Interagency Bison Management Plan

Over the past couple of years, I've kept a close eye on the buffalo controversy. And, the controversy continues. You may recall in 1996-1997, over 1,100 bison had been destroyed or sent to slaughter houses by the Montana Department of Livestock because of the fear that these animals will infect nearby ranchers livestock when the bison wander out of the Greater Yellowstone Area.

To some, this controversy has become an enormous campaign to save the Yellowstone bison. Buffalo Field Campaign is a front line activist organization. They provide information to visitors of Yellowstone Park as well as doing work in the field monitoring the buffalo herds and trying to save them from this insanity.

Below is a description of the plan from Buffalo Field Campaign which you can also view at.. http://www.dol.state.mt.us/COVER.HTM

The Montana State Department of Livestock and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks released the Interagency Bison Management Plan for The State of Montana and Yellowstone National Park. This Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) is the State's answer to the federally prepared FINAL Environmental Impact Statement for the Interagency Bison Management Plan for the State of Montana and Yellowstone National Park.

This plan was developed by the State as their response to being removed from the jointly developed Federal Plan. The State originally was a cooperating agency in the Federal Plan, but when they refused to compromise with the Federal agencies (National Park Service, National Forest Service, and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service [APHIS]) over a Preferred Alternative for the Federal Plan, they were removed from the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that bound them together to formulate a joint Plan. Since the dissolution of the MOU, a Federal Judge has ordered the Federal agencies and the State to attempt to mediate their differences, to no avail. In lieu of a mediated, joint EIS, the State proceeded down it's own track to produce the current State FEIS.

The State's Plan incorporates the Federal FEIS by reference, and seems to use it's analysis instead of performing it's own analysis. Furthermore, the State's FEIS' preferred alternative is a modified version of the Federal Plan's preferred alternative, with several major differences. The State has adopted a Plan that continues the haze, capture and test and includes the slaughter of sero-positive buffalo. The Plan continues on, though, to limit the number of tested sero-negative buffalo that may be present outside of Yellowstone National Park in "Zone 2" to 100 animals on public land until May 15th. All animals in excess of the 100 animal cap on the west side of Yellowstone, and 25 animals on the northern side will either be "shipped to a research facility or to quarantine."

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