Bison And Lawyers And Bears, Oh My
1,200 bison, also known as buffalo, are pretty much making a mess of the National Elk Refuge near Jackson, Wyoming. Federal officials wanted to thin the herd out since the buffalo are running the elk off and introducing disease to the other wildlife. So they proposed a relatively modest cull of about 70 bison per year - to be taken by hunters. But that was in 1998 when the herd only numbered about 500.
Yet it's the plan to kill bison that has garnered the most objection. That's because of the animals' docile nature — hunting them has been compared to hunting a sofa — and their iconic status as a last vestige of the once-wild American West.
"It's senseless and it's inhumane," said Jonathan Lovvorn, an attorney with the Fund for Animals.
The group filed a lawsuit in 1998 seeking to stop the hunt, which forced the federal government to delay the killing of bison until an environmental study was completed earlier this year.
Refuge manager Steve Kallin said the bison hunt would have been much smaller if the Fund for Animals had never filed a lawsuit. When a hunt was first proposed in 1998, there were about 500 bison on the refuge — a number Kallin said could have been sustained by hunting 70 animals a year.
Meanwhile, how many animals have succumbed to disease in that period of time? How much suffering imposed on animals in the name of "love" of animals? But never fear, there is still a way to blame this all on George Bush!
Most states forbid or discourage feed grounds because they allow the easy transmission of wildlife and livestock diseases. Aside from the elk refuge, there are 22 state-run feed grounds in northwest Wyoming, a region of towering mountains and fertile valleys where punishing winters routinely kill off wildlife.
Local hunters and federal wildlife officials say the first were started a century ago, by ranchers hoping to keep elk from eating the hay they had set aside for livestock during winter.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established the National Elk Refuge in 1912. Feeding of the elk began the same year. As elk hunting gained popularity, bringing streams of wealthy outsiders to Jackson every fall, the feed grounds helped ensure an ample supply of the animals……….
……..Reiswig, who retired from the Fish and Wildlife Service in June, said he never liked the feeding program but was forced to accept it as a political reality.
"For us to march in and say, 'We're going to phase out this feeding program,' that was not an option," Reiswig said. "Realistically, in a Western state, given this administration, that's just not the way this game is played."
Yeah, let's see. The program was taken over by the Feds in 1912. The hunting was proposed in 1998. Seems about right to somehow blame it on Bush. Who's trying to buffalo who here? Meanwhile, a spring freeze is being blamed for a bumper crop of bear problems in the western US:
Pushed from their homelands by a drought and pulled by the scent of human food, black bears across western US states are breaking into homes and tearing up garbage cans in a desperate search for nourishment ahead of hibernation.
Fires across the west also destroyed bear habitat, and the animals face the continuing peril of losing their living space to urban development.
The bear in the Boulder neighborhood finally came down from the tree and fled. The animal was lucky — it wore an ear tag, meaning a previous run in with authorities.
Authorities would have killed the bear if they had caught it, said Tyler Baskfield, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
This year is on target for approaching the 2002 record of 404 bears killed or euthanized, Baskfield said. Colorado has a population of between 8,000 and 12,000 bears.
"We had a late freeze in June which killed the acorns and berry crop. We had a very dry mid-summer and grasses in the high country dried up. That pushed the bears down into the valleys where we have people," Baskfield said.
It is a similar story in much of the western United States.
How bad is it?
Bears are causing plenty of trouble in California, said the state's Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist Jason Holley.
"They can blow the door off the hinges. This time of year we're having at least three break-ins a night around Lake Tahoe," Holley said.
And the problem will not get better. The bears who are habituated to easy food ("Hey! Look at all the food behind that closed door!") are going to be a problem in future years. Look, folks, nature is not as Disney (or Animal Planet television) portrays it. And a lot of these ideas that are inspired by "love" of animals are, frankly, stupid. We're heading into a real problem, real soon with this. Last year I blogged a few stories about bears - this year has seen a huge increase. Something is badly out of whack - and it is not just a spring freeze. That may have contributed, but it looks a lot like there are simply too many bears - and too many bison. Something has to give.
By J.D, Kotrla-Chipps, Monday, 17 September , 2007 @ 8:06 am
Concerning the buffalo, what diseases have they transmitted to “other species”?
There are many people, all over the country, that would gladly transport them somewhere else, if that were given as an option. Why not relocate them, instead of kill them?
Oh yeah, you’re “protecting” them from starving by killing them,…..I forgot.
By Gaius, Monday, 17 September , 2007 @ 8:14 am
Brucellosis
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=5957
Don’t let the facts interfere with your feelings.
By Sylvia, Wednesday, 19 September , 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Ever try to move a bison that doesn’t want to be moved?
By Eric Stewart, Sunday, 23 September , 2007 @ 11:25 pm
There is not in existence a SINGLE documented case of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle in the wild. The disease CAME from cattle and was given to most, if not all, of the ungulates in the Yellowstone region. This disease passes around and around in the ecosystem but as far as certain economic and political interests are concerned, the blame stops in that circle at the one animal that competes with western cattle for food.
Neat, eh?
Cattle ranching became grandfather claused into the creation of Grand Teton National Park and cattle and “buffalo” grazed together in the SAME pastures for FORTY YEARS and there was NOT A SINGLE RECORDED TRANSMISSION.
On the other hand, cattle ranchers do their damnedest to keep elk away from cattle and still the transmissions occur with regularity, as recently as a few months ago when a herd of cattle near Bridger, Montana was destroyed so that the state might retain its precious brucellosis-free status.
The irony is that if Montana lost that status, the amount of money estimated that would be required to vaccinate and test cattle on a widespread basis, something that Texan ranchers accept as a fact of life, is a third to half of what is spent every year harassing and killing the last genetically pure, continuously free-roaming, wild herd of bison left in America of Yellowstone.
The disease is a red herring. If it weren’t, and the prejudice against bison were based solely on science, then Montana’s Department of Livestock would be interested in what their own science indicates is the known transmitter: elk.
Get the facts! Visit the Buffalo Field Campaign’s website:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/
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