| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 3/20/08 |
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Quarantine
deal reached for park bison
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
By CHRISTINE UTHOFF Chronicle City Editor
3/20/08 |
With
spring in the air, and a lease deal hammered out on a
quarantine facility, Yellowstone National Park began
testing bison for brucellosis Wednesday, and plans
to start holding disease-free animals at the Stephens
Creek facility for a return to the park.
"What we've done up to this point
is send every animal we captured to slaughter without
testing," Al Nash, the park's public affairs officer,
said. "We know that we can hold some bison for
a period of time and then successfully release them in
the park when things green up."
That time period is now, he said. So
the management operation shifted Wednesday, with about
90 bison being held at Stephens Creek. Forty of the
animals were calves that were tested, twice, for brucellosis,
a disease that causes bison and cattle to abort.
By the end of the day, many of those
calves had made their way to the quarantine facility near
Corwin Springs, where federal and state researchers are
trying to raise disease-free bison that might eventually
be used to populate public lands in other areas.
"As we speak, I'm looking at a
few of those bison up in the pasture," landowner
Hunter Michelbrink said Wednesday evening. "I honestly
couldn't tell you how many they brought in this afternoon."
Michelbrink last week signed a new threeyear
lease with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal
and Plant Health Inspection Service, so that his land,
a former elk ranch, could still be used as a quarantine
facility. The previous lease expired Jan. 31.
With that lease in place, the Park Service
was able to start testing calves. Up to 100 calves that
test zero-negative for brucellosis will be sent to the
facility. The study is being jointly conducted by the
federal inspection agency and the Montana Fish, Wildlife
and Parks department.
"That agreement between APHIS and
the landowner has been completed. That allowed us then
to test calves," Nash said Wednesday. "This
coincided with our analysis of the time frame that we
could hold bison at Stephens Creek."
Bison testing positive for brucellosis
will still be sent to slaughter. The Park Service has
already sent 884 bison from Stephens Creek, with
the meat distributed to food assistance programs.
But now, as long as there is room, bison testing
free of the disease will be held for a return to the park
about mid April.
Nash said the Stephens Creek facility
will be able to hold between 200 and 400 bison for
the next three to four weeks. By that time, plant growth
in the park should be green enough to provide forage for
the animals.
"We don't know how many bison may
come into the Gardiner-Mammoth area in the coming weeks,"
Nash said. "We've yet to see any mass migrations
of animals, but we've seen consistent movements of groups
of 20 to 30."
The capture and slaughter procedure
is part of the Interagency Bison Management Plan
adopted in 2000, which is designed to conserve a viable,
wild bison population while cooperating to protect
Montana's brucellosis-free status. That means keeping
bison separated from cattle present on land outside
the park.
The plan has been the target of much
criticism, particularly this year as the number of bison slaughter
neared record numbers. The Park Service estimates that
as of late summer 2007, there were about 4,700 bison in
two herds in Yellowstone.
Christine Uthoff can be reached at cuthoff@dailychronicle.com or
582-2638.
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