Montana officially loses its brucellosis free status. Billings Gazette. By Matthew Brown. AP
This is entirely a problem of their own making, or I just I should say the Montana Stockgrowers Association, who bulldozed away efforts to split the state into two zone when it came to brucellosis.
It’s hard to have sympathy when such a obvious course in the wrong direction was chosen. On the other hand, this is hardly a disaster for the Montana cattle industry. As the article says “The testing of cattle is expected to cost ranchers in the state’s billion-dollar cattle industry an estimated $6 million to $12 million.”
They have taken that much of the taxpayer’s money to kill Yellowstone bison to no positive effect for themselves or anyone else.
The Wildlife News 
September 4, 2008 at 9:37 AM
Will this development change the way Montana manages its bison or elk? Or will the same plan that didn’t work once remain in place?
September 4, 2008 at 10:03 AM
It seems like I have heard a little more sense coming from Montana Ag politicians now that the “most awful thing in the world has happened.”
I hope it isn’t just my imagination.
September 4, 2008 at 10:43 AM
I’ve been following this story for a while and it’s sad that the bison population is being neglected again.
September 4, 2008 at 11:39 AM
Interestingly, an editorial in Norman, Oklahoma, has suggested killing all bison and elk. No one in these parts has suggested this kind of “final solution” yet.
Check this nonsense out – there’s a discussion about it that I feel the need to jump in on when I get time (just got back from several days in the parks) on National Parks Traveler.
September 4, 2008 at 1:50 PM
That’s pretty pathetic, wild animals do not equal domestic ones, and we shouldn’t want them to equal domestic animals, domestication makes animals more susceptible to disease and spreads disease around a lot more than wild animals, and that’s just common sense and observation.