by jhwygirl
Mike Mease, co-founder of the Buffalo Field Campaign will be in town this weekend for a presentation by the Buffalo Field Campaign at the Missoula County Public Library. The event is Saturday, May 3rd, from Noon to 1:30 p.m.
A slide show - Lessons Learned from the Wild Buffalo - will be shown, followed by a short film, “Protect the Wild Bison”. After that, Mease will be available for a Q&A session.
Mease started the quest for fair treatment of the Yellowstone bison back in the winter of 1996-97, when a (at the time) record slaughter of 1,100 bison occurred at the hands of the Montana Department of Livestock.
This year, the Department of Livestock has slaughtered over 1,284 bison this year - and more than half of the Yellowstone herd has now been lost, in part, to the heavy snows and harsh winter. The record slaughter is due to this harsh winter, as bison traveled outside the park in search of food.
Bison, like nature, know no fence.
I wrote of this slaughter, “Bison Mis-Management Plan”, when the number of bison massacred hit 1,200 and wildlife managers put a halt to the slaughter of pregnant bison in an effort to preserve what is left of the genetic health of the last free-roaming bison herd in North America.
Inform yourself. Meet Mike Mease. The Montana Department of Livestocks and the Montana Stockgrowers Association’s actions are deplorable. Listen, Learn and Speak Out.
Remember this: There is NO KNOWN CASE OF BRUCELLOSIS TRANSMISSION TO DOMESTICATED CATTLE THAT HAS OCCURRED FROM INTERACTION WITH YELLOWSTONE BISON. The only known cases of transmission to domesticated cattle have been from wild elk.
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May 2, 2008 at 4:57 am
If there was a documented exchange, would it make a differance?
May 2, 2008 at 6:05 am
Well, yeah! Because what you currently have is a horrific solution to a problem that does not exist based upon a myth!
The OTHER equally important myth is that Montana will lose it’s brucellosis free status. Last time it did, ONE state, that’s right, ONE state refused our beef! It was simply business as usual!
It’s a slaugther based upon lies, pure and simple.
Go listen to Mike. Mike and his troops camp OUT in fifty below in small tents to monitor the slaughter! These are some remarkable folks. I know, I’ve been down there and seen them in action.
May 2, 2008 at 6:16 am
According to the story, after eleven years or more of activists’ tossing guts on officials and blocking hunters’ rifles and getting arrested, more bison were killed this year than ever before.
Maybe sleeping in tents all winter and stinkin up the Law and Justice center isn’t that effective?
May 2, 2008 at 7:54 am
“…isn’t that effective?”
It’s a heck of a lot more effective than rolling over at every turn for a “plan” that insists we manage wildlife like livestock. I’m still waiting to hear about the grizzly bear vaccination program.
I was at a wolf meeting in Ennis last night. Well, actually it was the wildlife committee of the Ranchlands group, not a pack of wolves. When questioned what was wrong with Wyoming’s approach, regional wildlife manager Kurt Alt said “managing wildlife with lines on a map does not work in the long run”. Of course he was talking about wolves, but maybe not JUST wolves, or so I’d like to think.
May 2, 2008 at 10:08 am
Yeah, there was a documented exchange–from cows to buffalo. That’s how brucellosis got there in the first place. Should I kill you because I gave you the flu and I don’t want you to pass it on to anyone else? Or should I say I’m sorry, and I’ll help you get better?
And Goof, I know you know more about BFC than this. The Campaign was not part of the gut throwing incident, nor do they interfere with hunters. There has been the occasional arrest for CD or police overzealousness. And I thought the stink at the L&J Center was emanating from Bozeman’s better side, that comes a stumblin’ out at 2am to puke all over the place (believe me, I know–I used to live directly behind the place).
BFC has never employed hunter harassment or assault tactics in its operations. Only occasionally does it use CD to slow down the slaughter and to get the media off its dead ass to cover a story.
And if you don’t know why more buffalo were killed this year than ever before, then you really aren’t paying attention. It’s called transition: from a republican to a democratic president. The republicans want to drop the population as low as they can before the power structure changes in DC. Everybody in the national media is distracted by the prez campaign trivia, Iraq and the economy. Easy to knock off some buffalo.
