues to be misused to fund an archaic, racist war. Giving Yellowstone Bison to Ted Turner while refusing to give them to local indigenous nations was borne out of the live$tock indu$try's fear that Indians are going to bring back the Buffalo.

And, as you already know, there is not even one documented case of bison giving brucellosis back to the cattle who brought it here to begin with. More taxpayers' money being spent on a lie.

Get out of the 1800's. Let the genetically pure buffalo roam.

Here's BFC's update on the current situation with the Yellowstone Buffalo.

There are at least 64 buffalo in the Stephens Creek trap currently, and with all the snow accumulation there will likely be more captured. There's a large mixed group of at least 50 that were hazed to Powerline Flats yesterday.... YNP & DOL agents have also been hazing other groups of buffalo into the Hunt Zone, and buffalo have quickly been shot after being hazed there. At least 80 buffalo have been killed by hunters so far.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION! Contact Yellowstone's Acting Superintendent Colin Campbell and tell him not to allow any buffalo slaughter and to set the buffalo free!

PHONE: 307-344-2003

EMAIL: colin_campbell@nps.gov

Our supporters that have already called have told us Yellowstone is saying they never "promised" not to slaughter, but that's a game of semantics. They said they would not. They are also telling people to contact APHIS, but they are simply trying to pass the buck. This is Yellowstone's decision to make. Put the pressure on.

Also, you should know that the some of the 25 buffalo that were hazed through RTR lands have already left! They have crossed the Yellowstone river, and have already been hazed a few times. Right across the street (Hwy 89) from Cutler Meadows is one of the Corwin Springs quarantine pastures with buffalo in it - surely the RTR buffalo went to visit some quarantined relatives. This RTR scheme was doomed to fail, and the buffalo are letting these agencies and NGO's know that you cannot box them in. Who knows what will become of them... we are watching and will let you know.

Suzanne Lewis on Bison Management

I was talking with someone today about MT and the buffalo and I remembered this letter I wrote to Suzanne Lewis-YNP Superintendent in 2009. Here's a copy past from the email I received from Lewis.

Dear Ms. Vincent,
Please see Superintendent Lewis' responses to your questions in red below.
Thank you for your interest in Yellowstone National Park.


Dear Suzanne Lewis,

I read an article in the Helena Independent Record entitled 'Brucellosis
Most Difficult Issue Facing Yellowstone National Park, Neighbors'.
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/07/22/state/90st_080722_brucellosis.txt


I have a few questions regarding how brucellosis is to be managed.
First, the article states, "Lewis said federal researchers are expected to
unveil later this year a new study looking at ways of remotely vaccinating
bison against the disease. She said all entities in the debate should rally
around developing better vaccines and better ways of administering them to
wildlife."
My question is, why administer it to bison when there has been no evidence
of bison transmitting brucellosis to cattle especially when there are no
cattle present in the areas the bison roam?
This measure will indirectly lead to greater tolerance for bison on low
elevation winter ranges in Montana (i.e., on areas outside the jurisdiction
of the National Park Service), through reducing the seroprevalence of
brucellosis in bison.

Under natural conditions, the risk of transmission of brucellosis from
bison to cattle is low (only because of our current management practices).
The Interagency Bison Management Plan has committed human resources to keep
cattle and bison separated, especially during the third trimester of
pregnancy and through the end of the birthing season for bison. This
measure virtually eliminates the probability of bison to cattle
transmission of brucellosis. However, transmission of brucellosis from
naturally infected captive bison to cattle has been documented in North
Dakota on a range were bison and cattle commingled. Bison to cattle
transmission has also been documented under experimental conditions when
the two species were contained in pens at Texas A&M University. Bison to
cattle transmission is a situation that Yellowstone bison managers can not
allow to happen, but is quite likely if bison were to colonize currently
vacant ranges outside the national park. Check out these publications for
more details about bison to cattle brucellosis transmission:

Flagg, D. E. 1983. A case history of a brucellosis outbreak in a
brucellosis free state which originated in bison. Proceedings of the U.S.
Animal Health Association 87:171-172.

Davis, D. S., J. W. Templeton, T. A. Ficht, J. D. Williams, J. D. Kopec,
and L. G. Adams. 1990. Brucella abortus in captive bison. I. Serology,
bacteriology, pathogenesis and transmission to cattle. J. Wildlife
Diseases 26 (3):360-371.

Davis, D. S., J. W. Templeton, T. A. Ficht, J. D. Williams, J. D. Kopec,
and L. G. Adams. 1995. Response to the critique of brucellosis in
captive bison. J. Wildl. Dis. 31 (1):111-114.

