Bloodbath in Yellowstone: the Plan to Slaughter 1000 Bison

[Judi Lynn]

December 4, 2015
Bloodbath in Yellowstone: the Plan to Slaughter 1000 Bison

by George Wuerthner

Recently Yellowstone National Park announced the intentions of culling (read kill) as many as a thousand of the park’s genetically unique and only continuously wild herd of bison. The annual slaughter has no basis in science, and is ethically bankrupt and corrupted management precipitated by ranching interests.

The slaying of bison is an annual event. Since 1985 some 8634 Yellowstone bison have been sacrificed to the livestock industry.

The main justification given for this carnage is the fear of brucellosis transmission to domestic livestock. The Montana Dept. of Livestock and the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) have worked together to perpetrate the idea that brucellosis poses a threat to the livestock industry. As a consequence the state and federal agencies, including the National Park Service, more or less restrict bison to Yellowstone Park (although there is a small area where bison are permitted outside of the park for a short period of time—but they are then killed by Native Americans and Montana hunters).

A Bison Wall Exists

Unfortunately for the bison, the urge to migrate in winter to find accessible food under shallow snow cover puts them in the cross hairs of the Montana livestock industry. A “bison wall” (analogous to the Berlin Wall) effectively confines them to Yellowstone National Park.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/04/bloodbath-in-yellowstone-the-plan-to-slaughter-1000-bison/

[niyad]

1. absolutely sickening.

[CountAllVotes]

2. Sick redneck awholes the lot of them

They cannot deal with having a buffalo in their way on a road so they opt to blame a disease that doesn't really technically exist in buffalo called brucellosis.

I guess they're fighting over who will get the head, the hide and any other damn thing they can lay their greedy hands on!

What a sad sick world we live in!

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/

http://www.pbs.org/buffalowar/war1.html

& recommend!!

[Kilgore]

3. There is a reason to do it.

I think I will defer to the biologists.

http://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/bisonmgntfaq.htm

[kristopher]

4. "Rewilding Megafauna: Lions and Camels in North America?"

Some scientists have proposed a controversial idea for rewilding North America with megafauna that went extinct 13,000 years ago. They claim the idea would:
restore balance to North American ecosystems
create an ecological history park accessible to all
add to the economy of nearby rural areas

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/barlow.html


The driver of the idea is that it might be an excellent wedge in the climate battle. The Koreans are trying to clone a Siberian mammoth while whispering about the idea.

[NickB79]

5. The bison population keeps growing, while the amount of land they range stays the same

The annual slaughter has no basis in science

The author has no idea what he is talking about. Bison are migratory animals that need to roam vast areas of land, and being confined to Yellowstone has created an unnaturally high concentration of them in the area with visibly documented effects on the native flora and fauna. The reintroduction of wolves has helped to a small extent by increasing predation on young bison calves, but there is nothing short of a mature grizzly bear in Yellowstone that can kill a mature animal. As such, their population keeps growing every year, which leads to land and forest degradation as it is overgrazed.

Unless we can find a way to expand the amount of land they're allowed to graze on, bison will have to be removed from the park in one fashion or another. Since moving live animals has been ruled out (and I disagree with that stance), hunting is the only way to control the population.

The irony is that, for the past 10,000 years, humans WERE a top predator of bison, using stone tools, fire and indiscriminate cliff drives.