Why Yellowstone Park must kill 1,000 wild bison this winter

A controversial agreement between the state of Montana and the federal government requires Yellowstone National Park to cull bison herds.

|
Jim Urquhart/Reuters/File
A herd of bison graze in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, June 20, 2011. Yellowstone National Park is proposing to reduce its celebrated bison herd by 1,000 animals this winter by rounding up the bulk of those wandering into adjacent Montana and delivering them to Native American tribes for slaughter, officials said Wednesday.

Yellowstone National Park is proposing to kill 1,000 bison, also known as buffalo, this winter.

Roughly 5,000 bison roamed Yellowstone this summer, but officials fear a cold winter could drive herds into southwestern Montana. A controversial agreement struck in 2000 between the state of Montana and the federal government sanctions this mass slaughter; aimed at preventing herds from imposing infection and grazing competition upon local livestock. 

Officials are planning on killing mostly calves and females to reduce the population’s reproductive rate.

Some 30 to 60 million buffalo once roamed the American West, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, but severe hunting during the 1800s decreased the population to 325 individuals. Herds of Yellowstone bison have since reached record levels, causing Montana farmers to stress over their winter migration.

The kill quota varies by year, but this year’s goal of 1,000 would be the largest single elimination since 1,600 bison were killed during the winter of 2007-08. 

While some Native American tribes support the killing, others say the kill quotas are reminiscent of past US extermination campaigns that killed a majority of tribes and herds alike.

“Killing these buffalo is shameful,” Jimmy St. Goddard, the spiritual leader of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana, told Reuters.

Some officials say the Interagency Bison Management Plan is outdated, and the park needs a new method for population control.

“We believe we’ve outgrown it – new data about general biology and disease prevalence are available, and public opinion is shifting toward more tolerance for bison and Montana,” the National Park Service website explains in response the current management plan. “We need a new paradigm that accommodates larger herd sizes and allows bison to move more freely on suitable public lands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.”

But despite criticism, park officials say they don’t have a choice.

“Through the legal agreement the National Park Service has to do this,” said Yellowstone spokeswoman Sandy Snell-Dobert. “If there was more tolerance north of the park in Montana for wildlife, particularly bison as well as other wildlife, to travel outside the park boundaries, it wouldn’t be an issue.”

“They are a hardy species,” adds Stephanie Adams with the National Parks Conservation Association in an interview with the Associated Press. “But until there’s more room for bison to range beyond the park boundary, we’re going to have to rely on larger numbers of bison being sent to slaughter.”

Since the 1980s, more than 6,300 bison have been sent to slaughter, with officials removing more than 737 animals last year alone. 

This report contains material from Reuters and the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why Yellowstone Park must kill 1,000 wild bison this winter
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/1119/Why-Yellowstone-Park-must-kill-1-000-wild-bison-this-winter
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe