Many apologies that I didn’t post this sooner. Comment deadline is tomorrow. This Bison Habitat EA Addendum aims to cap the last wild bison population in “exchange” for any tolerance in Montana. Learn more and tell them to reject Alternative G.
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Stephany Seay is the media coordinator with Buffalo Field Campaign, a Montana-based wild bison advocacy group. She has spent eleven years in the field with America’s last wild buffalo, the Yellowstone herds. Working with her partners at BFC, she helps monitor buffalo migration, studies their behavior, documents all actions made against them, and advocates for their lasting protection. Learn more about the work of Buffalo Field Campaign at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org. Contact Stephany at bfc-media@wildrockies.org
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Done, “I am against any action against the Buffalo in Montana by Ranchers and Oil Barons. This is a ridiculous display of corruption to use our public lands for cattle and oil to begin with, but insult upon injury, to let them dictate the lives of these beautiful Buffalo. The decisions to manage the land and all our Wildlife belong to public not the special interest groups. NO Special interest groups should ever dictate our Wildlife policies. There are 1,013,097 humans in Montana as of 2013, and your special interests groups want to take our Buffalo populations to 3,000? Why do you feel you have the right to do this to these beautiful innocent animals? NO to Alternative G, or Montana will suffer a boycott by myself and all others that I can share this brutal, cruel, barbaric plan you have to murder these Buffalo. The only reason I would ever go to Montana to begin with would be to do Wildlife Watching, Alternative G, would destroy any chance of that. Thank you.”
Dominique: +1
Thank you.
My friends and I have already decided to boycott Idaho and Wyoming, so now I guess we have to consider adding Montana to the list. The only problem now is that if we want to visit the non-hunted wildlife within Yellowstone Nat. Park, I guess we will have to parachute in.
LOL, Well Ed, I guess, where there’s a will, there’s a way!
The missions of the Forest Service and BLM is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.
Ranchers and energy companies are supplying the demand of the Earths population so lets quit blaming them and instead look at how each of us can affect the demand such as using the absolute minimum amount of energy and boycotting the purchase of livestock products. Boycotting the states only hurts the businesses that depend on tourists who come to see bison, wolves, bears etc.
Another thing you can consider is support organizations such as The Conservation Fund which purchases grazing permits from ranchers when conflicts arise between wildlife and livestock. The livestock are perpetually removed and native wildlife is restored. I’m sure there are other organizations that use similar methods where you live.
http://www.conservationfund.org/
You might want to read this article Gary:
“Any chance conservation easements have in being effective stewards of land is lost when land trusts cease to work as independent, private organizations obtaining easements through purely voluntary means and become agents of government aiding in public land acquisitions. Yet land trusts, particularly the larger organizations, are changing their focus from independent and private approaches to working in tandem with government agencies in an effort to assist government in obtaining private lands.
Such programs encourage land trusts to serve as government land agents, often quite profitably. If land trusts continue to respond to this temptation, land conservation will become ever more political…History teaches us that market incentives for conservation are strongest when individuals pay market prices and receive market rewards. They are weakest when government agents spend someone else’s money and get no reward for good management”
Believe there have been some “land flips” re: Conservation Fund/BLM, up around Helena – Brown Gulch area.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA569.html
Gary Humbard:
With all due respect, tourists do not come to Montana, Idaho and Wyoming to see DEAD bison, DEAD wolves and soon to be DEAD grizzly bears (if the USFWS has it’s way). Instead of shooting 900 bison this year, all livestock grazing in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem should be removed to help preserve and protect it’s native wildlife.
Only 4% of beef produced in the United States comes from OUR public lands in the West… The destruction livestock cause to both plants and wildlife is not worth the trouble. When there is a conflict between domestic livestock on the National Forests and BLM lands surrounding Yellowstone NP and wildlife like bison and wolves, it is the livestock that should be removed, not the wildlife.
Over 99% of the people who come to Montana have no idea of what you are talking about.
