Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC)
News from the Field
March 17, 2005
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In this Issue:
* Update from the Field
* Corridors Not Quarantine
* The Buffalo Neuter Bill
* Last Words
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* Update from the Field
Everyone awoke this morning to a light dusting of snow, powerful,
gusting winds, cool temperatures and hot sun. Winter and Spring
are battling it out, and at times it seems the former will again take
control, but each day with the waxing of the Sun, Spring grows ever
stronger.
Monday started out with a taste for things to come. Four buffalo
who were heading to Horse Butte via the Madison River were quickly
hazed back into the Park by Department of Livestock (DOL) agents when
they were spotted trying to cross the road. On Tuesday a few
agents conducted a reconnaissance of the area looking for "lawless"
buffalo, but otherwise things were quiet. On Wednesday, however,
everything hit the fan; DOL, Forest Service, Park Service, and
Fish, Wildlife and Parks agents were in town. They straddled
their noisy snowmobiles and headed to Horse Butte where nearly fifty
buffalo were enjoying the day. Eight agents revved up their
engines and their cowboy attitude and ran the buffalo off the Butte -
their traditional calving grounds - for several miles through the
woods, along the bluffs, through the river, across the highway, firing
off cracker-rounds to frighten the buffalo (and everything else),
finally "shooing" them into Yellowstone National Park. Right at
the edge of the Park the agents stopped their snowmobiles and the
buffalo stopped their running. Pushing them into the park this
way is so ridiculous, so fruitless. Buffalo are migratory
animals, they move with the seasons and availability of forage and they
know where they need to be. They will soon be on their way to
Horse Butte again where it is their natural right to be. There
are no cattle there - stop this wasteful madness and give them the room
to roam!
BFC hosted a group of high school students from Lawrence Academy in
Massachusetts on Sunday, and we enjoyed the day discussing the buffalo,
and trekking out to Duck Creek and Horse Butte to meet volunteers and
see the buffalo. On Wednesday we were visited by students from
the University of Minnesota who are taking a field course on
ecosystem management. Their field trip wasn't so
peaceful. When they arrived, the haze was underway and we took
them to it, wanting them to see first hand what the buffalo go through,
and the meanness of the agents. Unfortunately, they never got to
see the buffalo being hazed. As we made our way to the bluffs
next to the Madison River and the highway, two Forest Service law
enforcement officers on snowmobiles zoomed toward us shouting
orders. They pushed us back and told us to get in our vehicles,
that it was a lawful order "for our safety." We refused to return
to our vehicles. We were threatened with arrest. They were
completely blocking our vision, and our ability and right to document
the harmful government actions against wild buffalo, taking place on
public lands. The whole incident begs the question: if what
they are doing to the buffalo isn't so horrible, why do they work so
hard to hide it from the public?
Back at the Butte, 11 female buffalo were ignored by agents and left to
graze. One of them, an older, lead buffalo, has a badly injured
leg from being struck by a vehicle a couple of weeks ago. We are
thankful that this group was left in peace, but if the agents are so
concerned about the "threat" of brucellosis to the cattle (that are
never there), why would they leave these buffalo behind? Is it
because they know there is no justification for their activities? Just
another day on the job, boys. A lot of cowboy-agent "fun" at the
expense of wildlife, wild lands, taxpayers, and the people who deeply
care.
The pull of the vernal tide is upon us. The coming heat and
growing grasses quicken the buffalo's movements. A closer look
reveals the beautifully swollen bellies of many female buffalo; the
next generation is on its way. What life will they be born
into? What will their first steps entail? Will they live
their lives out in peace and freedom, fearing only four-legged
predators with teeth and fur? Or will they come to know the greed
and hatred of man? Will they be repeatedly chased by machines,
torn from their mother's sides, put in quarantine facilities and
injected with cattle disease vaccines? Growing in captivity apart
from the herd, surrounded by electric fences, unable to migrate and no
mother-wit to guide them, they will know nothing of their ancestor's
ways but they will feel the pull of what it means to be a wild buffalo
deeper in their instinctual memory, unable to live it out.
Returning wild buffalo to tribal lands is a high priority, but it must
be done with respect to the buffalo and tribal members. There are
better ways than capture, test, and quarantine. The solution does
not lie in rounding buffalo up and treating them like cattle, caging
them in until they reach maturity, pumping them full of livestock
vaccines, putting them through testing procedures, and and finally
trucking the survivors off like livestock to the feedlot. The solution
lies in giving wildlife precedence on public lands, and in the creation
of wildlife corridors ...not quarantine.
For the Buffalo,
~Stephany
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* Corridors not Quarantine
The way to the Northern Range, on the way to Gardiner, takes you
through the beauty of Paradise Valley. Miles and miles of endless
grasslands, willows, cottonwoods, streams, juniper and sagebrush,
gigantic snow-capped mountains on either side. If state and
federal agencies have their way, this area could soon host a bison
quarantine facility. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP)
proposes the construction of a 500-acre pen to hold yearling buffalo
who have been taken from their mother's side, taken from the herd, and
left to the experimentation of scientists. These orphans would go
through extensive repeated tests and likely half will be slaughtered.
BFC is still analyzing this latest sugar-coated proposal, but we know
where we stand and that's against it. The agents are trying to
sell quarantine as a benefit to tribes, but aside from the Intertribal
Bison Cooperative (ITBC), there are few who support it. FWP
will be accepting public comments through April 15, 2005, so please
stay tuned for an action alert next week, and in the meantime, please
educate yourself and others about the harm of quarantining wild
buffalo:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/legislative/bisonquarantine.html
Read the article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and consider writing a
letter to the editor:
http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2005/03/17/news/01bison.txt
Please contact Josh Osher with questions and comments regarding
quarantining buffalo. Josh can be reached at
bfc-advocate@wildrockies.org.
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* The Buffalo Neuter Bill
Last Thursday BFC volunteers and other wild buffalo advocates headed to
Helena again. This time, we stood before the House Agriculture
Committee to oppose SB 353, a bill that would allow the Montana
Department of Livestock to neuter and quarantine captured wild buffalo
in an effort to start herds on tribal lands. In attendance were
two members of the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC). We all
spoke against the neutering of buffalo, and all but two - the ITBC
members - spoke against quarantine. With all due respect, the
ITBC does not represent all tribal interests, especially not for the
many Indians who hold traditional values and would like to see buffalo
given the respect and freedom to roam, re-inhabiting their native range
on their own. The Committee Chair made the decision to hold off
on any executive decision, encouraging the bill's sponsor, Senator
Pease, to consult with tribal members and others on language they could
agree on. The neuter language will very likely be removed from
the bill, but the aspect of quarantine (already in "the plan")
unfortunately remains. It is likely that no other action will be
taken during this legislative session.
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* Last Words
"If I could learn that every buffalo in the northern herd were killed I
would be glad. The destruction of this herd would do more to keep
the Indians quiet than anything else that could happen."
~General Phil Sheridan, 1881
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