Two days before Thanksgiving, a lone male buffalo wandered over the boundary separating Yellowstone National Park from the state of Montana.

On the Montana side of that invisible line, state livestock officials, assisted by Yellowstone park rangers, herded the buffalo back toward the park and shot him five times. The buffalo died some 25 yards shy of reaching the Yellowstone border; the agents dragged him from the scene, hoisted him onto a truck with a forklift, gutted him, skinned him and removed his head.

This Yellowstone buffalo met the same fate as more than 3,000 others that have been gunned down or slaughtered over the past decade, ostensibly to protect the few hundred cattle grazing outside the park from the threat of a disease called brucellosis. While threats to our food supply such as "mad cow disease" have recently dominated the news, brucellosis does not have similar implications for public health. There are a variety of forms of brucellosis, and the most serious form relative to human health does not occur in buffalo.

Many of Yellowstone's buffalo carry the bacteria that cause brucellosis, although they seem to have developed an immunity to the disease and do not become sick. In domestic cattle, brucellosis causes premature births and understandably could cause an economic hardship to the livestock industry, but buffalo have exhibited no such symptoms.

In fact, there has never been a single documented case of a buffalo transmitting brucellosis to cattle in the wild. For that to occur, there would need to be a series of unlikely incidents: a female buffalo would need not only to be infected with the bacteria but to have it present specifically in her reproductive tract; she would need to give birth or miscarry in an area where cattle are present; and a cow would need to have direct physical contact with that birthing material within one or two days before the bacteria died from sunlight exposure.

A cow may have a better chance of winning the Montana lottery than contracting brucellosis from a wild buffalo.

Juvenile and male buffalo are defined as "low risk" by state and federal officials, but in reality they are "no risk" for the simple reason that juveniles and males do not get pregnant. What's more, cattle only graze on the lands bordering Yellowstone during the summer months, and they are miles away when bison leave the park in search of lower elevation and additional forage for a harsh winter. It begs the question: if a male buffalo leaves the park after cattle have long been removed from those lands, and that same male buffalo cannot give birth, why was he killed?

There is no good answer. The management of Yellowstone buffalo has been based on hysteria and speculation rather than sound science. Montana claims that allowing buffalo into the state would jeopardize its federal "brucellosis-free" status, and therefore state agencies have zero tolerance for the animals. But even if buffalo could theoretically pose a threat to cattle, there would not be much cause for concern. Domestic livestock can be easily vaccinated against brucellosis; pastures are fenced; any infected cattle could be isolated and killed; and states like Texas and Missouri have yet to attain "brucellosis-free" status and have thriving livestock industries.

U.S. Reps. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Charles Bass, R-N.H., have proposed a solution that would return the management of Yellowstone buffalo to sound scientific footing. Their Yellowstone Buffalo Preservation Act, H.R. 3446, would allow wild buffalo access to federal lands outside Yellowstone National Park and would prohibit the capture or killing of buffalo on these lands, with an exception for public safety or private property damage. The bill removes the buffalo capture facility within the park, and allows buffalo — like other wildlife — to roam public lands freely through incentives and cooperative efforts with adjacent private landowners.

It's a common-sense bill that balances public and private interests, fiscal responsibility, sound science and our moral obligations to a species all but wiped out in the 19th century — an animal now the very symbol of the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior. Congress should act swiftly to pass this bill. More buffalo will soon leave Yellowstone in search of food, and it is likely to be a bloody winter for these beleaguered creatures.

Markarian is president of The Fund for Animals, a national animal protection organization in Silver Spring, Md.

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