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Defenders Magazine
Defenders in Action: Bison Feel Winter's Chill
Continuing an infamous tradition, the annual winter killing of Yellowstone National Park’s bison began on November 25 when a lone bull was shot within 50 yards of the park’s boundary by agents of the Montana Department of Livestock, with the assistance of national park rangers, according to witnesses.
The killing is driven by a fear that the animals will transmit brucellosis, a bacterial disease, to cattle that graze near the park’s borders. However, scientists say there is no documented proof that a wild bison has ever transmitted brucellosis to livestock. Despite this fact, wildlife managers kill Yellowstone bison yearly to keep populations near 3,000, the threshold above which the creatures begin to migrate out of the park in winter. In the past two decades, approximately 3,700 bison have been killed by state and federal agencies.
“It’s not a matter of too many buffalo in Yellowstone, but not enough tolerance by the state of Montana of their presence outside the park,” says Caroline Kennedy, director of special projects at Defenders. “The inaugural killing of the male buffalo, which posed so little risk of disease transmission, is a clear sign that it will be a very bloody winter in Yellowstone.”
To combat the killing, Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-New York) and Charles Bass (R-New Hampshire) recently introduced legislation calling for a moratorium on the hazing, capturing and killing of Yellowstone bison on all federal lands until a list of conditions are met. Among the conditions: bison be allowed to range freely on federal lands north and west of the park; bison be moved under the sole jurisdiction of the National Park Service; a bison-capture facility in the park be removed; and a land exchange on the north side of the park, which has already been paid for, be finalized.
