Who Controls Our Wildlife?

By Jeanne Marie Souvigney
 

The tentative Bison Management Plan, announced in June, represents a new struggle over control of wildlife. Terms of the preferred alternative for managing this migrating animal spell disaster for Yellowstone bison and set the stage for similar management of the region's elk herds.

The alternative proposes new ways to remove bison from Greater Yellowstone, but makes no provision that ensures a wild, free-ranging population for this and future generations.

The wild bison of Yellowstone have made a remarkable comeback from near extinction shortly after the park's inception 125 years ago. Herd sizes have fluctuated dramatically in the intervening years, climbing past the 1,000 mark in 1927, falling to a low of less than 300 in 1966, before climbing back to an all time high of about 4,000 during the winter of 1994-1995. Yellowstone's bison comprise the last continuously wild, free-roaming bison herd in this country.

Not only does Yellowstone National Park provide important core habitat for a great diversity of wildlife species such as bison, but it has been a place where natural ecological processes have dominated. Traditionally, the wildlife of Greater Yellowstone have been managed by wildlife professionals - managers whose goal is to protect the wildlife resources. Harsh winters, fires, predation, forage availability and other factors have resulted in dramatically changing wildlife populations, supplemented by human harvest of animals outside the park.

The ecological role for all Yellowstone wildlife is about to change dramatically if state and federal agencies succeed in adopting their proposed long term plan for Yellowstone bison.

Eight scientists from seven universities, all of whom have conducted research within Yellowstone National Park, sent a letter to President Clinton objecting to this decision by the National Park Service to engage in such drastic intervention to cap the bison population. The scientists noted that the decision undermines the NPS policy whereby natural ecological processes are allowed to prevail.

Scientists recognize the value of this policy, they wrote, because it allows the parks to serve as ecological baselines against which to evaluate the consequences of human management on landscapes outside the parks. The scientists instead called for active programs to minimize contact between livestock and wildlife during certain periods.

The plan also provides that National Park Service personnel can shoot bison within the park and drive bison from the interior of the park to slaughter at the borders.

The agencies' tentative preferred plan:

• Refuses to allow bison priority use of winter range on national forest lands surrounding Yellowstone National Park. Instead bison will be killed or captured and shipped to slaughter when they approach or cross the park boundary. 1,083 bison were killed under similar circumstances last winter.

• Avoids any commitment to acquiring other winter range necessary to allow bison even reasonable use of low elevation winter range outside the park.

• Ignores the effect that park roads have on populations and herd dynamics. Park roads are now groomed or plowed to accommodate motor-vehicle traffic in winter and bison frequently travel these energy-efficient routes to their death outside the park.

At the same time, the tentative preferred plan:

• Establishes an arbitrarily low target level for a bison population (1700-2500 animals), with no firm population limit at which bison will not be removed.

• Adopts a new, aggressive policy for the National Park Service to kill, or cause to be killed, wildlife within its borders.

The preferred alternative forfeits much of what Yellowstone symbolizes with respect to wildlife and ecosystem management.

What is at stake is who controls our wildlife. Control is shifting from traditional wildlife agencies to livestock agencies. With the Montana Department of Livestock now in control of wild bison in Montana, and the National Park Service's acquiescence in this new plan to the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) - a livestock agency - the management of wild bison in Greater Yellowstone has effectively been transferred to livestock interests. And indications are that this shift will not be limited to bison. The Montana Department of Livestock and the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) do not have authority to manage our wildlife and yet:

• APHIS has said it will focus on eliminating brucellosis from Yellowstone elk once the bison situation is resolved.

• APHIS' recent review of Wyoming's Class Free brucellosis status focused on elk despite the class free status of each state in GYE.

• The original language of the Congressional appropriations bill recommended $1 million that would allow APHIS to develop a quarantine facility for bison and elk leaving Yellowstone National Park.
 

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO STOP THIS SLAUGHTER

The Yellowstone bison situation is becoming progressively worse because elected officials and federal and state agencies do not see any groundswell of opposition to the slaughter of 1,083 Yellowstone bison last winter.

• Tell President Clinton and Montana Governor Racicot to stop the bison slaughter immediately, and to give Yellowstone's bison access to winter range inside and outside of the Park.

• Write to Yellowstone National Park and tell them you want to be on the DEIS mailing list.

• Comment on the DEIS alternatives when the DEIS is released this fall.

Your comments today will help protect Yellowstone's wildlife tomorrow.

With the Montana Department of Livestock now in control of wild bison in Montana, and the National Park Service's acquiescence in this new plan to the federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) - a livestock agency - the management of wild bison in Greater Yellowstone has effectively been transferred to livestock interests. And indications are that this shift will not be limited to bison. Consider:

The tentative preferred federal-state plan will be part of the draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) scheduled to be released this fall. Anyone with an interest in conserving Greater Yellowstone wildlife should make their voices heard:

•If you want to review the DEIS, contact Bison Draft EIS Mailing List, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming 82190.

• If you want to get a summary of GYC's analysis of the DEIS, let us know.

• GYC offers a slide presentation to groups about the bison issue and the DEIS alternative; contact us if you're interested in hosting this program.

Sidebar

Livestock producers are also feeling caught in this risky battle being waged by APHIS and other livestock leaders to control wildlife. In an effort to stop other states from imposing sanctions on its cattle, Wyoming submitted to an APHIS review of its brucellosis control measures. In July, APHIS, described in one editorial as an agency "desperately seeking authority over wildlife," recommended increased regulations for brucellosis testing in six counties, including three counties where wildlife interaction with cattle is not considered a problem. Cattle producers called the recommendations 'devastating.' Wyoming has suggested it will likely adopt the recommendations to avoid sanctions from other states, which can and have been arbitrarily imposed - and lifted -