So this is a bonus day, one we don’t ordinarily get, right? Good thing, as I wouldn’t have wanted February to be any shorter, and could have easily stood a few more days. Now it’ll be March already, but not even considering lions or lambs plenty of critters will be glad spring is on the way.

Perhaps none more so than wild bison in the Greater Yellowstone area. I see another 68 were shipped off to slaughter yesterday, bringing us up to 475 wild bison captured and sent to slaughter since the “hunt” ended February 15. There are more bison in the trap awaiting shipment, so this has eclipsed the take from hunters by a factor of nearly 10X, in less than two weeks?! I personally know some hunters who feel gypped, and stories abound.
At least the Montana Department of Livestock isn’t participating in the capture on the north side of the Park (unlike the west side, but we’ll go there later). No, the Park Service, with presumably help from their Federal “buddies” with APHIS, are handling this chore.
I recently saw footage of bison being ran through the Stephens Creek capture facility. This was at a presentation by Bob Jackson, retired backcountry ranger in Yellowstone and Iowa bison rancher. Bob not only spent a career around wild bison, but has successfully implemented his observations of naturally occurring “social order” in his own herds. Obviously a lot of thought has gone into his own bison handling facilities, and he is very critical of Yellowstone’s, saying they’re the “worst” he’s seen.
The world will agree once they see it for themselves, as the footage is nothing short of horrifying. Remember, I’m not some bleeding heart hand-wringer when it comes to this sort of thing. I’ve seen plenty of cattle go through squeeze chutes. We just got through skinning a couple hundred buffalo. I’ve seen many bison shot, and done it myself a few times. We ran a custom meat plant for fifteen years, and still butcher the vast majority of the meat we consume.
These capture facilities are something altogether different. It’s a real-life horror movie, and I’d wager very few viewers can suppress an involuntary and instantaneous revulsion, the realization that you are seeing something horribly wrong, and yes, evil. At Jackson’s presentation, I was seated near the back, and could clearly see most of the people in the room visibly cringe at what they were seeing. I know I did, and the woman in front of me literally doubled over in horror.
But of course we’re doing this to protect our cattle industry.
I’m sorry, I don’t buy that anymore.

For one thing, the handful of cattle in the areas adjacent to the Park could easily be protected, for a pittance in comparison to what we’re spending on this existing misguided debacle.
The bigger issue is whether bison do in fact present a risk of brucellosis transmission to cattle. It’s never happened yet, outside of “laboratory” conditions. Researchers are loathe to actually publish findings, but it seems they’ve only found TWO aborted bison fetuses that were conclusively from brucellosis. TWO!! How many biologists are monitoring this herd’s every movement again…?
And of course the “conventional wisdom” (or at least the view espoused by agency people) was that elk weren’t a factor, so if we just ignore them and since buffalo are easier to catch we’ll just clean up the buffalo by test and slaughter, and maybe even replace them with survivors of the quarantine fiasco, and emerge as management heroes.
Perhaps in response, Mother Nature’s next deal included more than the usual number of jokers and wild cards. Turns out elk are the greater transmission risk.

Or at least that’s what we’re told, ignoring the inconvenient detail that proper tissue samples were not taken from the suspect Corriente cattle in last summer’s Bridger, MT brucellosis outbreak. Incredibly enough, APHIS says the packing plant was closed that weekend! But they're pretty sure it's a "non-bovine" source.
But then in the Madison, all the supposedly infected elk turned out to be false positives, and had yersinia instead! Which you’d think would be considered alarming in itself, but nah, it doesn’t bother cattle. Much like exposure to brucellosis would appear to all but not affect bison. They may test positive for exposure, but TWO confirmed brucella-caused abortions in how many thousands of buffalo, over how long…?
None of these myths really hold up to scrutiny, but the one that resonates most deeply with the uninformed is that bison will infect cattle with brucellosis, we’ll lose our Class-Free status, and Montana’s ranching industry will suffer an economic catastrophe. Now understand, I'm not saying I want to see this happen, in fact preventing it is a core tenet of our suggestions. But if worst comes to worst...

It’s already happened in Idaho and Wyoming. From elk in both cases, and they now both have their Class-Free status back. Wyoming’s Ag statistics do not indicate any significant financial impact. For another, there’s hardly any cattle in areas adjacent to Yellowstone, and next to none during the February-May transmission window. The handful of conflict points can be protected, and there comes a point where unsafe sex analogies start coming to mind. As far as our reputation as a premier seedstock producer being destroyed…
Scroll back up to those photos.
Let me be clear that I hope we never find another infected cow in Montana, and with simple risk management and some luck we probably won’t. Let’s also remember that in the case last summer, it was a cow that had already aborted twice, and then it was sent to Iowa, a state that requires 100% testing. Hello…?!
But she could have been turned into burgers, no problem.
At least one thing cattle ranchers and wildlife advocates like myself (and even agency people, off the record) agree on is that the stringent slaughter requirements for brucellosis need to be revisited. Before widespread pasteurization of milk became commonplace, brucellosis was a much bigger deal. Anymore, though, when APHIS comes around saying “we’re here to help”, and we want to test your cattle (or elk, or bison) and of course if we find brucellosis we’ll slaughter them…
It generates skepticism, very much justifiably so. Maybe they should go see what they can do about brucellosis in feral hogs for a while.
Or… once again, we can allow bison to access the winter ranges, protect the handful of cattle in those areas, and create an enormous asset around wild bison, not least with a bona-fide hunt.
I see Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks is soliciting comment on the bison hunt, urging more flexibility in setting license numbers, much like we do with other big game species.
Personally, I don’t see the point in commenting on such a narrow aspect of the issue. The fact remains this “hunt” was designed by non-hunters as a whack ‘em at the boundary control measure. Since I’m drawing on poker analogies this month, I will say FWP has done a decent job given the lousy hand they were dealt, but clearly, to have any sort of viable hunt we need more habitat for bison, the wildlife agency in charge of more than just license numbers, not to mention a population objective greater than zero. Of course this would require long-overdue modifications of the (allegedly adaptable) PLAN, which the participants are loathe to touch. That’s what needs to happen, though.
But instead, the Department of Livestock has set up capture facilities on Horse Butte, where due to recent change of ownership there now are never any cattle. Plus the new owners have specifically forbade DOL from coming on their property. Looks to me like wild cards continue to pop up with frequency.
So although it would appear foolish to stick one’s neck out, and take action on this controversial matter with an election coming down the pike, bureaucratic inertia just might be dislodged yet this winter.
Amazingly enough, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle recently ran an editorial by Bob Jackson, which I’d link except their website doesn’t allow it! Tsk… Bob is harshly critical of his former employer, Yellowstone Park, for carrying out the slaughter of what he maintains they’re supposed to protect. Word has it this piece may run in some very large circulation papers, so it’s something the Chronicle got first crack at it. Let's call that a One-Eyed Jack of sorts. I highly doubt the situation at West Yellowstone will resolve itself quietly, so there’s maybe an ace or a ten. We did say deuces were wild, right? So let’s see, is that the Buffalo Field Campaign? Or how about the upcoming General Accounting Office report on their investigation of the matter? And then of course there’s Mother Nature, the queen. Who am I leaving out…?