To probe even more of the details of interspecies transmission, read
"Brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Area," by Norm Cheville and Dale
McCullough, published by the National Academy Press in Washington D.C. You
can read portions of the book at the National Academy of Sciences web site.

In order for the state partners to feel more secure about allowing more
bison onto low elevation winter ranges in Montana, The NPS needs to make
progress toward reducing the brucellosis prevalence in the bison (a part of
the agreement settlement from 2000). The goal of a vaccination program
would be to break the infection cycle and eventually reduce the impacts of
this disease on our wild bison population. This in turn should open up
more space for bison on low elevation areas that are outside our management
jurisdiction.

The article states that you said the bison will not be 'rounded up and
eliminated' in order to get rid of brucellosis.
My next question is, then why have over 6,000 bison been slaughtered with
1,613 of those just this past winter?

While brucellosis risk management actions have resulted in many bison being
captured and sent to slaughter over the years, the population abundance has
remained between 2,000 and 5,000 since 1980. One of the primary goals for
management of the Yellowstone bison is to maintain a population of free
ranging bison within a primary conservation area describe by the Record of
Decision. I refer you to these resources at our web site for more details:
http://www.nps.gov/yell/parkmgmt/upload/yellbisonrod.pdf
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/upload/2006bison_site_bulletin.pdf
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/gatesbison.htm
http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/upload/bmpstatusreview.pdf
http://www.nps.gov/yell/planyourvisit/upload/YS15(2)partII.pdf (start at
page 20)

The article states, 'Yellowstone ought to keep its bison herd to 3,000
animals.' 'Lewis said that number merely sets out how the animals will be
managed; it does not require the park to limit the number of wild bison.'
What do you mean by 'limit the number'?
So far, they can't even reach 3,000 due to the slaughtering every year.
Do you mean 'limit' as in lowest number that is allowed to live?

See the web sites listed above for information on the bison population.
The current bison population estimate (June 2008) is approximately
2,800-2,900 animals.


I look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Eva Vincent
Descendant of former Acting Superintendent of Glacier National Park, Ray
Vincent and of John Vincent a previous Foreman of Glacier National Park

Gov. B.S. Quote

At a stockgrowers meeting yesterday, Schweitzer boasted to the group,

"No governor in Montana history has sent more bison to slaughter than this governor."

This is what the buffalo and those who care about them are up against. Last year over 1,600 buffalo were sent to slaughter. The largest number since the arrogant white Europeans came to this country and slaughtered all but 23. It's unfortunate that this level of thinking still exists now in the 21st century.

However in 2004 Brian Schweitzer says,

''The only potential infection hazard from Yellowstone bison leaving the park is if they come into contact with reproductive cattle. Relatively few reproductive cows graze on land adjacent to Yellowstone, and grazing steers or horses are not at risk. We are spending too many resources on an issue with simpler and more positive solutions. I will be the first cattleman governor of Montana in decades. I will work with park officials, USDA, APHIS and landowners to find a commonsense solution that doesn't involve the wholesale slaughter of one of Montana's most recognizable symbols, or diminish the value of our cattle."

It's too bad B.S. didn't keep his word.

Canada shares the mindset of ignorance as well.

"Bison, of course, would not end up confining themselves to a national park and that would create fairly significant management issues for us."----Dave Ealey, spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, about the province's opposition to Canada's plan to reintroduce bison into Banff National Park.--Toronto National Post

The Native Americans however, have a much deeper understanding of how to live with the environment.

"If you talk to the animals they will talk to you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them. And what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys."--Chief Geswanouth Slahoot

Montana is Brucellosis Free, So What Happens to Buffalo?

Now that MT is "class free" there should be no reason to have a buffalo hunt. Right? Not so. FWP is still going ahead with the hunt. Why? Brucellosis. So the claim remains.

According to the '2009 Bison Hunting Information Summary'

"Brucellosis in Yellowstone National Park bison is one of the primary reasons that attempts are being made to control bison in Montana."

"The disease causing bacteria can be transmitted from bison to cattle. If domestic cattle are infected, there are negative effects to individual cattle producers in the form of a loss of production, loss of markets, and costly preventative measures, including vaccination. "

What? They have to vaccinate! The poor cattle industry :P
It must be tough having to take responsibility. After all they've been on that land for 100 years. They basically own it, as their mind set is. Rather they stole it and destroyed it. Forget the native people who were there before them or the wildlife. Who both still try to survive an oppressive government.