No, Goof, BFC is all about documenting the slaughter and bearing witness. They are involved in many behind-the-scenes efforts to improve the situation and bring about a real solution to the problem.
They don’t live in tents all year around (though some like Mike Mease do live in teepees). They are well dug in on the north shore of Hebgen Lake, and are committed to the long haul-for the next 20 years or more, whatever it takes. And they have the resources and fortitude to do so.
May 2, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Thanks very much for the heads-up on tomorrow’s Gathering. I don’t know if five people or 50 will show up, but we’ll do our very best to provide inspiration and education for those who are present. The annual slaughter, which has become a profitable industry unto itself, is a crime against wildlife and a fraud against American taxpayers.
It’s important to note, however, the culpability of the National Park Service in this year’s record slaughter. Hundreds upon hundreds of those now-dead bison had NEVER LEFT YELLOWSTONE. They were forceably removed from their home (where federal employees are charged with their protection), making Yellowstone the only national park that kills its own wildlife to prevent it from leaving. This, alone, is indefensible. But to do so based on a fraud for the benefit of Montana’s livestock oligarchy is criminal.
May 3, 2008 at 6:37 am
I can’t make Saturday’s presentation, but I just wanted to say thank you to my friends and colleagues at the Buffalo Field Campaign for their important, inspirational, tireless (and often thankless) efforts to protect and restore wild bison.
May 4, 2008 at 8:15 am
Thanks for your knowledge (and passion) on this subject. I read a feature in this morning’s Cheyenne paper about “Buffalo Hippies,” written by a local reporter. It seemed to be more about dreadlocks and veggie cooking than anything substantial.
What really bugged me was the reporter’s hand-wringing over who’s right and who’s wrong in this shameful episode. Here’s a quote: “Some call it mass murder — the isolation and destruction of a species. Others call it necessary — one prong of a widely recognized plan to safeguard Western cattle herds. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but who’s to know?”
Who’s to know? Talk about vague and wishy-washy writing.
We know the answer.
May 4, 2008 at 10:13 am
I went looking for that article, Michael, assuming Tribune-Eagle, but couldn’t find it. The title, though, really kinda says it all. Sad.
One of the main difficulties is, I believe, our hunting culture - which I’ve got nothing against. Hunting is OK, so what is the big deal with killing a few bison?
The slaughter - this year, notably - is not hunting. It is management run amok. It is irresponsible and shameful. Our state and federal officials should be disgusted and ashamed that they allow this to continue - that as working professionals they allow hysterics to reign in the face of real science.
But wanton slaughter of wildlife isn’t the solution - not even close. How can we in the west embracing hunting as a value, yet slaughter the last free-roaming herd of bison as the solution. It simply does not make sense.
I wonder what the cost would be to buy those grazing leases adjacent to the park?
And Big Swede? I point to the fact that there is no documented transmission from bison to cattle because we are slaughtering bison - and not elk, where documentation has been made.
Would you be OK with slaughter of all elk found on grazing land outside of the park?
If we were to do that, at least I could see some consistency to logic. I wouldn’t like it, I have to admit, but certainly it makes more sense to me than the unjustified massacre of bison.
It’s kind of ridiculous to be slaughtering bison as a solution to maintaining a brucellosis free state when brucellosis is in elk also, and transmission to cattle has occurred as a result of cattle interacting with elk - not with bison.
May 4, 2008 at 10:54 am
“that as working professionals they allow hysterics to reign in the face of real science.” That’s an accusation that you have not substantiated, and you would have to show a decade of state employees debliberately ignoring science under both democrat and republican governors. You cannot make that case.
May 4, 2008 at 11:08 am
Jhwygirl, you hit the nail on the head. The Bison Management Plan says that the problem is brucellosis, but the solution is to manage bison. The BMP no more tackles the issue of what to do with brucellosis in other species (it extends beyond elk to several other species) or how to eradicate it, than Bush’s energy policies reduce or eliminate dependency on foreign oil. Indeed, no one has even offered that eradicating brucellosis would ever be possible.
