Letters to the Editor
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‘Where the Bison Roam’
In response to Mr. Bray’s column [Opinion, July 19, 2006], the country’s buffalo majority exists on ranches, fenced preserves, quarantine facilities, or zoos. Most buffalo contain cattle genes. The Yellowstone herd is the only continuously wild, unfenced, genetically pure herd left in America. Unfortunately, they number fewer than 4,000. (Mr. Bray’s 5,000, number is incorrect because with our tax dollars Yellowstone and Montana killed 1,011 this year alone. Learn more at buffalofieldcampaign.org.
Yellowstone’s habitat is healthy, intact, and can support many more buffalo. But winter snows are too deep. Buffalo must seek lower elevations to survive. It’s not “errant” behavior, it’s instinct. Save for a single cultranch at Yellowstone’s north entrance, many buffalo are persecuted for migrating onto public land.
Brucellosis was originally transmitted from cattle to wildlife. Wild buffalo have never transmitted brucellosis to cattle. Elk carry it, have transmitted it, yet are free — rightly so — to roam. Brucellosis won’t kill you anyway; the meat is safe. Infected cows lose one calf then resume normal birthing. The war against buffalo isn’t about brucellosis but about grass and who gets to eat it.
It’s Montana’s hunt, not the Park Services’. While Yellowstone maintains a bison trap and fully participates in the slaughter of animals under their protection, Montana takes it a step further by hunting a species ecologically extinct outside Yellowstone. I respect subsistence hunting, but this sham is just another way for Montana to kill buffalo. There is nothing “extreme” about speaking out against injustice. The buffalo being admired by Park visitors this summer will be in the sites of gunners waiting for them to cross the border come fall.
The $3 million taxpayers annually foot for the mismanagement scheme should instead be put towards habitat. It would save the NPS and Montana some face, but most importantly, it would ensure a future for wild buffalo. Buffalo are not just a memory or an image on a coin; they are the rightful roamers of this vast land. All they ask is that we manage our human lives and coexist with wildness.
STEPHANY SEAY
Stephany Seay Buffalo Field Campaign
West Yellowstone, Montana
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