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Public forces rewrite of Y’stone bison plan, Part 8 by Todd Wilkinson Article posted below so those of you with no access to the paper can see it.
To compliment Todd's article, I whipped up an editorial cartoon on the lack of science in Montana's management of wildlife with brucellosis - "Last Best Dead Place'
Public forces rewrite of Y’stone bison plan
Marking a potential game-changing shift in how wildlife diseases are confronted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, government agencies soon will announce a rewrite of the controversial 14-year-old Interagency Bison Management Plan for Yellowstone bison.
The decision, sources say, will be made public within days and could represent a breakthrough in a decades-old conflict.
The Montana Department of Livestock is under increasing public pressure to justify its singular lack of tolerance for migrating Yellowstone bison that wander beyond the northern and western national park boundaries.
Only days ago the department informed Yellowstone that, as a quid pro quo, it may allow bison to inhabit adjacent public lands outside the park year round, but only if Yellowstone limits its total bison population to 3,000 animals or fewer.
The proposal met with immediate rejection from Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk and chief park scientist Dave Hallac, who told the state it runs counter to fundamental principles of sound wildlife management.
One principle is accommodating the seasonal migratory behavior of free-ranging bison, the same as states do for elk, deer, fish, birds and other wildlife. The second tenet, a pillar of North American wildlife management, is to manage wildlife based on science.
The best available science makes clear that migrating elk, not bison, represent the greatest risk of brucellosis transmission to cattle. Almost all verified disease outbreaks in livestock herds are traced to wapiti, none to bison.
Even then the odds that wild elk carrying brucellosis will infect beef herds, particularly if livestock have been inoculated and kept off elk calving grounds, is incredibly low.
This week Park Service Rocky Mountain Regional Director Sue Masica approved Yellowstone’s rejection of Montana’s demand to round up and remotely vaccinate all bison inside Yellowstone with “bio-bullets” to try to eradicate brucellosis from the ecosystem.
Not only do scientists say brucellosis eradication in Yellowstone wildlife is impossible but ostensibly remote vaccination (using a brucellosis livestock vaccine that is only marginally effective in wildlife) would need to also target tens of thousands of elk.
The prospect of the latter brought condemnation from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Critics of the existing IBMP, first implemented in 2000, blame political motivations for the slaughter of thousands of Yellowstone bison in recent decades.
The IBMP also is the impetus for heavy-handed hazing of Yellowstone bison by state and federal agents driving physically exhausted animals back into the park using helicopters, snowmobiles and horsemen.
More than a decade ago former Yellowstone Superintendent Mike Finley said that Montana livestock officials and the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were mandating needless lethal and brutal intolerance of bison when they leave the park.
Finley added then that the IBMP, along with action by the Montana Legislature, “put a gun to the head of Yellowstone managers” forcing them to forsake ethical principles of stewardship.
“The Montana Board of Livestock’s open hatred of bison is so strong that it’s blind to seeing the realities of brucellosis,” says hunter and citizen conservationist Kathryn QannaYahu who operates a website — EMWH.org — tracking the issue.
“Board members are being myopic, much to the detriment of public wildlife,” she claims. “Their actions are staining not only the credibility of the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Department but the reputation of Montana Gov. Steve Bullock who has allowed mismanagement to continue.”
Wildlife experts I contacted say there is no scientific basis for the livestock department’s recent proposal, supported ironically by the Fish Wildlife and Parks Department, to arbitrarily hold the total number of Yellowstone bison at 3,000 as a precondition for increased bison tolerance in the state.
In fact, recent scientific studies of habitat have determined that the carrying capacity for bison inside Yellowstone itself is a minimum of 6,000, acknowledging that bison, like elk, will seek lower elevation grasslands outside the park in winter.
Many welcome a new IBMP.
“With so many big changes over the past decade and a half, it’s definitely time to take a fresh look at bison management and develop a new plan,” says Matt Skoglund, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council Northern Rockies office and a member of a citizens working group on bison. “It’s a totally different world for wild bison in 2014 than it was in 2000.”
