* Update from the Field
It has been another quiet week in the field, with no buffalo in Montana, and therefore, none killed by hunters.
BFC standing in front of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks headquarters, in protest of the expanded bison hunt proposal, and in strong support of habitat for wild buffalo! BFC file photos by Stephany and Tony. Click photos for larger images.
BFC traveled to Helena last Thursday, to represent wild buffalo at the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission (FWP) meeting. On the agenda was a new proposal by FWP to expand the use of hunters to kill wild buffalo that migrate out of so-called tolerance areas, north and west of Yellowstone National Park. BFC stood in front of the FWP Headquarters while the meeting was taking place, braving below freezing temperatures for hours, holding banners, singing songs and talking with folks who would share their time and ideas with us.
One of FWP's slogans for wildlife is "think habitat," and we know that the buffalo have quite a few thoughts of their own about this. This amazing banner was painted by Good Shield. BFC file photo by Stephany. Click photo for larger image.
We were there to remind FWP of their responsibility to wild buffalo, that they need habitat immediately, and certainly not more hunting. We were there to remind them that wild buffalo are an ecologically extinct species and that the onus is upon FWP to move forward with integrity as the supposed stewards of wildlife in Montana. FWP should be seriously considering the status of wild bison and open up habitat, facilitating their natural recovery and restoration in Montana and throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Only one FWP Commissioner spoke against the proposal - Commissioner Ron Moody. BFC commends him for his courage in upholding a compassionate view and for speaking against the Interagency Bison Management Plan, which drives all of these nefarious decisions that harm America's last wild buffalo population. Commissioner Moody starkly stated that FWP's proposal uses hunters as hired snipers to kill buffalo as if they were vermin. Public comments are being accepted on this proposal through February 13, see below. Please make your voice heard for the last wild herds!
ROAM FREE!
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* TAKE ACTION!
Visit the take action links below and please spread the word among your networks of friends. Thank You!
1. Comment to Stop Montana's New Buffalo Firing Line
2. Write Letters to the Editor Opposing Montana's Bison Management Harvest
3. Stop Federal Livestock Overseer from Experimenting on Wild Buffalo!
4. Urge Congress to Support Voluntary Retirement of Public Lands Cattle Grazing!
5. Volunteer with BFC! Field volunteers are needed now through May. BFC provides room, board, gear and training, the buffalo and their landscape provide the inspiration! Please join us on the front lines in defense of America's last wild buffalo! Learn more and apply here and then email our volunteer coordinators.
6. Help keep BFC strong and effective in the field and at every level of the policy arena. Donations are tax-deductible and go directly to BFC's critical program work.
Thank you so much for taking these important actions! Please spread the word by passing these alerts on through all your networks of friends and colleagues!
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* Touring America's Buffalo on Turner's Green Ranch
Buffalo originating from the wilds of Yellowstone, now kept behind fences at Ted Turner's Green Ranch. Turner gets to keep 75% of the buffalos' offspring for holding them in quarantine another five years. BFC file photo by Darrell Geist. Click photo for larger image.
Earlier this month, members of Buffalo Field Campaign, Gallatin Wildlife Association, and Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation toured Ted Turner's Green Ranch to see the first group of buffalo held in a brucellosis free quarantine devised by the state of Montana for the "establishment of new tribal and public herds."
BFC file photo by Darrell Geist. Click photo for larger image.
The tour was a result of a public trust lawsuit filed by attorneys with Western Watersheds Project, a court ordered mediation meeting with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, and an agreement by Turner to provide a tour of the quarantined buffalo. Our suit stems from a deal struck by Gov. Brian Schweitzer with Turner Enterprises to house the buffalo for five years in exchange for Turner getting 75% of the offspring for his domestic private commercial herd. Throughout the public decision-making process, Fish, Wildlife & Parks indicated all buffalo, including offspring, would be managed as public wildlife and could never be privatized. Our suit seeks to reverse the deal that violates Montana's public trust responsibilities to protect and manage wildlife for public and not private benefit.
These buffalo are descended from over 200 calves captured inside Yellowstone National Park in mid-2000, separated from their family groups, with over half the captives slaughtered to produce "brucellosis-free" herds. What you will not read about in news stories is the serious injuries, deaths from stress, human handling, and the toll of confining a wild species in pens: several females were overfed during winter and died while trying to deliver their calves in spring; without adults and stressed by constant captivity, several young mothers abandoned their calves; buffalo were gored to death and crushed against the corral pens; a calf mysteriously died in a creek.
Tucked away off the meandering Highway 84 near Red Mountain on the lower reach of the Madison River, the majority of the 143 buffalo were congregating in a recently grazed fenced pasture on a bench of Turner's Green Ranch. A few bulls were scattered in the foothills as we made our way up a windy switchback to reach the bench overlooking the Madison Plateau. The buffalo were curious about our presence. Yellow identifying tags were fixed to their ears. After getting a good whiff and a long look at us, the buffalo turned and the herd took off running downhill. Not far away Turner's commercial herds loafed in a feedlot during our tour.
