MIKE STARK Billings Gazette | Posted: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 12:00 am
BILLINGS, Mont. - Roughly one out of four bison in Yellowstone National Park has been captured, sent to slaughter or otherwise killed this winter.
The unofficially tally on Monday reached 1,098, topping a previous record of 1,084 set in the winter of 1996-97. The number could exceed 1,200 in the coming days.
Park officials said there were an estimated 4,700 bison in Yellowstone before winter set in, the second-highest total ever recorded.
But as temperatures turned cold, bison began having a harder time breaking through crusty snow to find the food below. As they've done for years, groups began to wander west and north toward lower elevations.
State and federal management policies, though, are designed to keep bison from wandering too far, out of fear they might transmit brucellosis to cattle in the area.
So far this year, 822 bison captured along the north edge of Yellowstone have been shipped to slaughter, including 57 on Monday. Another 110 or so are expected to be shipped in the coming days, and scores more in the area may soon be captured. Three bison have been euthanized on the north side.
Meanwhile, the Montana Department of Livestock has captured and sent to slaughter 107 bison near the western border.
Hunters this year also killed 166 bison: 63 in a hunt sponsored by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks and another 103 by tribal members.
The number is the largest removed from Yellowstone in more than a century.
"Certainly it is a big number," Al Nash, a Yellowstone spokesman, said Monday afternoon.
A larger percentage was taken in the winter of 1996-97, when 1,084 of the estimated 3,400 bison were shot or sent to slaughter, prompting widespread outcry.
But the population rebounded to a record 4,900 in the summer of 2005. The following winter, nearly 1,000 were removed in government management and hunts, and again the population bounced back.
"It says we have a very strong and robust population," Nash said.
Critics have said bison have been wrongly and harshly targeted in an illogical attempt to reduce the spread of brucellosis, a contagious disease that can cause bison, elk and cattle to abort.
"This is an American icon. They are being systematically slaughtered," said Stephany Seay, a spokeswoman for Buffalo Field Campaign, a bison advocacy group. "It's like buffalo genocide, and now the agency that is supposed to be protecting these animals has blood all over their hands."
On Monday, four environmental groups called on Montana's congressional delegation to find money to allow some bison to leave Yellowstone.
An agreement with the Church Universal and Triumphant would remove cattle from the Royal Teton Ranch near Gardiner in the winter, freeing up about 7,500 acres of winter habitat for bison on public lands.
The step was outlined in a state and federal plan in 2000 but has yet to be implemented.
Carrying out the agreement will cost around $2.8 million. Some of that will be paid by state and private funds. About $1.5 million from federal agencies would complete the funding package. So far, though, that money hasn't been committed by the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service or the Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service, the groups said.
"Several organizations have already expressed a willingness to raise private financial support for this agreement, but the federal government must do its part by providing critical funding and completing the deal," Tim Stevens, of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement.
NPCA, along with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Montana Wildlife Federation and the National Wildlife Federation, sent the letter to Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester and Rep. Denny Rehberg.