In other words, the BMP points to a problem, then offers no solution. Killing bison is just another way for the government to pretend it is doing something, and placating a constituency, when it is doing nothing at all. Kind of like McCain’s plan for a 100 year occupation of Iraq.
If the BMP’s true goal were to eradicate brucellosis, then it would have taken a completely different tack. Instead, it purports to “maintain a wild, free-ranging bison herd.” And it does that by pushing population levels to absolute minimums, beneath which the herd would become immediately vulnerable to genetic problems like inbreeding depression.
So until the BMP is revised to provide a better look at the problem, and how to solve it, all that is going to happen is more of the same: the ugly killing fields of Yellowstone.
Which brings us back to the point: given that there is no way that brucellosis can be eradicated from Yellowstone or the surrounding areas, then the only way to assure that transmission will not occur is to manage cows. Risk management in the long term need fall directly on the head of cattlemen.
Ultimately it is they who must decide to continue to fight a battle that can never be won, or to reframe the question: how can bison (and other carrier species) and cattle coexist in an ecosystem where brucellosis has become endemic? And maybe the answer to an enlightened BMP this time may read: maybe they can’t.
May 4, 2008 at 11:18 am
goof - factual evidence shows that brucellosis comes from elk too, and factual evidence (should someone go for an FOI request, given they are masking it now) shows that know brucellosis transmission to domesticated cattle have occurred as a result of interaction with elk, not bison.
Yet we slaughter bison and elk remain untouched in the so-called Bison Managment Plan.
May 4, 2008 at 11:21 am
“that as working professionals they allow hysterics to reign in the face of real science.” That’s an accusation that you have not substantiated, and you would have to show a decade of state employees debliberately ignoring science under both democrat and republican governors. You cannot make that case.
Goof, you know that the Joint BMP was signed by Marc Racicot, and bound the State’s management tactics to it until it can be revised. It was a political decision not born out by many state and federal managers.
And yes, hysterics have won out over science. Any many state and federal managers have come out and said so–either publicly or privately. You want to have that debate? Bring it on.
For the record, I was one of the authors of HB 643 in 1999 to modify Montana’s bison management statutes
May 4, 2008 at 11:23 am
That first paragraph in my comment above is meant to be a quote of Goof quoting and commenting on jhwygirl’s comment.
May 4, 2008 at 11:24 am
JC - I really hone in on some of your basics there - the management plan champions a “wild, free-roaming bison herd” yet slaughters all that leave that damned fence-line in back yard of Gardiner/Livingston and West Yellowstone.
How committed is that? When the state goal is a wild, free-roaming bison herd?
We are lazy if we sit by and think that slaughtering and massacring upwards of 1300 wild free-roaming bison is the answer to committing to a wild free-roaming herd of bison in North America.
Wildlife knows no fence. It is our job and citizens to see that our wildlife is managed in such a way that fences do not play a part. Otherwise, it ain’t wildlife, is it?
May 4, 2008 at 11:35 am
“Wildlife knows no fence.”
The problem with the whole debate has been that cattlemen and politicians have been able to paint the picture such that the bison are “Yellowstone’s” bison. And that they “migrate” into Montana in the winter for forage.
Turn that equation on its head, and it becomes one of “Montana’s” bison migrate into Yellowstone in the summer to find plentiful green pasturage.
It’s all about semantics. Bison no more belong to Yellowstone than the eagle belongs to America, or the salmon to the Pacific. Once you create a pigeon hole, then it becomes easy to keep the pigeon stuffed into it.
Bison rightfully were a species of North America, 60 million strong, covering the continent from nearly coast-to-coast, north to south. There is no such beast as a “Yellowstone” bison, or “Yellowstone herd.”
What there is is a fragile remnant pushed into a tiny corner, with the banner “wild and free-ranging” hung over it, that has about as much meaning as Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner that hung over his infamous speech 5 years ago, proclaiming that the war had been won.
