Wyoming Elk Feedlots kept open a month longer than average

Wyoming’s Elk feedlots were kept open a month longer than usual. Managers of the National Elk Refuge are looking to expand the hunt and irrigate the feedlot saying that doing so will disperse the animals, reducing the disease potential. No mention of natural predators or preservation/restoration of the herds’ natural winter range.

Alfalfa pellets.

Winter feeding on elk refuge exceeds historical average
AP

Close Elk Feedgrounds Before It’s Too Late

Close Elk Feedgrounds Before It’s Too Late. By Brodie Farquhar. Wyomingfile.com

GYC alert to stop creation of yet another!! Wyoming elk feedlot

Good for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition on this! This alert gives the information and allows you to send an easy eletter against yet another disease-spreading elk feedlot in the Gros Ventre River drainage (of course, your completely personalized letter is always better).

NYT: “The sorry myth of brucellosis”

While it doesn’t directly address “the deal,” “the breakthrough,” the NYT just printed The Sorry Myth of Brucellosis.

The editorial is about Wyoming, not bison and Montana, but the media are starting to notice the connection between brucellosis and the dominance of the livestock industry.

The True Cost of Brucellosis

Robert Hoskins has a very good guest column in New West today (Feb. 7, 2008). The True Cost of Brucellosis. I fixed the link. RM

Groups unhappy with Idaho Fish and Game’s bighorn plan

Groups unhappy with Idaho Fish and Game’s bighorn plan. By Sven Berg. South Idaho Press.

The plan was forced on Idaho Fish and Game by politicians and domestic sheep interests. If anyone thinks Idaho will do a good job managing wolves, look at the bighorn sheep issue (an animal everyone likes except for some livestock interests).

I remains my opinion that the livestock industry hates all wildlife.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming hunters take 266 bison

I generally think this is a good thing. The Jackson Hole bison herd, unlike the Yellowstone bison, are not constrained by a shortage of winter range because they, like the Jackson Hole elk, are artificially fed during the winter. The result is a herd that is only constrained by its summer range unless there is a periodic reduction.

It should be noted (for about the 500 th time on this blog) that almost 100% of the Jackson Hole bison have antibodies to brucellosis, but, nevertheless they are pretty much allowed to wander where they want, showing the lies of the Montana Dept. of Livestock and the federal agency APHIS that keep the Yellowstone bison bottled up inside Yellowstone National Park using the propaganda that some of them have brucellosis.

Herd managers deem bison hunt a success. By Jeff Gearino, Casper Star Tribune.

Bighorn advocates butt heads

This is a long summary of where the bighorn sheep controversy in Idaho stands and who is saying what. I think it’s a useful article for bringing folks up to date.

Bighorn advocates butt heads. By Lynea Newcomer and Kathleen Turner. The Wood River Journal