To compliment Todd's article, I whipped up an editorial cartoon on the lack of science in Montana's management of wildlife with brucellosis - "Last Best Dead Place'
Public forces rewrite of Y’stone bison plan
Marking a potential game-changing shift in how wildlife diseases are confronted in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, government agencies soon will announce a rewrite of the controversial 14-year-old Interagency Bison Management Plan for Yellowstone bison.
The decision, sources say, will be made public within days and could represent a breakthrough in a decades-old conflict.
The Montana Department of Livestock is under increasing public pressure to justify its singular lack of tolerance for migrating Yellowstone bison that wander beyond the northern and western national park boundaries.
Only days ago the department informed Yellowstone that, as a quid pro quo, it may allow bison to inhabit adjacent public lands outside the park year round, but only if Yellowstone limits its total bison population to 3,000 animals or fewer.
The proposal met with immediate rejection from Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk and chief park scientist Dave Hallac, who told the state it runs counter to fundamental principles of sound wildlife management.
One principle is accommodating the seasonal migratory behavior of free-ranging bison, the same as states do for elk, deer, fish, birds and other wildlife. The second tenet, a pillar of North American wildlife management, is to manage wildlife based on science.
The best available science makes clear that migrating elk, not bison, represent the greatest risk of brucellosis transmission to cattle. Almost all verified disease outbreaks in livestock herds are traced to wapiti, none to bison.
Even then the odds that wild elk carrying brucellosis will infect beef herds, particularly if livestock have been inoculated and kept off elk calving grounds, is incredibly low.
This week Park Service Rocky Mountain Regional Director Sue Masica approved Yellowstone’s rejection of Montana’s demand to round up and remotely vaccinate all bison inside Yellowstone with “bio-bullets” to try to eradicate brucellosis from the ecosystem.
Not only do scientists say brucellosis eradication in Yellowstone wildlife is impossible but ostensibly remote vaccination (using a brucellosis livestock vaccine that is only marginally effective in wildlife) would need to also target tens of thousands of elk.
The prospect of the latter brought condemnation from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Critics of the existing IBMP, first implemented in 2000, blame political motivations for the slaughter of thousands of Yellowstone bison in recent decades.
The IBMP also is the impetus for heavy-handed hazing of Yellowstone bison by state and federal agents driving physically exhausted animals back into the park using helicopters, snowmobiles and horsemen.
More than a decade ago former Yellowstone Superintendent Mike Finley said that Montana livestock officials and the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service were mandating needless lethal and brutal intolerance of bison when they leave the park.
Finley added then that the IBMP, along with action by the Montana Legislature, “put a gun to the head of Yellowstone managers” forcing them to forsake ethical principles of stewardship.
“The Montana Board of Livestock’s open hatred of bison is so strong that it’s blind to seeing the realities of brucellosis,” says hunter and citizen conservationist Kathryn QannaYahu who operates a website — EMWH.org — tracking the issue.
“Board members are being myopic, much to the detriment of public wildlife,” she claims. “Their actions are staining not only the credibility of the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Department but the reputation of Montana Gov. Steve Bullock who has allowed mismanagement to continue.”
Wildlife experts I contacted say there is no scientific basis for the livestock department’s recent proposal, supported ironically by the Fish Wildlife and Parks Department, to arbitrarily hold the total number of Yellowstone bison at 3,000 as a precondition for increased bison tolerance in the state.
In fact, recent scientific studies of habitat have determined that the carrying capacity for bison inside Yellowstone itself is a minimum of 6,000, acknowledging that bison, like elk, will seek lower elevation grasslands outside the park in winter.
Many welcome a new IBMP.
“With so many big changes over the past decade and a half, it’s definitely time to take a fresh look at bison management and develop a new plan,” says Matt Skoglund, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council Northern Rockies office and a member of a citizens working group on bison. “It’s a totally different world for wild bison in 2014 than it was in 2000.”
