Anti-bison mania seizes legislature, Governor Bullock helps beat off the attack on a national symbol- Helena, MT. Montana’s new legislature, elected in 2012, was a hotbed of anti-bison activity. Ten or so bills to hurt the bison in one way or another were introduced and a number passed and were sent to Montana’s new governor…
Each spring hundreds of bison leave Yellowstone National Park in search of greening grass and birthing grounds. While on this search bison regularly cross highways 191 and 287 in the Hebgen Basin of Montana and Highway 89 near Gardiner, Montana. The Buffalo Field Campaign is also out there to warn motorists of this danger with…
HB249 would allow Montana landowners to kill bison for any reason- 2012, and it looks like 2013, is shaping up to be another year of livestock interests trying to repeal a generation or two of progress in the management of wildlife. Alan Doane, a Montana Republican legislator, has a bill that would allow landowners to…
Today Montana Judge E. Wayne Phillips shot down a lawsuit brought by powerful livestock interests to stop the State of Montana from allowing bison to use areas of Montana outside of Yellowstone National Park. In the spring of 2011, after many years of unsuccessfully trying to keep bison from leaving the northern boundary of Yellowstone…
Hunter lockout underscores the privatization danger to our public lands- As if to underscore the value of our national public lands, this time for hunters, NE Montana ranchers have locked hunters out of their ranchland to protest and put pressure on Montana FWP because they didn’t get their way on keeping bison strictly restricted to…
With the exception of the Yellowstone population and a few other small herds of bison which came from Yellowstone, virtually all of the buffalo in in the U.S. are hybrids with cattle genes. The amount of genetic material from cattle may be small but there has been debate about whether it can affect the fitness…
Unfortunately, the last story on the killing of a bison bull in Idaho got diverted by an incorrect, unfortunate discussion of the Nature Conservancy who was blameless in the matter. Today, however, the Island Park News reports a second bull bison was shot Idaho by agents in the Island Park area. It was wandering near…
The Wildlife News got it wrong and wishes to issue a retraction of the story published yesterday about the incident where a bison was killed by the State of Idaho yesterday. We regret the error and have agreed to publish this statement by The Nature Conservancy. Folks should not forget that had the Nature Conservancy not…
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.