Plans by Yellowstone National Park officials to remove roughly 1,000 bison from the park's herds are drawing criticisms and protests from groups that say the slaughter is unnecessary.
A month ago Yellowstone officials announced the culling plan, which Defenders of Wildlife officials say will be "the largest in seven years" if it achieves the goal of removing 1,000 bison. In addition to the 500-600 bison that head outside the park and into Montana being removed by park staff, it is anticipated that public and tribal treaty hunting in Montana will remove 300 to 400 bison. Park crews began rounding up bison Thursday.
"America's last wild buffalo are right now being trapped for slaughter along Yellowstone's northern boundary. These capture for slaughter operations are happening even as state and treaty hunters are shooting buffalo that migrate into Montana," the Buffalo Field Campaign wrote on its website. "Such management actions are driven by Montana's bison-intolerant livestock industry, intolerance that is codified in the statute: MCA 81-2-120, a law crafted by the livestock industry that needs to be repealed."
At Defenders, the group said "(T)his capture and slaughter program, implemented by the National Park Service, is meant to keep the Yellowstone bison population below an arbitrary cap of 3,500, imposed decades ago as part of a settlement with the state of Montana for now discredited concerns over brucellosis and carrying capacity."
The wildlife advocacy group also said a poll of Montana residents last month found that 67 percent of those contacted support relocating Yellowstone bison to start herds elsewhere in their state.
"(Montana) Governor (Steve) Bullock and the National Park Service need to move quickly to bring bison management into the 21st century," the group's release said. "They need to expand the tolerance zone around Yellowstone, finish their environmental assessment of the quarantine and relocation program and kick-start plans to update the 14-year old Interagency Bison Management Plan, the document that sets guidelines for managing Yellowstone’s wild bison."
Jonathan Proctor, Defenders' program director for the Rockies and Plains, said that, “(B)ison are wildlife and should be managed as such. Wholesale slaughter of these genetically valuable animals simply because they leave Yellowstone National Park looking for food is archaic and driven by policies that treat them like livestock. Rather than working towards Montanans’ goal of wild bison restoration, this shipment to slaughter program kills the bison that could, instead, be the beginnings of new restoration herds.”
“We’ve proved that bison restoration from Yellowstone to Montana’s public and tribal lands is viable, making this shipment to slaughter wasteful, unacceptable and unnecessary. Recent polls also clearly show that the majority of Montanans want wild bison restoration. So, why are the National Park Service and Montana’s Department of Livestock continuing to implement this unnecessary and expensive slaughter program? It’s a waste of taxpayer funds, and a waste of prized Yellowstone wild bison.”
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“Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent, literally or even figuratively, we would not long continue to raise, kill, and eat animals the way we do.”
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
Just a request here. Can we get some agreement that boldfacing the occasional word or two for emphasis works, but when pages of cut-and-paste are boldfaced all emphasis is lost and it just comes across as shouting?
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/grazing-cattle-the-new-invasive-species/
Is the Government Destroying the Ecosystem of the American West by Favoring Cattle Over Wild Horses?
If they be the case, they can't be doing much damage nor displacing much othe wildlife.
ec,
Actually, I may have overstated the contribution. According to a complaint filed with the Secretary of the Interior, livestock grazing on federal public lands provides only 3 percent of the beef produced in the United States. As Alfred Runte points out, these are not prime grazing lands. Moreover, most have been degraded by decades of overgrazing.
When you subsidize something that is plentiful, you are not poviding any additional benefits to consumers. As I noted, even if you ended public land grazing, it would not have any significant impact on beef and lamb supplies, or on prices. There is clearly a cost to taxpayers, but no substantive benefit.
Yes, you are correct; I did mean $500 million. If we added $500 million to the National Park Service budget, that would be about a 20 percent increase. Spending tax dollars on wasteful subsidies takes funding away from publicly beneficial programs. Private landowners do not have the luxury of being subsidized to graze cattle on inferior rangelands.
And that is based on what?
Thanks, rmackie,
I agree that many public land ranchers are honest and hard working. They deserve to be treated fairly. However, grazing causes a lot of damage that must be addressed.
The reality is that public lands ranching is not only a loser for the taxpayer, but it is also a loser for the ranchers. More and more of them are getting out voluntarily, because their children do not want to continue the tradition. Others are going bankrupt because it is unprofitable. As the family ranch declines, there is an growing trend toward wealthy individuals or giant corporations buying out ranches and grazing allotments. That is increasingly where our tax subsidies go.
I like the idea of a voluntary buyout of public land grazing allotments. There is a lot of resistance from the federal agencies, but I think the concept has a lot of promise. A one-time buyout would benefit the ranchers and allow them to move on, end public taxpayer subsidies, and allow the land to heal.
A truely unbiased source. (LOL)
If you are lowering the cost of production for a product consumed by the vast majority of the population, you are providing a benefit to consumers.
Yes, and it would be a $500 million increase in the cost to consumers.
The fact that taxpayers are voting for those that provide the subsidies and not voting for those that want to put badgers ahead of burgers.
Au contraire. The reason there are so few livestock per square mile is because there is little vegetation to eat. What little there is gets eaten by livestock instead of native wildlife. Moreover, cattle congregate around water sources, eroding the banks and fouling the water with waste, to the detriment of other wildlife. That is why livestock grazing is directly tied to the endangerment of numerous species.