| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 3/26/06 |
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| Bison Plan
Schweitzer has idea to keep cattle disease-free, save
money
By Scott McMillion, Bozeman Daily Chronicle
3/26/06 |
If
it works, Gov. Brian Schweitzer's new bison management
proposal could save a lot of money. It could also help
protect the state's brucellosisfree status for its beef
herds. It would give bison some more elbow room outside
of Yellowstone National Park.
But making it work won't be easy. In a nutshell,
Schweitzer's plan calls for removing all cattle from public
and private land in the Gardiner Basin on the north side
of the park and in the West Yellowstone area, he said
this week in a telephone interview. This would be done
by paying landowners a premium rate for their grazing
rights. Private land grazing costs from $14 to $24 a month
per cow/calf pair, which is known as an animal unit month
or AUM. "We'll give them $30 an AUM not to raise
ruminants on that land," Schweitzer said.
About 740 cattle graze in what he called the "mixing
zones" north and west of the park where bison and
cattle could potentially come into contact. Only about
170 of them live there year round. The rest graze only
in the summer. Calculate the part-time and full-time bovines,
and it works out to an equivalent of about 370 year-round
cattle, he said. He calculates that buying out that grazing
would cost about $100,000 a year.
The current bison management system costs
about $750,000 a year just for hazing bison back
to the park, he said. In addition, it cost $200,000 to
ship and slaughter nearly 1,000 bison over the recent
winter, the busiest in a decade. Leasing the grazing rights
would cost about 15 percent of what the state is spending
now, he said.
In addition, eliminating cattle from the mixing
zones would protect the economic interests of distant
ranchers, who stand to lose money if cows near Gardiner
or West Yellowstone come down with brucellosis, a disease
carried by some of the bison. That's because current federal
rules say that if cattle anywhere in a state come down
with brucellosis, all breeding animals must undergo expensive
tests before being shipped out of state.
"Why should somebody in Whitefish
or Lewistown or Havre put their brucellosis-free status
at risk for those 370" cattle? he asked.
HUNTING, MIGRATING
Schweitzer's proposal also calls for
significantly increasing the role of hunters to manage
bison, which means killing some. Although the details
remain to be worked out, the governor's idea is straightforward:
When more bison come out, more hunters will be summoned.
While the hunt likely would start small, "if
more animals come out of the park, we'll draw another
100 tags, and another 100 tags, and then another,"
Schweitzer said. Plus, bison won't be allowed to
wander forever. "There will be a drop-dead zone,"
Schweitzer said. "We're not going to let them wander
down the Madison Valley. We're not going to let them wander
down the Yellowstone Valley." The boundary likely
will be somewhere around Yankee Jim Canyon north of the
park and the Hebgen Lake Dam to the west. If bison go
beyond those lines, it will be open season. Anybody could
shoot them.
A similar strategy is in effect at Wood Buffalo National
Park in Canada, where the bison also have disease
issues. Come spring, all bison would be hazed back
into Yellowstone prior to calving season. Schweitzer cited
a report by Canadian bison expert Cormack Gates,
which said that bison tend to return to areas where
they give birth. While some describe bison movements
as migrations, others say they are attempts at permanent
emigration, that the park's animals have filled up their
territory and are trying to recolonize ancient turf. But
that turf is now filled, to one degree or another, with
people, ranches, towns, highways, irrigation systems and
crops. Bison could wreak havoc on a lot of that.
"All the land they're heading for is private land,"
said John Mundinger, a retired FWP official with many
years of experience with bison issues. Even beyond
brucellosis - a tough nut to crack on its own - bison aren't
always easy neighbors.
Between one and 10 Yellowstone visitors are injured
by them yearly, according to the book "Death in Yellowstone,"
by park historian Lee Whittlesey. "Probably the current
potential for injuries and deaths from bison in the
park is much greater that it is for bears," Whittlesey
wrote.
