As rites of spring go, this a depressing one…The state of Montana has begun hazing America’s last remaining free-ranging buffalo herds from their traditional calving grounds back into Yellowstone National Park.

I know, I know… Hazing. That doesn’t sound so bad, right?

It summons up images of college pranks and “Animal House.”  But this is deadly serious business. Well, deadly for the buffalo. Their numbers have already been needlessly cut in half by state and federal authorities over a gruesome winter. This hazing is not being conducted by frat boys with wooden paddles. Take a look at this hazing video we posted on YouTube from a previous season---but be warned, some might find it disturbing.

The business of managing our buffalo involves dogged pursuit by a small fleet of ATVs, men on horseback, and even a helicopter. On Wednesday, this ragtag army chased the iconic animals and their calves for 10 hours. And the Park Service has put out a press release stating that this could continue for weeks. The buffalo are being driven as far as 30 miles which doesn’t sound like much until you consider that they are being moved from traditional calving grounds. That’s quite a trek for a newborn---and quite taxing on a population that has been so decimated over the winter.

The snow is just now melting in the park, so the lack of grass that forced the buffalo out of the park throughout the winter will probably force them back out in the coming weeks. Instead of going through this whole thing again and again and again, why not fix the problem?

NRDC made a reasonable proposal a few weeks back asking for an update the IBMP to reflect the conditions on the ground in this area and for the state to stop harassment of buffalo on the Horse Butte peninsula and areas west of the park where the issues of buffalo and cattle conflict do not exist. There are no cows there. There are no property rights issues. So why send a gang of folks to fix a nonexistent problem?