We got word that state and federal wildlife officials were unnecessarily hazing America's last genetically wild buffalo off of a peninsula west of Yellowstone National Park in Montana yesterday. I started pulling together a blog posting and about halfway realized I had written the exact same thing last year. Almost word for word. 

What a shame. I probably could have re-posted after seeing photos of 100 or so buffalo being stampeded by a helicopter flying just 20 or so feet off the ground.

And that is the problem with the way we are managing this great American resource too. Year after year, conditions change and we learn more about the issues with Yellowstone buffalo, but their management just continues to stay the same... 

It seemed like things might have been moving in the right direction this year. Due in part to pressure from NRDC and other groups, the administrators of the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) agreed to loosen up control techniques on Horse Butte because the area was without the two major flash points that make bison so controversial in the northern Rockies: cows and property rights.

• Mostly, the buffalo fight gets boiled down to an issue of disease. Namely brucellosis. But there are no cows on the 11,000 acres of Horse Butte. So, no opportunity of transmission there, or to neighboring areas because the butte juts out into a lake which creates a barrier.
• Sometimes, there are issues with property owners who do not want the big animals on their land for fear of damage or disease. Not the case on the Butte either. The owners welcome buffalo and have, in fact, asked wildlife officials to stay off their land.

But this is about way more than the way we handle wildlife on public lands---it is about a national treasure that is stuck in the middle of a pissing match over land and policy with horrific results.

So, what's the hubbub?

Ranchers and other anti-wildlife interests are putting these arguments forth as a ruse.

The state of Montana lost their brucellosis free status in 2008, despite justifying the slaughtering over 1600 buffalo to prevent the disease's transmission. Buffalo were not involved in the outbreak. There are still no documented cases of cattle contracting brucellosis from Yellowstone buffalo in the wild. In any given year, no more than 2,000 cattle range on lands where buffalo currently roam. Cattle ranchers do not even use most of the area around Yellowstone because of its harsh, winter climate. And although some Yellowstone elk and other wildlife are infected with brucellosis, they are free to wander in and out of the park, despite the fact that they could transmit the disease to cattle. This double standard makes it clear that brucellosis is not the driving force behind buffalo control.

Don't get me wrong. There are economic and disease issues that need to be worked out---but temporal and geographic barriers go a long way in ensuring that there are no problems. Instead, the scare tactics continue. And again unnecessarily imperil vulnerable buffalo mothers and calves. Just like previous years...

Why should you care?

Well, as an American taxpayer, those are your buffalo.

And they are important. Yellowstone buffalo are central to the long-term conservation of the species as they are the last herds of real American bison. The vast majority of buffalo in North America are hybrids, with some cow genes. The Yellowstone population of buffalo is the only continuously wild and free-roaming population in the U.S. They play a central role in maintaining the health of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Their movements are essential for maintaining proper soil conditions in the prairie grasslands and they provide important food for imperiled species in the area such as wolves and bears. Yellowstone is one of the last remaining intact ecosystems in the lower 48 states, replete with the full complement of species that lived here at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition. To maintain the long-term health of the ecosystem, including wide ranging species such as buffalo, we must conserve lands beyond the boundaries of the national park.

And...in a lot of cases, those are your lands that they are roaming on (much of the Butte is federal land---many of the grasslands that ranchers want to fend off bison from are also paid for with your tax dollars).

Well, in this case it's your land that they are being run off of...

Join NRDC's effort to change up management practices in the area---take action.

Baby Bison I photo by ailatan on Flickr