| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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Article 1/01/09 |
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EDITORIAL:
Bison-tolerant policies don't increase threat to ranchers
(EXCELLENT!!!), Bozeman Daily Chronicle
1/01/09
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OUR
OPINION
Bison-tolerant policies don't increase threat to ranchers
In a move that was as predictable as it is counterintuitive,
Montana cattle ranchers have gone to court to overturn
a new agreement whereby the state would tolerate more
bison outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.
It's time for the cattlemen to put this old fight behind
them and start focusing on the right villains in this
saga.
State officials have slaughtered more than 5,000 park
bison in the last 20 years, ostensibly in the name of
stopping the spread of brucellosis, a disease that can
cause cattle to abort their calves. The disease is carried
by a significant number of the bison, though there is
no recorded case of cattle contracting the disease from
the bison.
An agreement between Montana and federal agencies would
allow up to 25 of the bison to roam outside the park's
northern boundary, and an unlimited number will be tolerated
outside the park's west boundary in the Horse Butte area.
It's the latter aspect of the agreement that is being
challenged by the cattle industry. An attorney for the
Montana Stockgrowers Association argues that the brucella
bacteria can survive for months in aborted bison fetuses
and pose a real threat to cattle.
But there are no cattle operations in the Horse Butte
area, and the bison will be geographically isolated there
by two arms of Hebgen Lake.
Bison have been absolved of blame in recent outbreaks
of brucellosis in cattle in the Yellowstone area. Those
cases were blamed on elk, some of which also carry the
disease, and there is virtually no way to isolate cattle
from exposure to the elk.
The stockgrowers need to turn their sights away from the
bison and toward the disease itself, which is promoted
by the artificial concentration of very large elk herds
and bison in areas of Wyoming near the park where state
wildlife feeding programs are conducted in the winter
months. If these feed grounds were eliminated, incidence
of the disease in wildlife would likely wane, substantially
lessening the threat to livestock from wild elk.
This butting heads over bison has gone on long enough.
The ranchers have every justification for being concerned
about the brucellosis threat to their livelihood. But
the fight needs to be waged in a way that can get some
real results - not aimed at the ranchers' symbolic nemesis,
bison, which will pose no increased threat under the state's
new and more bison-tolerant policies.
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