Secondly tourist will never see dead bison, wolves or grizzlies. The tourist will see the Lamar Valley filled Bison, if lucky a grizzly along the road and maybe if the wolf watchers have found wolves get a glimpse. Then onward and downward the road to the next attraction. The cell got a picture and they are happy campers.
Elk:
Thank you for reminding us about how much education remains to be done to insure that more people, including tourists, know the real story of what is happening to our wildlife once outside the boundaries of non-hunted Yellowstone Nat. Park.
“Secondly tourist will never see dead bison, wolves or grizzlies”
99% seems a little rash Elk. Too jaded by the “fly in and out” crowd in your area?
Some in our species are trying to address how piggish we’ve become:
http://marinebio.org/oceans/conservation/moyle/ch12/
Course the 5 military fighter jets that just flew over my valley a few moments ago, aren’t part of that equation when it comes to waste 🙂
There was once a program called “Bison Belong” sponsored by the good people of BFC. It was basically a network of businesses sympathetic to the Bison issue. I was happy to deal with those business people knowing they shared some of the same values as myself. I wish something with a bit broader base could be set up once again.
Bison, as one of our native, most emblematic wildlife, should not be treated in this way, kept from their natural migration, and relegated to a relatively small area in a national park, and shot if the step over the line. They are meant to occupy a larger area and should.
Gary mentioned a cow was found to have brucellosis somewhere out West, and that it was probably due to elk. But we know that bison will continue to be blamed, despite years of testing negative for it, so that tight controls can continue on them, simply so we can take more land to raise cattle for humans.
The rogues are trying to push tapeworms as the new hysteria du jour to control wolves.
That should read ‘Bison, as one of our native, most emblematic of American wildlife.’
I remember when I first saw them in Yellowstone, I fell madly in love with them. They should be cherished and protected as uniquely American. Our American wildlife has really suffered at our hands much too much, will we ever become enlightened? What is wrong with us as a people?
Like many I suppose, I respected the Bison for what they were but because they seemed to be plentiful I never valued them to any large degree. That changed with several very personal Bison encounters over a 5 year period. One would be my video footage of a live (bison) birth next to the Madison one morning and the next morning watching a balling calf next to the road mourning it’s dead mother hit by a car earlier.
Gary Humbard, “The missions of the Forest Service and BLM is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.” True there are “conservation” methods used ONLY to sustain a certain population for hunters to kill. F&W and BLM are corrupt agencies with an agenda and a structure of leasing land for special interests only, and in my opinion, these agencies need a complete overhaul of structure and priorities after you get “Big Money” out.
While we condemn the BLM and USFWS as corrupt, let’s remember to acknowledge that there are *many* dedicated public servants within those agencies who are just as passionate about land and wildlife issues as we are–and just as distressed about the mismanagement and injustices. I know many of them (in all 4 land-managing agencies), and know how hard they work behind the scenes–actions that remain hidden from the rest of us because they don’t have the time or inclination to participate in discussion forums. I’m sure they would agree that an overhaul is overdue–that the agencies need to once again be populated with people who care about land and animals first and foremost.
Thank you Kathleen, good to know.
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/montana/many-ideas-floated-over-yellowstone-park-bison/article_33090338-1db2-56c5-8df1-94be031590d9.html
Oh FFS, why not leave them alone, or create a corridor for them to migrate? Can’t have that. The arrogance astounds, that we feel we are the masters of everything on the planet. Some can’t wait to get into the protected national parks and start killing stuff and defile even those protected places.
I’m tired of this argument that whatever early man or native peoples did justifies the mass destruction of today. There were many, many many more thundering herds of bison, not just a handful as there are today.
The very thought that officials would even consider taking the killing of bison to inside of a National Park where it will be hidden away from the public – and so that it can’t be seen by residents around the park who are offended by the practice and have complained, rather than find other methods, is appallingly unethical.
Humanity can’t really be that clueless about right and wrong, can it? Lost without a moral compass is a really nice metaphor. We seemed to have lost our way over the decades, that’s for sure.
Do we have an update on this?