The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly

It’s Time to Put the Great Bear Back on the Endangered Species List

Grizzly cub near Pelican Valley © Ken Cole

Doug Peacock writes a compelling – and moving – essay in support of restoring ESA protections to the Yellowstone Grizzly :

The Fate of the Yellowstone Grizzly – Counterpunch

The Yellowstone grizzly bear population is once again in serious trouble. During 2008, the bears suffered a double disaster: grizzlies died in record numbers and global warming dealt what could be a death blow to the bear’s most important food source.

Some 54 grizzly bears were known to have died in 2008, the highest mortality ever recorded; this number probably exceeds the extensive killings of forty years ago, when Yellowstone National Park closed down its garbage dumps and bears wandered into towns and campgrounds. The Yellowstone grizzly population sharply declined in the early 1970s and, consequently, the bear was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975. […]

[…]I’m saying the Department of Interior’s principal public agency responsible for protecting Yellowstone’s grizzlies is currently incapable of doing so. The Interagency Team/Committee has become an insular institution deaf to public opinion; it has pandered to state game departments who speciously argue that “socially acceptable” local opinion should replace the best available science to determine where grizzlies may live.

Sounds familiar …

Bison on Horse Butte Mercilessly Hazed out of Montana

Buffalo Field Campaign
Yellowstone Bison
Update from the Field
May 14, 2009

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In this issue:
* Update from the Field
* The Wild in Us
* Join the Front Lines
* BFC Media Crew Needs a Laptop
* Last Words
* Kill Tally

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Montana Department of Livestock Helicopter violating private property rights. Photo by Lance Koudele

* Update from the Field

Though a day early, the dreaded time has come: All the buffalo have been cruelly forced off of Horse Butte.

All week patrols have been documenting the Montana Department of Livestock, Yellowstone National Park, Gallatin National Forest and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks agents carry out massive and relentless hazing operations, harassing and harming America’s last wild bison population.

Helicopter Hazing on Horse Butte. Photo by Lance Koudele

On Tuesday, agents were set to haze bison within Yellowstone National Park to “make room” for the bison that would be hazed off of Horse Butte. But Mother Nature had different plans: one group of bison the agents planned to target consisted of forty bulls who would follow none of the agents’ orders. An incredible hail storm assisted and the haze was called off for the day. But such luck was momentary.

Every day this week agents chased bison family groups, including newborn calves and pregnant mothers, off of the south side of the Madison River, and today they set their sights on cattle-free Horse Butte. In fact, all of the Gallatin National Forest lands where the buffalo roam are cattle free, yet livestock interests insist on assaulting them with mounted cowboys*, ATVs, local and federal law enforcement and the DOL’s helicopter.*

Yellowstone Webcam Catches Men Using Old Faithful as Toilet

Six people were apprehended after people watching the webcam called Park officials

Yellowstone Webcam Catches Men Using Old Faithful as Toilet

See PEER’s press release here.

Update: 2 Yellowstone workers fired after watering geyser
Associated Press

Officials defend hazing of bison into park

Bison hazed to make way for livestock grazing

Like a broken record, year after year – Yellowstone Park officials, Gallatin National Forest officials, and Montana Department of Livestock officials – all contribute to the inhumane hazing and killing of America’s last genetically wild bison, all to enable livestock ranchers – on your federal public land – to perpetuate the myth of brucellosis and practice the alchemy of churning our environmental heritage into their private pastures of “feed”.  And year after year we hear the same narrative — ‘we have to haze the bison to make way for livestock’ says the government official, ‘but there aren’t any livestock, there’s been no transmission of disease, and your plan promised to share our public land with bison’ says the bison advocate :

Officials defend hazing of bison into park – Billings Gazette:

“We work to provide a month between the time the bison are on the land and the cows are expected to graze,” Nash said.

And much to the dismay of an outraged public, little changes.  Livestock remains the ‘given’ – and hazing & harassing bison, as if they were livestock themselves, fulfills the cultural pathology of otherwise pencil-pushing bureaucrats’ innate desire to play cowboy …