Yellowstone proposes controversial slaughter of 1,000 bison

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Yellowstone proposes controversial slaughter of 1,000 bison

Reuters
Thursday 19 November 2015 05.45 GMT

Yellowstone National Park is proposing to reduce its celebrated bison herd by 1,000 animals this winter by rounding up those wandering into adjacent Montana and delivering them to Native American tribes for slaughter, officials said on Wednesday.

The longstanding but controversial annual culling is designed to lessen the risk of straying Yellowstone bison infecting cattle herds in Montana with brucellosis, a bacterial disease carried by many bison, also known as buffalo.

Yellowstone bison, the nation’s last sizeable herd of wild, purebred buffalo, are a top attraction for the millions of tourists who annually visit the park, which spans parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

The size of the bison culling varies from year to year, and removing 1,000 animals this winter would mark the largest single reduction since more than 1,600 were taken from the herd in the winter of 2007-2008.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/19/yellowstone-proposes-controversial-slaughter-of-1000-bison

[dem in texas]

1. The Dentist from Wisconsin

Get that Dentist that wants to shoot every animal in sight. He'll take care for those critters! Think of all the bison heads he could mount on the wall!

[postulater]

3. He's from Minnesota.

We have enough problems in Wisconsin. We don't need another.

[2naSalit]

2. Well,

for those interested in getting involved, there are several organizations fighting the current bison management regime, which pretty much sucks and is designed to pamper the ranching industry out here. That and the fact that the park saw well over 4 million recreational visitors this year already, the animals are pretty stressed from all the humans... particularly those who felt they needed to take selfies with them or that they should hustle the animals down the road because the humans were in a hurry... might encourage the park to cull the herds (there are three) in order to make more room for those humans in a hurry too.

One major point to be made when arguing about culling the herds is that much of the force behind the lack of tolerance was one trophy ranching family, the matriarch of which was one of the last major holdouts just died on Hallowe'en... so that argument may disappear before long ...at least along the western flank of the park.