Montana Department of Livestock Baits 10 Bison with Hay and Sends 8 to slaughter.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 26, 1999
Media Contacts: Sarah Chalmers, Sue Nackoney (406)646-0070

WEST YELLOWSTONE: Thursday, March 25, the Department of Livestock sent 8 buffalo to slaughter from their trap in the Duck Creek drainage after baiting 10 buffalo with hay on March 23 and holding them in the facility for 48 hours. Four were bulls and four were pregnant cows. 2 calves who
were released onto Horse Butte walked into the new capture facility today, which is not currently operating.

The Duck Creek trap is located approximately 100 yards from Yellowstone Park's boundary. Currently there are over 25 bison inside the park in the Duck Creek drainage who will possibly attempt to migrate outside of the park using this natural migration corridor to access lower elevation habitat outside of the Park.

Snow inside the park at Duck Creek is beginning to melt, and some forage at the creekside is becoming accessible for the buffalo.

"DOL hay is luring buffalo outside of the park who might otherwise stay inside and eat their accustomed food for this time of year. The DOL's practices baiting their facility with hay is more about job security than disease management," said Sue Nackoney, Buffalo Field Campaign spokesperson.

Only six of the buffalo tested positive for exposure to brucellosis, two of the pregnant females tested negative for exposure to brucellosis. The tests determine exposure to the disease, not the ability of a test-positive bison to transmit the disease.

"Obviously buffalo are not being killed because of brucellosis. These buffalo would have to walk almost 10 miles and wait there for over 3 months before there was even any chance of a contacting a cow. Buffalo are back in the park by summer, and local ranchers are showing flexibility about the return time for their cows to the area. Yesterday's killings only show that policies of bison management are becoming more far-fetched all the time, policies that will only end in tragedy for more buffalo before the end of the winter," said spokesperson Sarah K. Chalmers.

Groups of buffalo on the Madison River have already begun to migrate back to the park.

DOL has completed construction of a new trap on Horse Butte, a peninsula in the Gallatin National Forest, the same area where they release bison who have been captured and released. "The complicity of the United States Forest Service and the Governor of Montana on this issue blatantly shows the public that conservation is not the concern of these offices," Chalmers said.