Yellowstone National Park

The following is an excerpt of an Op-Ed by Christopher Ketchan for the New York Times titled “The Bison Roundup the Government Wants to Hide”.

THE National Park Service is set to begin its annual roundup of wild bison in Yellowstone National Park today. A portion will be slaughtered to reduce the number of animals that migrate beyond the park’s borders.

This culling is done largely outside of public view. Journalists have been barred in the past from watching the roundup, though it takes place on public land. The reason, according to the park service, was “for the safety of the public and staff” and also for the bison’s welfare.

This year, in response to litigation, the park service will allow a glimpse of what goes on. But only a glimpse. Access for journalists will be severely limited.

Let’s be honest here. This isn’t about “safety and welfare.” The real reason the park service doesn’t want journalists to view the roundup in its entirety is that the brutality of the cull would be revealed.

The buffalo is perhaps the iconic American mammal. More than any other animal, it is emblematic of the American frontier.

It also symbolizes the savagery with which we have treated the natural world. Tens of millions were slaughtered in a few brief decades during the 1800s — for their hides and fur and, not least, to subjugate restive Plains Indians by eliminating their food supply.

By 1900, out of a population once estimated at as many as 60 million animals, as few as 700 bison remained in private herds, and only 23 at Yellowstone.

Under the protection of the park service for almost a century, the bison have multiplied to an estimated 4,600 animals in Yellowstone.

So why would the park service, whose mission includes preserving “native wildlife species and the processes that sustain them,” opt to help kill one of its most historically and ecologically important wildlife populations?

I’ve covered the controversies over bison management in Yellowstone for almost a decade. The explanation, I’ve concluded, has nothing to do with ecology and everything to do with politics.

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In 1995, the state of Montana sued the park service to control bison that roam outside of Yellowstone’s boundary. Montana stockmen feared that bison could infect local cattle populations with the disease brucellosis, which can cause cows to abort their calves. For years, the Montana Department of Livestock had killed bison that left the park.

In 2000, a court- mediated settlement resulted in the Interagency Bison Management Plan, which remains in effect today. It basically requires the park service to do the bidding of Montana stockmen. The park service, in cooperation with the state livestock department, captures bison inside the park and ships them to slaughterhouses. This effort has cost an estimated $50 million since it began 15 years ago. Ninety-five percent of that funding has come from the federal government.

Animal epidemiologists have long noted that the risk to cows of brucellosis infection from wild bison is remote. Not a single instance of transmission has ever been documented.

When I reported on the brucellosis question for Vice magazine last year, even the park service acknowledged to me that “there is recognition by both disease regulators and wildlife managers that the risk of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle is minute.” A retired park service biologist, Mary Meagher, who studied bison for 37 years, told me then that “brucellosis is a smoke screen.” She added, “The real issue is that ranchers don’t want bison out there on the land.”

Federal bison policy, in other words, has been captured by the politically powerful livestock industry.

Last month, represented by lawyers at the University of Denver Law School and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, I filed a lawsuit with Stephany Seay, media coordinator of the nonprofit Buffalo Field Campaign, to compel the park service to allow journalists and the public to have reasonable, nondisruptive access to the capture and cull.

In response, the park service has agreed to allow us to observe the activities on four days of the service’s choosing. But this is wholly inadequate for a culling operation that takes place over several weeks. We’re skeptical about how much we’ll be allowed to see.

Bison should be managed like so many other populations of wild animals — with seasonal hunting. Let them roam beyond Yellowstone’s boundaries year-round in Montana. Scrap the Interagency Bison Management Plan. Repeal the authority of Montana’s livestock department to slaughter bison. Get cows out of the way and allow wild bison to restore themselves — through their ancient instinct to migrate — on their native landscape.

In December, Montana took a long-awaited step in that direction. Gov. Steve Bullock proposed allowing Yellowstone bison to roam in certain areas beyond the park’s boundaries throughout the year. This modest move must still be approved by various state and federal agencies. Hopefully, this will lead to broader changes in way the animal is managed.

Despite this progress, the annual cull will still take place. The sad irony here is that in order to allow Montana ranchers to graze their cattle, the park service is helping to slaughter a native animal so iconic that it is emblazoned on the park service’s own logo.

Read the story at the New York Times website.