Send FWP a comment

BLM, DOA, DOL, FWP Are the Same Thing

I was interested in what was happening to wild horses in the US, and came across an article from June 16 on a New Zealand site called Horse Talk. The entire article is about meetings the BLM and DOA have on reducing (slaughtering) the number of wild horses currently being held in facilities and those still wild. (This sounds familiar) The article says a horse welfare group obtained BLM documents under the Freedom of Information Act by The Conquistador Program.

Here are some of the document's proposals:

• Wild horses could be rendered at the Reno Rendering plant or "disposed of in pits".
• The possible creation of gelding herds, and sterilization of mares to create non-reproductive herds in the wild in place of natural herds.
• Change the sex ratio from the normal 50% males and 50% females to 70% males and 30% females. Then the experimental two-year infertility drug, PZP-22, would be given to all mares that are returned to the wild. Plans call for rounding up the wild horses every two years to re-administer the drug.
  

The BLM also considered their facilities:

• "Security at facilities and at gathers would need to be increased to combat eco-terrorism." (The BLM is the eco-terrorist!)

This removal is scheduled to begin in Montana this August.

Here are past numbers regarding wild horse removal.
According to the GAO:
"The number of animals removed from the range is far greater than the number adopted or sold, which has resulted in the need for increased short-term and long-term holding. Since 2001, over 74,000 animals have been removed from the range, while only about 46,400 have been adopted or sold. Thirty-six percent fewer animals were adopted in 2007 than compared to the average adoption rates in the 1990s. As of June 2008, BLM was holding 30,088 animals in holding facilities, up from 9,807 in 2001. To accommodate the increased removals and declining adoptions and sales, BLM has increased the number of short-term and long-term holding facilities."

This really shows there is NO difference between the BLM, DOA, DOL, and FWP.

4 Buffalo Slaughtered

MT DOL and FWP are back to the B.S.--buffalo slaughter. Yesterday they hazed and captured 3 bull bison in the Duck Creek bison trap. The buffalo were grazing near the park border north of Duck Creek. This isn't allowed by the 'adaptive management' changes to the IBMP.

In addition to this, agents shot a bull bison in Gallatin National Forest on Tuesday. To add to the tragedy, FWP agent, game warden Jim Smolzynski brought his young daughter to watch. She had participated in Chief Looking Horses' prayer ceremony last May. Smolzynski's dog was also at the killing and allowed to eat some of the carcass!

To watch footage of the events click here

All this for WHAT? Control over land. Cattle in Montana is a BILLION $ industry! It's NOT about brucellosis. Currently MT officials are asking the federal gov't to declare the state's cattle free of brucellosis. In MT more than 150,000 blood tests on cattle for the disease have come up NEGATIVE.

Contact Montana Department of Livestock State Veterinarian Marty Zaluski and tell him how stupid and senseless these incidents are: mzaluski@mt.gov / 406-444-0782

HelenaIR

Montana Votes for Horse Slaughter

This isn't about wildlife, but it is about the slaughtering of animals, so I wanted to write on it.

Again with the ranchers....
The MT house of representatives endorsed a bill to allow a slaughter house to open.

Why? Ranchers complain it's too expensive to euthanize a horse and need a way to deal with all the abandoned/ill horses.
A sponsor of the bill not surprizingly is, Republican Rep. Ed Butcher who says slaughter is "a humane way to address the problem.”

What's wrong with this logic?
1) Currently all ill horses are shipped to Canada or Mexico for slaughter. How is this cheaper than euthanizing?

2) Slaughter is in NO WAY "humane". These same people who see a slaughter house as economical would never even think to dump off their 20 year old pickup into a junk yard.

The last slaughter house was closed in 2007.

Montana has NEVER been able to live with animals wild or domestic. They just want to slaughter them.

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/breaking-news/story/920508.html

SB 337 Update

SB 337 doesn't allow the relocation of buffalo within the state of Montana.

Currently, there are 81 buffalo in quarentine due to breeding over the past few years. FWP, APHIS, and MTDOL are wanting to relocate 41 of the quarantined buffalo in April to the Eastern Shoshone Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The other 40 might be relocated in 2010 to Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations of northeast Montana. The buffalo relocating to Fort Peck would be in "roaming distance" of the home of Sen. John Brenden, R-Scobey who supports SB 337.

Schweitzer's natural resources adviser, Mike Volesky, says the purpose of the relocation program was to create disease-free herds of buffalo. (yeh, out of 81? The current number of buffalo in Yellowstone-fewer than 3,000- already shows signs of inbreeding with twisted horns.)

Groups who do want to take the buffalo are being told by FWP they can have them on the condition that they go into quarentine (again) "for a few more years."

Montana doesn't want disease-free buffalo. They don't want buffalo period.

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/02/28/state/101st_090228_bison.txt

Call for end to USDA's wildlife killing agency

That's the title of an AP article I just found.
This is good news for wildlife and all of us who are sick and tired of the Department of Livestock slaughtering native species!

The article is from last week and states that "115 environmental groups signed onto a recent letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urging him to abolish the U.S. Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services."

Currently tax payers are subsidizing a "$100 million program that kills more than 1 million wild animals annually, a program ranchers and farmers have defended for nearly a century as critical to protecting their livestock from predators."

Who oversees Wildlife Services? APHIS (surprise surprise)

What are some stats from this program? In 2007 121,524 carnivores were killed at the request of ranchers. As well as, "Hundreds of thousands of other animals, including ravens and raccoons, also are killed through the program." Black bears and endangered gray wolves are also among these according to the article.

Carol Bannerman, a spokeswoman for the USDA says that when they are given a request they review each individual project "and move ahead only if there would be no long-term negative impact on the environment." What does this mean? Like they haven't had a "long-term negative impact on the environment." The whole industry is a negative impact. They've been killing buffalo and wolves for 200 years to get land for their livestock.

As stated in 1874 by U.S. Representative Conger,
"They (buffalo) eat the grass. They trample upon the plains upon which our settlers desire to herd their cattle and their sheep. They range over the very pastures where the settlers keep their herds of cattle. They destroy the pasture."

Quarentined Buffalo EA

February 13th, FWP created an environmental assessment on translocating 41 buffalo who are in quarantine in Gardiner, MT to the Araphaho tribe in WY. These buffalo have been in quarantine since 2005 and have been tested as seronegative for brucellosis.

This is in complete opposition to SB 337 which says FWP is NOT allowed to relocate any buffalo who are in quarantine. So, surprizingly the supporting agencies are: USDA, APHIS, and Veterinary Services. Even more, these agencies see " [The buffalo's] release into the natural environment as brucellosis-free animals will serve an important conservation goal." !!!

Why quarentine? As stated in the EA, "to provide disease-free bison for conservation purposes." (yeh right) by "supplement[ing] genetic variation in existing bison herds or establish new herds on the American great plains where appropriate." (the buffalo shouldn't have been killed off in the first place.)


Download the Environmental Assessment

SB 337 (Slaughter Bill 337)

So, a new bill aimed at eradicating America's last wild buffalo will have a hearing on Tuesday February 17th. The bill is the flip of HB 253 which was to give FWP management of the buffalo. SB (Slaughter Bill) 337 will do just the opposite and actually increase the number of buffalo sent to slaughter. Not only the ones who test positive for antibodies or the disease brucellosis, but those who have tested negative to both. [FWP] shall cooperate with the [DOL] in managing publicly owned wild bison or buffalo..The department [Fish, Wildlife and Parks] may not relocate wild buffalo or bison as a result of the state-federal bison quarantine feasibility study. If they're not relocated, they're slaughtered.

The Yellowstone buffalo are still called a species requiring disease control. Here's something interesting the bill says it will also designate other wild buffalo or bison as a species in need of management.

The department [FWP] is responsible for the management, including but not limited to public hunting, of wild buffalo or bison in this state that have not been exposed to or infected with a dangerous or contagious disease but may threaten persons or property.

There's ALOT of stuff in that sentence. I want to break it down.
that have not been exposed or infected This is key to allowing healthy, strong buffalo to be slaughtered.
a dangerous or contagious disease What are these?? This could be more than brucellosis. It looks like the legislature wants to make sure they don't miss anything.
may threaten persons or property--Only while being hazed.

Download SB337

You can help the buffalo by writing to President Barak Obama to take action and protect these magnificent animals. BFC has a sample letter that you can edit here

For the buffalo.

Bad Week For Wildlife

Where do I begin?
I'll start with the deer in Helena.

FWP agreed to allow 150 deer to be captured and killed. The "Urban Wildlife Task Force" began this week. Read more from the Helena IR.

Next are the gray wolves.
Bush along with the Department of the Interior have created a plan to delist the gray wolf, but it will need to be approved by Obama's administration. Great Falls Tribune.

Now the elk.
FWP has begun capturing them, then testing them for antibodies of brucellosis, and slaughtering those that test positive. Bozeman Daily Chronicle

On to buffalo.
Gallatin National Forest Supervisor, Mary Erikson, gave the MT DOL a "10 year special use permit" to put a "portable" capture facility on Horse Butte! Billings Gazette

Also, FWP is considering appointing a rancher on their board of commission! The ranchers are wanting this seat under the reasoning they own much of the land where hunting takes place. HelenaIR

Whew! It's been a busy week as Bush makes his final moves before leaving office. Now, if only we could get rid of Palin....