| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 11/18/05 |
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WHY
THIS IS NEWS IN POLAND
Kathleen
Stachowski serves on the Board of Directors for Buffalo
Field Campaign;
she writes from Lolo, Montana
11/18/05
See also- 5/02/05
Audio Story "Face the Bison"
from Bialowieza Forest in eastern Poland |
"
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat
it."
G. Santayana, philosopher
Montana's controversial bison hunt started with a bang
on November 15; 90 minutes after sunrise, the first bison
was shot near Yellowstone's northern boundary at Gardiner,
Montana. Witnesses report that at least four bullets over
a 24-minute period were required to dispatch the bull.
He was surrounded by distressed herdmates, whom hunters
drove off with rocks.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) officials previously
assured the public that this would be a "fair"
hunt; with 460,000 acres of public land over which to
roam, Yellowstone's bison would not be easy targets, they
claimed. But Montana has never tolerated wild bison under
the Big Sky, offering them no habitat outside the park,
and relentlessly pursuing a program of haze-capture-slaughter
administered by the state‚s Department of Livestock
(DOL). The hunt is merely a three-month interlude in an
on-going tragedy funded by American taxpayers.
That the first bison to die was killed while grazing just
beyond the park's boundary does little to validate FWP's
specious claim of a wide-ranging hunt offering genuine
and fair pursuit. The second animal to die later that
day was just outside the park's boundary near West Yellowstone;
a DOL agent escorted the hunter to his "fair chase"
prey. Bison sighted-in through rifle scopes on Tuesday
were most likely ogled through tourists' binoculars in
the national park on Monday.
The hunt has attracted both national and international
attention, drawing interest from reporters in Italy, France,
Germany, and Poland, according to an article in the Bozeman
(MT) Daily Chronicle. Mel Frost, spokesperson for Montana
FWP in Bozeman, is quoted saying, "Poland, I was
thinking, this is really news in Poland?"
You can hear the incredulity in Ms. Frost's voice as she
singles out Poland. (If I sound a bit testy, note my last
name.) Perhaps it's simply providence that this bison
advocate of Polish descent read her comment and can explain
exactly why killing wild bison in Montana is indeed news
in Poland.
The American bison's European relative is the wisent.
Although alike in many ways, the wisent is more streamlined,
with longer legs and smaller hump. Also, while bison graze
on grass, wisent browse on trees and shrubs. But they
share more similarities than differences, including their
complex social organization in families and herds, and
a history of persecution which drove them both to extinction's
razor edge. Wisent simply arrived there sooner.
Wisent once roamed most of temperate Europe, until loss
of habitat brought on by expanding population decimated
their numbers toward the end of the Middle Ages. They
disappeared from France before 1400, from Germany by the
1700s.
When World War I broke out, 700 wisent ˆ the largest
remaining herd ˆ lived in northeastern Poland‚s
Bialowieza Forest. Their dwindling numbers, wartime chaos,
and the accompanying poaching doomed them, and by 1919,
every wisent in Bialowieza was dead. Europe's last wild,
free-roaming bison herd was history.
Long story short: 54 wisent survived the war, none
in Poland. The Poles acquired a few and reintroduction
began in 1929. Protected under penalty of death, they
made it through WWII and have been restored today to a
herd of 300 in what is now Bialowieza National Park. They
are provided food during the winter.
Ms. Frost can certainly be excused for not knowing this
interesting bit of ruminant history. At least now, however,
she can better appreciate Poland's interest. These are
people who've been around the block with bison.
When America's shameful page in history had finally turned
in the late 19th century, some 50 million bison had been
reduced to 23 survivors who found refuge in the northern
Rockies. From them, our nation's wild heritage lives on
in Yellowstone, the only place on earth where a wild herd
has survived continuously since prehistoric times. Yet
Montana, bowing to pressure from the livestock industry,
doesn't even regard bison as wildlife. Animals considered
a national treasure within the park are designated a "species
requiring disease control" by the state.
Buffalo Field Campaign, a bison advocacy group based in
West Yellowstone, MT, opposes this latest hunt incarnation
because of the premise on which it is established. Any
discussion of hunting is premature until bison management
is grounded in science, not politics. Specifically, Montana
must recognize bison as wildlife on both sides of Yellowstone's
boundary, designating ample habitat to re-establish a
native population under the Big Sky. Montana must
allow these migratory animals the freedom to access winter
range and birthing grounds on lower-elevation public land
outside the park. And Montana must relieve livestock handlers
of management jurisdiction and return it to wildlife professionals.
Can we learn from history ˆ both Poland's and our
own? Santayana offers hope: While there are those who
cannot learn, there are those who can. Will we be among
the latter? Or will Montana‚s policy of intolerance
toward America‚s last wild and free bison herd prove
the darker vision of George Bernard Shaw, that "we
learn from history that we learn nothing from history"?
Americans must decide.
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