May 4, 2008 at 7:11 pm
I’d like to reinforce the notion that these are not “Yellowstone bison,” but Yellowstone area or Yellowstone ecosystem bison. One only has to look at a map of YNP, with its ruler-straight boundaries at the north and west, to understand that no thought was given to actual landscapes and/or migration corridors. It is a political boundary, not one based in any kind of ecosystem reality. And the slaughter mirrors that; it is a political maneuver, not one based in any kind of wildlife or livestock management reality.
But let’s also make sure we understand that this fight is ultimately NOT about brucellosis at all–that brucellosis is just a very convenient red herring for the livestock industry and its lackeys in the IBMP (Interagency Bison Management Plan) to use as a fraudulent excuse for their criminal actions against wildlife. As suggested by previous others, the elk inconsistency should make that crystal clear. Brucellosis is not the great bogey-man it’s presented to be, but distracted, uninformed, and intentionally-misled citizens who are confronted with dire warnings of disease outbreaks and economic disaster are likely to complacently accept what they don’t truly understand.
So, understand that it’s not about brucellosis, but it IS about the corrupt and powerful livestock industry maintaining its hold on public land at all cost–and wild bison are seen as a direct threat to that. Oligarchs do not easily and willingly give up their entitlements, and the cattle industry has certainly taken note as other resource dependent/resource squandering industries have met with reform.
Yesterday’s Gathering for the Buffalo attracted more than 5 but fewer than 50–I had hoped to fill the room, but alas. But we put on an inspiring and factual show for those who attended.
May 4, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Well, not to split hairs, but they are the Yellowstone herd in the sense that they are genetically the last of the true bison that roamed the west. Other bison herds around the state are genetically not the same as this remaining herd in Yellowstone. THAT is why it is so important that their numbers remain high enough to support this herd. If it drops too low, they’re done for.
May 6, 2008 at 2:35 pm
The west side of the Park has no public land grazing allotments. Only 4 or 5 pastures that have cattle on them for the 3-4 months that they can actually be here.
There is NO reason what-so-ever for Bison to NOT be allowed to inhabit the public, and private land that they are wanted on. The Horse Butte Peninsula is around 20,000 acres(I’m not sure the exact acreage) But it is void of cattle, and over growing with grasses that will be a fire hazard, just like every summer. Fencing those few pastures, that are across a lake, would eliminate ANY risk of transmission from Bison or Elk. That is the easiest most cost effective route to go. But the ‘authorities’ don’t want to loose all the money they get to haze and slaughter these animals. A helicopter uses over 100 gallons of fuel in 1 hour, add the cost of the pilot, plus the cost of just USING the helicopter, it adds up QUICK, an awful lot of fencing material in just one hour’s flying time.
I still say if Cattlemen (I’m from a cattle background and the background that hates sheep) don’t have enough pasture that they own then reduce their herds. Why should cattle ranchers be allowed to control the PUBLIC lands? They are expecting that of the Bison, well Public land is for the public and the wildlife. It is NOT a problem of overgrazing by Bison as much as it is overgrazing by cattle.
With all the money that has been wasted with the CUT deal there could have been fences erected around these cattle pastures at NO cost to the Rancher. The Budget from NOT hazing and slaughtering Bison could cover the testing, vaccination costs etc. at NO cost to the Rancher. That, would help the Rancher, and that, after all, is what the Department of Livestock is supposed to do. HELP the RANCHER, NOT increase their out of pocket expenses.
Brucellosis is NOT a threat, for the mere fact it is KNOWN how to keep from contracting it. And trying to control an ecosystem, instead of what you already have control of is FOOLISH at best.
Work on a better vaccine for the cattle. Erect some fences, and let the Bison be Bison.
The Horse Butte Peninsula could be a PERFECT setting to allow Bison to be Bison.
It won’t cost anyone anything because it is already void of cattle. Stop operations on the Horse Butte, and save some money that could be spent on vaccines, fencing or what ever. Every Bison calf born on the Horse Butte is one that WON’T be born on some cattle pasture.
Why is that so hard to understand?