Testimony on HB 214

Dear Chairman Ted Washburn and members of the Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee,

On behalf of Buffalo Field Campaign I am submitting testimony on HB 214. Please share my testimony with Representative Jeffery Welborn, whom I do not have a contact for. I would also request that my testimony be entered into the hearing record and transcript. Thank you.

Buffalo Field Campaign is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to stop the slaughter of Yellowstone's wild buffalo herd, protect the natural habitat of wild free-roaming buffalo and native wildlife, and to work with people of all Nations to honor the sacredness of the wild buffalo.

Our members, who come from all walks of life and from places all around the world, envision a life for buffalo in which they thrive within a state of inherent wildness. We also envision a world in which buffalo and all other native wildlife are given precedence on public land, and where buffalo herds remain as a self-regulating sustainable population, and a viable genetic source for the future evolutionary potential of the wildlife species.

I am also a resident of West Yellowstone and live year-round in the Hebgen basin where America's last wild buffalo roam.

HB 214 would legislate the ecological extinction of wild American bison in Montana by reclassifying ALL buffalo or American bison not in captivity and not owned by a person as livestock.

This precedent of re-classifying Montana's native wildlife as livestock is repugnant to Montanans and people around the world.

It is not socially or morally acceptable for Americans and Montanans to sanction the extinction of a valued indigenous wildlife species, and it is certainly wrong for the Montana legislature to commit such acts into law.

Buffalo roam. So do elk, antelope, mule deer and bighorn sheep.

The prevalence of domesticated buffalo as livestock is widespread in North America; only one population of migratory wild buffalo remains in Montana.

Buffalo descended from the Yellowstone population are a gift to our Nation and our natural heritage. We have a duty to future generations committing ourselves to the conservation, preservation and restoration of the wild American buffalo in Montana today.

Buffalo Field Campaign supports HB 214's provisions repealing MCA 81-2-120 management of wild buffalo for disease control giving Montana Dept. of Livestock authority for all migratory populations and MCA 87-1-216 Montana's hunt of wild buffalo for disease control.

We would also favor striking by amendment HB 214's mandate to Dept. of Livestock inspectors for capturing, quarantining, testing, slaughtering, taking by special hunt, or transferring to Tribes "estrayed" buffalo "in a manner that does not jeopardize compliance with a state-administered or federally administered livestock disease control program," that is, neutered or spayed buffalo, according to Montana's state veterinarian.

The Montana legislature needs to stop and not perpetuate the wasteful, taxpayer funded harassment and slaughter of America's last wild buffalo by Dept. of Livestock inspectors in Gardiner and Hebgen Lake basins, and wherever wild buffalo roam in Montana.

Taxpayers have wasted millions of dollars funding Dept. of Livestock harassment and slaughtering of wild buffalo, yet cattle have contracted brucellosis that even Montana's state vet says was not caused by wild buffalo.

Even the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that the current management scheme is a multi-million dollar taxpayer funded boondoggle leading to the unnecessary slaughter and destruction of America's last wild migratory buffalo that has not led to or protected Montana's cattle.

If there is a valid disease concern, address it by managing cattle.

Recently, Hank Rate who has been running cattle along the Yellowstone river for 40 years said: "We can live with the animals. Buffalo are part of the overall picture," he said last week. "If you don't want them, go get a farm in Iowa."

"As long as the IBMP is in the state it is now, I see no resolution because it's been crafted such that it's impossible to allow buffalo to do anything but come out and be shot," he said. "IBMP" is the Interagency Bison Management Plan currently costing taxpayers over $3 million dollars annually to harass and harm wild buffalo on their native habitat.

Bill Hoppe, the other year round cattle operator in the Gardiner basin was also critical of Montana's role in $3.3 million spent to lease for 30 years an electrified fenced corridor through the Royal Teton Ranch to allow bison onto a meadow hammered by cattle grazing now in National Forest ownership acquired for $13 million dollars a decade ago: "It's a $4 million project that ain't never gonna work," Hoppe said. "I guess if you were making a Walt Disney movie, it might work."

Buffalo Field Campaign has always contended that wild buffalo are wildlife, part of our natural heritage.

The people who look after and care for the buffalo should be biologists, scientists, people trained in traditional ecological knowledge of wild buffalo, people who have an open mind about what the buffalo can teach our culture: nurture strong family bonds, show a willingness to look after one another in a population, share the hardships in breaking trail to find new food sources, fend for the lesser among your group, traits that have served the wild species well.

The wild American buffalo has been missing from Montana's landscape for well over 100 years. It's time for Montanans to make a generational commitment to conserve, protect and restore wild buffalo in their native habitats for the next 100 years to come.

Please amend HB 214 to protect America's last wild buffalo as a valued wildlife species freely roaming Montana.

Darrell Geist
Habitat Coordinator
Buffalo Field Campaign
PO Box 957
West Yellowstone MT 59758
phone: (406) 646-0070
fax: (406) 646-0071
email: z@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/habitat.html

Support a Wish and Give: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/aboutus/wishlist.html

References online:

"Gardiner-area ranchers weigh in on nearby bison," Bozeman Chronicle, January 31, 2011.
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_664f7246-2cd8-11e0-8d48-001cc4c03286.html

"GAO_YELLOWSTONE BISON Interagency Plan and Agencies' Management Need Improvement to Better Address Bison-Cattle Brucellosis Controversy," March 7, 2008.
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/GAO.html.