Recently Montana's Fish, Wildlife & Parks Commission approved negotiating an agreement with Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Indian Reservations for relocating the second cohort of 68 buffalo in quarantine now held at the Slip N Slide pens in Gardiner basin. Soon after, livestock ranchers and their front groups filed a lawsuit in Blaine County to thwart any transfer of quarantine buffalo to the Gros Ventre, Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes.
More buffalo held in quarantine facilities, north of Gardiner, Montana. BFC file photo by Darrell Geist.
Click photo for larger image.
Montana stands at a crossroads of its conscience and public trust responsibility for wildlife: to start anew and welcome the return of buffalo as a wildlife species, or repeat its horrible past by exterminating the buffalo, this time through domestication on a crippled, fenced landscape. What is missing for Montana is a cultural connection that honors buffalo's rightful place as a self willed, wild roaming herd.
I didn't have much to say to Turner's ranch hands, the lawyers, game wardens, and veterinarians assembled by Fish, Wildlife & Parks for the tour of America's last buffalo behind a fenced pasture on private lands, but I had this to say: "We're going to defend and fight for these buffalo as wildlife."
Darrell Geist, BFC Habitat Coordinator
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* Endangered Buffalo Fact of the Week
FACT: A recent report by National Park Service scientists suggests for the first time that only the Yellowstone bison population retain their wildlife identity. (Dratch and Gogan)
Published paper can be downloaded and reviewed from here.
Have a fact you'd like to share with us? Email it to Stephany.
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* BFC Wish List: Long Johns Needed!
Hello Buffalo Family,
We wish to thank each and every one of you for your continued support for the wild buffalo and our campaign. BFC volunteers are joyfully maintaining a constant and persistent presence in the field to monitor this year's bison migration and document any actions made against them. Although the winter weather to this point has been mild, we are feeling the effects of the last decade and a half of field patrols in our clothing supplies. If anyone of you could make donations of wool and/or synthetic long johns our volunteers would start using them immediately. We find ourselves in need of all sizes and weights of wool and/or synthetic long underwear bottoms and tops. Thank you all for past and future donations; your enduring kindness keeps us moving forward for wild bison.
For the Wild Ones,
Peet
Support Coordinator
Buffalo Field Campaign
Click HERE for BFC's complete Wish List
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* By the Numbers
AMERICAN BUFFALO ELIMINATED from the last wild population in the U.S. The last wild population is currently estimated at fewer than 3,700 individual buffalo. Wild bison are currently ecologically extinct throughout their native range in North America.
2011-2012 Total Buffalo Killed: 16
2011-2012 Government Capture:
2011-2012 Government Slaughter:
2011-2012 Held for Government Experiment:
2011-2012 Died In Government Trap:
2011-2012 Miscarriage in Government Trap:
2011-2012 State & Treaty Hunts: 16
2011-2012 Quarantine:
2011-2012 Shot by Agents:
2011-2012 Killed by Angry Residents:
2011-2012 Highway Mortality:
2010-2011 Total: 227
2009-2010 Total: 7
2008-2009 Total: 22
2007-2008 Total: 1,631
* Total Since 2000: 3,988*
*includes lethal government action, trap-related fatalities, quarantine/experiments, hunts, highway mortality
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* Last Words
Dear Janice (and Dan and Brian) [USDA-APHIS & Yellowstone National Park Officials]
I am a supporter of the NPS but your email below was just a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense. I do not support injustice or gibberish.
Basically, you are telling me that cattlemen are in charge of wildlife policy regarding America's bison. That is outrageous! Is it 2012 or 1912? What has really changed?
Do you think all of the American public is so uninformed and clueless, that we'll all be happy just to see a few thousand bison within Yellowstone with no concern or regard to what happens to these native animals 'when no one is looking?'
America's native bison are being held prisoner in the park. They are being hazed, killed, imprisoned, sterilized and experimented on, when they leave the park. And now I have learned, even within the park, many have been rounded up for sterilization experiments! The NPS and the cattle industry should be sued over this injustice, to put a permanent end to such an outrageous abuse of America's wild bison.
So even the NPS in and around Yellowstone is under the control of the ecological terrorists of the cattle industry. Wildlife Services already does so much killing of America's native wildlife on behalf the welfare queens of the West, the cattlemen, and their holy non-native cattle.
The ongoing abuse, demonization and persecution of native bison, by the cattle men, by the NPS, by anyone, must stop, permanently. Ecological justice requires freedom, protection and justice for America's bison. The NPS must finally defend and protect our native bison.
Robert Goldman
Portland, ME
This is Robert's response to the boiler-plate form letters he (and many of you) received after writing to USDA-APHIS and Yellowstone National Park regarding concerns about their mistreatment of wild buffalo. This letter inspired us, and we hope it inspires you, too. Thank you, Robert!!
Do you have submissions for Last Words? Send them to bfc-media@wildrockies.org. Thank you for all the poems, songs, quotes and stories you have been sending! Keep them coming! |
