American Prairie Reserve - Nothing new

Back on topic I'm really having a hard time following the circular logic.

So initially he is posting that APR shouldn't be able to put bison on their place because they are wild animals and not livestock and for sure they shouldn't be able to graze them on BLM land so they are going to for sure lose that court case because they aren't livestock even though the Montana legislature passed a law recently saying they were livestock. (plus all kinds of other scattered nonsense about ferrets and extinct grass and stuff)

Then he posts up information saying that they aren't pure DNA wild bison but have a small % of bovine DNA.

Is he arguing for or against APR treating their bison like livestock? Has he changed his mind and is now saying it is okay?

I really haven't ever understood what he is saying that APR is doing wrong. I guess that they have publicly said they want predators on the landscape? I thought he was against them grazing bison on BLM land but now I'm not sure.
 
npaden said:
Back on topic I'm really having a hard time following the circular logic.

So initially he is posting that APR shouldn't be able to put bison on their place because they are wild animals and not livestock and for sure they shouldn't be able to graze them on BLM land so they are going to for sure lose that court case because they aren't livestock even though the Montana legislature passed a law recently saying they were livestock. (plus all kinds of other scattered nonsense about ferrets and extinct grass and stuff)

Then he posts up information saying that they aren't pure DNA wild bison but have a small % of bovine DNA.

Is he arguing for or against APR treating their bison like livestock? Has he changed his mind and is now saying it is okay?

I really haven't ever understood what he is saying that APR is doing wrong. I guess that they have publicly said they want predators on the landscape? I thought he was against them grazing bison on BLM land but now I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
npaden said:
Back on topic I'm really having a hard time following the circular logic.

So initially he is posting that APR shouldn't be able to put bison on their place because they are wild animals and not livestock and for sure they shouldn't be able to graze them on BLM land so they are going to for sure lose that court case because they aren't livestock even though the Montana legislature passed a law recently saying they were livestock. (plus all kinds of other scattered nonsense about ferrets and extinct grass and stuff)

Then he posts up information saying that they aren't pure DNA wild bison but have a small % of bovine DNA.

Is he arguing for or against APR treating their bison like livestock? Has he changed his mind and is now saying it is okay?

I really haven't ever understood what he is saying that APR is doing wrong. I guess that they have publicly said they want predators on the landscape? I thought he was against them grazing bison on BLM land but now I'm not sure.
Click to expand...
Even more strange is Gila is a hard right guy, that I'm sure believes in private property rights, that is, unless its AP that owns that private land. Then that's different, private property rights should then be taken away.

His whole issue with AP is lathered in hypocrisy.
 
Hunting Wife said:
Some of us actually worked on this genetics stuff you keep citing, during development of those genetic panels with TAMU, and UC Davis, and how to apply the data to bison conservation. You are misrepresenting old data and calling it gospel, and misinterpreting the current utility and application. Not that I think you care, because I agree you seem to have some kind of UPOM agenda and false information is your bread and butter. But I’ll post this anyway for anyone in the gallery who may be curious…

Kunkle’s opinion on the importance of “purity” always has been in the minority, and is now moot. The level of introgression in bison (<1%) is far, far lower than acceptable levels of hybridization in other recovery species (IIRC closer to 20% in some fish, for example). Plus, way back in 2007, anyone with a grasp of genetics expected that introgression likely existed in all conservation herds because of their origins and shared foundation stock, and the fact that we were literally looking at 33 loci. That’s 33 out of millions. Failure to detect didn’t say much. People latching on to purity were fooling themselves.

But so what? Nearly the entirety of what we know about bison came after the bottleneck, and thus we learned it from examination of introgressed bison. Carcass characteristics, foraging patterns, biological functions, etc. Turns out the bison we know today and cattle are still very different in very meaningful ways, so how big a deal is the fraction of a percent of cow DNA, really?

The far bigger threat to bison genetics is genetic drift, loss of heterozygosity, and loss of alleles. We’ve seen an alarming number of alleles disappear from some herds just in the time we’ve been studying bison genetics. Keeping genetic diversity is priority number one. This is what AP and others now diligently manage their herds for.

But once again, this is all deflection and obfuscation because AP is perfectly free to raise whatever beefalo they want to on their private property.
Click to expand...
Yes, I did bring up old data on purpose to show APs management objectives. Apparently even less than 1% hybridization can be a big deal for bison, according to your colleagues. There has been introduction of genetic “junk” as a result of inbreeding with herds that were thought to be pure strain. The Catalina Island herd is an example. The bison were placed there in the 30s as part of the movie set for one of Zane Grey’s Western Films.

In 2003-4 the Catalina Island Conservancy gave 150 buffalo to Rosebud Reservation in SD as pure strain. In 2007 it was found that they did have hybridization and because of inbreeding, had serious health and behavioral issues. The total herd size on the Island went from about 200-300 I believe. I don’t know if the herd was destroyed or not but it should have been. I see that Rosebud’s modern bison program has some hope of being successful. Those people need all the hope they can get as they have suffered greatly over the years.
 
Gila said:
Yes, I did bring up old data on purpose to show APs management objectives. Apparently even less than 1% hybridization can be a big deal for bison, according to your colleagues. There has been introduction of genetic “junk” as a result of inbreeding with herds that were thought to be pure strain. The Catalina Island herd is an example. The bison were placed there in the 30s as part of the movie set for one of Zane Grey’s Western Films.

In 2003-4 the Catalina Island Conservancy gave 150 buffalo to Rosebud Reservation in SD as pure strain. In 2007 it was found that they did have hybridization and because of inbreeding, had serious health and behavioral issues. The total herd size on the Island went from about 200-300 I believe. I don’t know if the herd was destroyed or not but it should have been. I see that Rosebud’s modern bison program has some hope of being successful. Those people need all the hope they can get as they have suffered greatly over the years.
Click to expand...
Flat out false. The genome hasn’t been mapped. No one has a clue what these loci even code for, so absolutely no guess can be made about their potential effects on fitness. Anyone saying otherwise is frankly full of shit. We aren’t even positive whether similar alleles even indicate hybridization or just naturally shared genes. It’s a best guess.

Yes, inbreeding. The known problem AP is managing to prevent. In their private herd. On their private land.
 
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