Schweitzer said he'd like to pursue his plan on
a 10-year time frame. That would give scientists and land
managers time to work on vaccines, elk feedgrounds in
Wyoming and other brucellosis issues. "Then
we'll look at it again in 10 years," he said. "What
we're doing now doesn't make any sense. It's not good
management."
DEVILISH DETAILS
The plan sounds simple: give bison more
- but still limited - room to act like wildlife, engage
the hunting public, reduce any risk to cattle - real or
perceived - and save some taxpayer dollars. "We're
going to hunt them in the winter and we'll chase them
back into the park in the summer," Schweitzer said.
But there are a million details to be worked out, a variety
of interest groups to be accommodated.
Still, a wide variety of people say they're at
least intrigued by Schweitzer's plan. Some are downright
enthusiastic. "At this point, we're open to any and
all debate," said Bill Donald, president of the Montana
Stockgrowers Association, though that group's official
policy prefers to focus on elimination of brucellosis.
"It's a pretty complex issue and we'll never come
to a solution if we don't start talking," he added.
"It's exciting that we're to the
point where people, and the governor in particular, are
putting practical solutions on the table," said Amy
McNamara, of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
"It's going to be a challenge,
but this is a real positive step," said Stephany
Seay, of the Buffalo Field Campaign.
Schweitzer dismisses any implication
that he's catering to bison advocates instead of
stockgrowers.
"Please," he said. "I'm
the first cattleman elected governor since 1916."
He grew up on a ranch and runs cattle
near Whitefish.
Only about four people run cattle on
private land in the West Yellowstone area and a similar
number do so on the north side.
Federal grazing allotments near West
Yellowstone also allow about 100 cow/calf pairs in the
summer.
But the owners all have their own interests.
Few make a living from cattle, but some use them as management
tools and have invested heavily in improvements with cattle
in mind.
Hank Rate, who has a history of wildlife
advocacy, runs 20 cows on a 70-acre parcel north of Corwin
Springs. He said he's had bison on his property in
the past, as well as bears and mountain lions, but didn't
have problems.
But each of those cows was born on his
place, he said, and his family values the lifestyle of
raising cattle.
"They're part of the family, too,"
he said of his cows.
Selling his grazing rights for 10 years
would put him out of the cow business permanently, he
said, and that doesn't appeal to him. If he's going out
of business, he'd rather sell a conservation easement
for wildlife, he said.
The biggest cattle operator in the region
is the Church Universal and Triumphant at Corwin Springs.
Pat Flowers, regional manager for the
Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, has been
negotiating with church officials, trying to work out
some kind of deal that would give bison more room.
(A $13 million U.S. Forest Service deal in 1999 bought
land from the church, but the church retained the grazing
rights.)
Most of the bison slaughtered this
winter died because they were heading for the church's
pastures, where about 150 cattle graze.
The negotiations, Flowers said, center
around "how to allow bison to use (the ranch)
in a way that's not going to cause big problems for them
as landowners."
Possible solutions include leases, temporary
fencing around sensitive areas, and other measures, he
said.
"Hopefully, we can work through
all the details on this," he said. "Initially,
all the solutions seem really simple. Then, you start
peeling the onion and it's not so simple."
Still, Schweitzer's proposal is a start.
The Racicot and Martz administrations
relied on lawsuits and court-ordered negotiations to come
up with the existing plan, which resulted in the roundup
and slaughter of all those bison this year.
"This is a huge first step"
in coming up with something better, Seay said.
And there might be a longterm upside
to this year's heavy slaughter.
"By taking 1,000 bison out,
we might have bought a couple years worth of time to work
out a better solution," Mundinger said.
Schweitzer said he looks forward to
working with people, trying to hammer out a better plan,
where bison get to roam, cattle are protected and
people who give something up - such as grazing rights
- are compensated.
"When the grass greens up, we're
going to sit down and talk about some new plans,"
he said. "If you've got a better idea, bring it."
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