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BFC Launches New Web Site
BFC is pleased to unveil our brand-new website, www.buffalofieldcampaign.org
We have gathered the most comprehensive collection of
up-to-date information on the Yellowstone buffalo, America's
only continuously wild herd.
The new site has even more tools to help you keep informed
about the plight of the Yellowstone buffalo and take
action to stop the slaughter. You can scroll through
our archives of Updates from the Field; read action
items, press releases, and news stories; watch our exclusive
video footage; browse our photo gallery; contact key
decision makers; get background information on the buffalo;
and find other ways to support the buffalo and the work
of the Buffalo Field Campaign, all on one easy to navigate
site.
Beautifully laid-out and carefully organized, buffalofieldcampaign.org
contains a wealth of information on the buffalo and
answers to the most frequently asked questions.
For example, you will find:
Information on the Yellowstone Buffalo Preservation
Act (HR 3446) and whether your House Representative
supports this crucial legislation:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/legislative/buffpreservation.html
The entire Congressional debate on the Hincey-Bass amendment
to "prohibit the use of funds to kill bison, or
assist in the killing of bison in the Yellowstone National
Park herd." Find out how your representative voted:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/legislative/hbamendment.html
Videos and photos shot by BFC volunteers of buffalo
in the wild and under the duress of capture and slaughter.
From beautiful clips of free-roaming buffalo to gut-wrenching
footage of buffalo being trapped and experimented on
inside Yellowstone National Park. All this is being
done to the last wild herd of buffalo in America with
millions of our tax dollars to benefit the economic
interests of Montana's most powerful industry, livestock.
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/videogallery.html
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/media/photogallery.html
Thanks to Chuck I for designing the new site and to
Planetmind in Nederland, CO for hosting it. The server
hosting the new BFC's site is 100% Wind powered!
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* The Wild Buffalo of Yellowstone National Park
The Yellowstone herd is unique, and is descended from
23 individuals who survived the 19th century near-extinction
by taking refuge in the Park's remote backcountry. Unfortunately,
America's only truly wild, genetically pure buffalo
find themselves at the center of a violent conflict
that can result in the yearly slaughter of hundreds
or thousands of buffalo.
Yellowstone does not provide sufficient winter range
for the resident herds of wildlife due to the deep snows
of its high elevation plateaus, and buffalo are not
protected on all of their year-round habitat. Animals
leave the Park to forage on lower elevation grasses
necessary for winter survival. When buffalo follow their
instinctual migration routes to lower elevations, as
they traditionally have done, they unwittingly enter
a conflict zone where their survival is undermined by
Montana politics.
Montana's powerful livestock industry demands that buffalo
exiting the Park must be slaughtered to prevent the
spread of brucellosis, a European livestock disease
introduced by cows and first detected in Yellowstone
buffalo in 1917. The livestock industry continuously
complains about the threat of brucellosis, but the facts
tell another story. There has never been a single documented
case of wild buffalo transmitting brucellosis to livestock.
Even if such a transmission were biologically possible,
the absence of cattle from lands where buffalo forage
in winter months make it physically impossible. Yellowstone
elk and other wildlife, also known to carry brucellosis,
are allowed to freely exit the park without coming under
fire as the buffalo do, belying the DOL's assertions
that brucellosis poses such a grave threat.
During the winter of 1996-'97, nearly 1100 buffalo were
slaughtered when they crossed the arbitrary Park boundary
and entered Montana. These killings, combined with deaths
from the unusually severe winter, resulted in a loss
of more than half of the Yellowstone herd in a matter
of months. Since that wicked winter, Buffalo Field Campaign
volunteers have been patrolling the Yellowstone boundary,
monitoring buffalo movements, and documenting the MT
Department of Livestock (DOL) and National Park Service
(NPS) actions against the buffalo.
While buffalo continue to be killed every year, the
presence of our volunteers and our success at focusing
media attention on the slaughter have prevented a repeat
of the '96-'97 slaughter, the worst single year for
American buffalo since the 19th century.
For more information on the importance of the Yellowstone
herd and on their current plight, please visit http://buffalofieldcampaign.org.
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Buffalo Field Campaign
PO Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
(406) 646-0070
buffalo@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org
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