Is a Mystery Disease Killing off All The Yellowstone Buffalo?
Pastor Dale Morgan
Is a Mystery Disease Killing off All The Yellowstone Buffalo?*
* Story Highlights
* Mystery Disease cut Yellowstone bison population in half?
* Annual winter deaths cause large losses
* Program intended to contain bison to park, protect cattle from disease
* Advocates say ranchers exaggerate bison's threat to livestock
GARDINER, Montana -- More than half of Yellowstone National Park's
bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend
its annual slaughter program.
Fully half of Yellowstone National Park's bison have died.
As a result, the park estimates its bison herd has dropped from 4,700 in
November to about 2,300 today, prompting the government to halt the
culling program early.
"There has never been deaths like this of the bison since the 1800s in
this country, and it's disgusting," said Mike Mease of the Buffalo Field
Campaign.
Government officials say the deaths are caused by the spread of the
disease brucellosis from the Yellowstone bison to cattle on land near
the park. Brucellosis can cause miscarriages, infertility and reduced
milk production in domestic cattle.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that half of Yellowstone's
bison herd is infected with the bacterium.
Previously, under the Interagency Bison Management Plan, wandering bison
were sent to slaughter without being tested for brucellosis. (The meat
-- which experts say is safe to eat if cooked -- and hides were
distributed to Native American groups.)
Late this winter the slaughter was limited to animals that tested
positive for the disease.
Now the program has been further curtailed; no bison have been killed in
the past week.
"The plan requires all of us to do two things: protect a viable wild
bison population and reduce the risk of transmission of brucellosis from
bison to cattle. We're required to keep bison and cattle separate,"
National Park Service spokesman Al Nash said.
The USDA acknowledges that bison-to-cattle transmission is difficult to
document, but it says investigations indicate that bison were the likely
source of infections in cattle herds in Wyoming and North Dakota.
But critics call the culling an overreaction. There is no documented
case of the disease passing from bison to cattle, they said.
"I mean, it's hype, it's a hysteria," Mease said. "And it's not a fatal
disease."
Last month, two women chained themselves to a railing inside the park's
visitor center to protest the policy.
"The Park Service is meant to protect and preserve wildlife in national
parks, not indiscriminately slaughter hundreds of [bison]," one of the
protesters, 20-year-old Miriam Wasser, wrote in a leaflet she distributed.
Yellowstone is the only place in the lower 48 states where a bison
population has persisted since prehistoric times, according to the Park
Service.
Herds once numbered in the tens of millions across the continent but
were hunted nearly to extinction by the late 1800s. Protected since the
early 20th century, the species has recovered.
Bison graze high on Yellowstone's grassy plateaus during the summer.
When the weather becomes too harsh and food becomes scarce, they often
roam outside the park. That's the problem.
Nash explained the situation in its simplest terms:
"Bison are bison. Bison are nomadic animals. Bison are looking for food.
Food is difficult and scarce to come by at the end of the winter.
They're leaving the interior of the park [and going] to lower places, in
part, to look for food. There's limited tolerance for bison outside the
boundaries of Yellowstone National Park."
That's because just two cases of brucellosis would trigger stringent
limits on export of cattle from Montana.
"Montana has spent millions of dollars over the years to get brucellosis
eradicated from our livestock," said Martin Davis, who has a cattle
ranch within roaming distance north of the park. "And to put that in
jeopardy -- no one wants that to happen."
Control of the bison population is essential, Davis said.
"Bottom line is, there's too many of them. They've got to be managed.
They ran out of pasture. ... They're eating themselves out of house and
home."
Under the management plan, rangers and cowboys hired by various
government agencies try to harass stray animals back onto park property.
Officials shoot animals that can't be persuaded. (Ranchers are not
permitted to kill wild bison).
Meanwhile, hundreds of bison are rounded up inside the park every winter
and slaughtered to reduce competition for food and therefore the need
for animals to wander onto private land.
"It becomes a private property issue," said Davis, who has never had a
bison encroach on his ranch. "They walked down onto private property.
And if you don't want a buffalo on your private property, you shouldn't
have to have them there."
Mease, the activist, portrays the conflict as a simple turf war.
"The Montana cattle ranchers don't want the competition for grass," he
said. "They want the national forests and public lands to be all their
public-lands grazing allotments, and in that process, they don't want
bison."
Federal and state officials said last week they will lease private land
bordering the park where up to 100 bison eventually will be allowed to
graze during the winter. But the problem is not likely to go away.
"The reality of the situation is that whether you have 4,000 bison or
whether you have 200 bison, bison are a nomadic species and they will
always be looking out to the horizon and expanding their boundaries,"
said Tim Reid, chief deputy ranger at Yellowstone.
So the culling program is expected to return next winter.
"It is our job to protect the viability of this population," the Park
Service's Nash said. "We take that seriously. We are not taking any
actions that will have a serious ongoing negative impact on this population.
"The Yellowstone bison population is healthy, it's strong, it's vibrant.
We continue to take actions to protect that herd."
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But to activists like Mease, it's just not right to kill healthy bison.
"There's less than 5,000 wild, genetically pure buffalo left in
America," he said, "and this is how we treat them?"