Supporting a quarantine may save a few animals, but also sends half of the herd to its unnecessary death. By setting up a quarantine, some of the buffalo that would otherwise be killed would be spared if the government decides to adopt a radical plan to eradicate brucellosis from the herd. But, the quarantine would result in far more deaths than lives saved.

By supporting a quarantine, one agrees to the testing of the herd for brucellosis and the killing of those animals that test positive. In the case of the Yellowstone herd, about 50% will test positive, even though the vast majority of them, because of sex, age or reproductive status, cannot transmit the disease, and even though the disease does not negatively affect them, and they have never transmitted it to cattle over the more than eighty years they have lived with the disease. One is therefore agreeing to kill half of the Yellowstone buffalo herd simply because they test positive for a disease which does not affect them, and which they have never transmitted to cattle.

The real purpose of the proposed quarantine is not disease management, as the State of Montana would like us to believe, but rather to ensure that buffalo do not roam free so they wont compete with livestock grazing on public lands bordering the Park. Public lands bordering Yellowstone have officially been designated as wildlife habitat. Allowing buffalo on these lands would highlight the land use conflict between buffalo and cattle, and would put use of this land by cattle under public scrutiny--something the livestock industry does not want, especially since cattle are grazing on these lands with hefty subsidies, the land was purchased by the federal government specifically for wildlife, the official U.S. Forest Service plans for that land stipulate that wildlife must receive preference there, and, finally, livestock are only supposed to be there if their use of the land is copasetic with wildlife (not vice-versa as has been the actual practice).

Quarantine sets a dangerous precedent. Quarantine means confinement. Advocating a quarantine for the Yellowstone herd is especially dangerous because this is one of very few free-roaming herds left in the country (there are only two others in the lower 48 and these are both much smaller herds). The Yellowstone herd is the longest free-roaming herd in existence. The approach promoted by Montana is to treat wild buffalo like cattle. Advocating quarantine sends the message to Montana that this is acceptable.

Some groups who would otherwise not want to see wild buffalo confined are supporting the quarantine because they believe that a huge area would be fenced that would allow buffalo to live more or less naturally while in quarantine. The government has no intention of building a huge quarantine. Montana's design is based on 50 acres -- the federal governments design is for 50 - 500 acres. Even if 500 acres are set aside for a quarantine, this would be divided into at least 5 areas (of maximum 100 acres), and animals would be separated by age and sex nowhere near natural conditions.

Buffalo would have to stay in quarantine for more than a year and many would have to stay much longer. Female calves, for example, would stay in quarantine for four years or so because they would have to grow to sexual maturity and deliver their own calves within quarantine before they are released. If even one tests positive while in quarantine (very likely), all others would have to begin the quarantine period over again. Family members will be separated from each other. Social structures will be destroyed or severely disrupted. Natural patterns of land use may be broken. Knowledge that is normally passed on from generation to generation within the herd may be lost.

Wild buffalo are often injured, and some die, in confinement. If held in confinement for long periods, their spirits can be broken. Confining wild buffalo, taking them out of their homelands, and separating them from their relatives, is not healthy.

There is no scientific justification for quarantining Yellowstone buffalo. Confining Yellowstone buffalo to a quarantine merely serves to placate the powerful Montana livestock industry at the expense of the buffalo. Dr. Paul Nicoletti, a leading expert on brucellosis says, Quarantining bison which stray outside Yellowstone is expensive and very difficult, with little impact on incidence or transmission of brucellosis.

In his article Tatanka Returns, Richard Simonelli states, "It is very important that the proud spirit of the buffalo be left unbroken by feedlots, dehorning, chronic medication, intensive management, breakup of natural social units, premature slaughter, and genetic engineering practices such as artificial insemination and fertilized embryo implants. It is very important to Native people, and perhaps to all those concerned with a healthy ecology, that the buffalo remain essentially wild."