Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat

Once it was a luxury. Too bad for us it didn’t stay that way-

Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat. By Jane E. Brody. New York Times.

Hazing Begins: Helicopter Harasses Bison, Grizzlies

From Buffalo Field Campaign’s Update from the Field

It has been an intense week for buffalo. BFC volunteers are out in the field and on the road with the buffalo nearly 24 hours a day. If you are able to join us on the front lines, please see our call for volunteers below. The buffalo and BFC need you!

Near Gardiner, along Yellowstone’s north boundary, National Park Service and Department of Livestock agents have been actively hazing various groups of buffalo. Multiple management actions aimed to appease cattle interests have been taking place within this enormous wildlife migration corridor. So far, there have been no buffalo captured. Yesterday, four bulls were hazed back to Yellowstone, and again today, Park Rangers hazed 32 buffalo to just outside the Roosevelt Arch. Other groups of buffalo are around the Gardiner area, including some in town.

On the western boundary, a few bull bison were hazed back into Yellowstone National Park earlier this week by Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) agents. The buffalo’s “crime” was in stepping onto the private land of the Koelzer family, who allows the DOL to operate the Duck Creek bison trap on their property. Like so many other obstacles the buffalo must face, the Koelzer property and other houses with fenced in yards block a migration route favored especially by bull bison.

There has been a large bachelor group of bull bison roaming the area near Duck and Cougar Creeks, along Highways 191 and 287 this week; they are massive and incredibly impressive. BFC has been with these bulls every day and through the nights, warning traffic of their presence. Buffalo have no qualms about walking right down the middle of the road, sometimes side by side in numbers, taking the highway over. It’s a beautiful sight; this is their land and they are happy to remind us of it. Numerous travelers can’t help but pull over in admiration; being in the presence of North America’s largest land mammals is truly an awesome experience. It is shameful and sad that these magnificent creatures who have been around for over 10,000 years are forced to abandon their ancient practices, and unwillingly yield to the selfish wishes of Montana’s cattle industry. So far, other than the challenges of fences and traffic, these bulls have been left alone, but we don’t trust that the DOL will leave them in peace for long.

Earth satellites tell the truth: Grazing threatens wildlife habitat in West

“. . . ubiquitous public lands grazing has contributed to the decline of native wildlife,” concludes the report entitled ‘Western Wildlife Under Hoof’.”

Wildearth Guardians has used satellite images and public land records to show the massive damage grazing of sheep and cattle does to the soil, water, forage, and wildlife of our public lands, including the spread of non-native invasive weeds.

Study: Grazing threatens wildlife habitat in West by Scott Sonner. Associated Press