Can Yellowstone's signature mammal and the region's ranchers just get along?

[Drale]

ZACK WATERMAN AND I ARE POSTHOLING through the snow when I notice the unmistakable oversize tracks of a grizzly. Quickly, we amp up our hollers of "HEEEEYYYYYYYY, BEAR!"

We're headed into Yellowstone National Park's once-remote Pelican Valley, a crescent-shaped dale studded with thermal features. More than a century ago, 23 wild bison found sanctuary there after surviving the slaughter that decimated the 50 million Plains bison that once stretched across the country. Standing in a grove of lodgepoles, Waterman and I fall quiet and listen to the wind shaking the pines. We imagine what it might have felt like to stumble upon the last of North America's largest mammal.

"It's pretty profound that where we found the last wild buffalo is also where we have the opportunity to preserve the species," says Waterman, who at the time of our hike was an organizer for the Sierra Club's Greater Yellowstone campaign and is now director of the Club's Idaho Chapter.

While bison are found across the United States, most of them are restricted to bison ranches. (Bison bison—their scientific name—are commonly called American buffalo, but their large shoulder hump and massive head distinguish them from true buffalo.) Only five states with bison populations allow them to move as free-roaming wildlife, like elk and deer. Yellowstone's 3,700 bison have retained a genetic line free of cattle genes. They are our last wild bison.

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201311/yellowstone-wildlife-free-roaming-bison.aspx?utm_source=insider&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter

[hunter]

1. I think grizzlys and bison should always have the Right of Way...

...up close and personal, and on whatever land they occupy.

Politically, I'd like to see some arrangement by which humans could gracefully retreat from remaining wilderness and lightly developed areas.

Expanding wild range land would be a very good thing, maybe diverting some of the money from our bloated defense department to buy out grazing rights and hire people as rangers, game wardens, and land restoration workers. Ranching families (my mom's cousin still owns her family's original homestead) could remain where they are and the nature of their work would change only slightly. They'd still be stewards of the land, but they'd be looking after the wildlife rather than cattle.