Government aims to remove/kill last wild bison herd (ritual, America)

[painted wolf]

The Govenment of Montana is apparently trying to rid Yellowstone Park of the last wild Bison herd in America. The Bison were infected by cattle with the disease brucellosis and now risk re-infecting the Montana ranchers cattle. Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that is easily caught by humans eating or touching infected meat. The only risk of the cattle getting the disease from the bison is if a pregnant cow came in contact with the bison. Few if any pregnant cows graze the lands agacent to the park. Horses and Steers do, but they are at no risk of catching the disease.
Montana is worried that having the bison around will damage thier meats reputation and so want to remove the herd of bison.
The states plan is to capture all the bison and put them in quarintine. Then in several years down the road putting any helthy bison or thier decendants back into the park.
Unfortuantly this is not a relyable plan. Many other animals in the park also have the disease, Elk, deer and others also caught it from the cattle. Placing a 'healthy' herd into Yellowstone would simply expose them again to catching the illness.
Naturally environmental groups oppose the plan. There are just 4,200 wild bison left in America, all belong to the Yellowstone herd.

source: http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?act...rticle_id=5834

It will be a sad day when/if the last wild bison are gone...

wa:do

[lousyskater]

wow, that's horrible.

p.s. ironically, there was an ad for Bison meat under your post.

[kreeden]

There are wild herds of " Wood Buffalo " in Canada , but they are slightly different then the " Plains Buffalo ". Truth is , I'm not sure if there are any wild Plains Buffalo in Canada ???

Wild Bison are so rare now . It well be a sad day if or when they disappear . BTW the Wood Buffalo also carry Brucellosis , but thankfully the Wood Buffalo National Park is quite a ways from cattle country.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/nt/woodbuffalo/index_e.asp


Edited to add that most { if not all } bison meat comes from ranchs and I believe that many of the bison there have been crossed with cattle .

[michel]

Hi Painted woolf,

Quote [It will be a sad day when/if the last wild bison are gone... ]

Have you not noticed that we human are frightfully good at 'messing up' nature in all sort of ways? I agree with your comment wholeheartedly, but unfortunately until the human race as a whole becomes much wiser, there will always be damage.

Another good example is when man has gone deep into equatorial rainforrests, both South America and Africa, and passed on germs previously unknown to the inhabitants; the trouble is, because the natives of these remote villages have never 'met' the germs, they have no built in immunity, and even the 'common cold' can become a serious illness to them.

We have so much to learn................

[painted wolf]

apparently there is a cattle vaccine to prevent this illness... why not use that on the bison?

On a side note: Bison are very important and sacred to the plains nations. The loss of the last wild bison would be a heavy blow to the First Nations. Many tied the survival and revival of the Yellowstone and other Bison herds to the revival and survival of Native Peoples. So from a religious standpoint the loss of the last free Bison is very worrying.

wa:do

[michel]

I agree with you, painted wolf,

but at the same time there are people dying of hunger and thirst throughout Africa; there are countless nations suffering the same fate; there a countless animals being hounded into extinction - You love your bison, and that is good, you want to save them, and that is a great ideal but where is the money going to come from?

All so called 'wealthy countries' spend Billions of dollars, whatever, just to get a few snaps of a distant planet; The USA and The UK are spending fortunes wreaking havoc in Iraq; until the world in general can 'grow' spiritually and stop trying to destroy itself - where do your bison come into the equation.
(and please, don't take me wrong; I feel for the bison too, and I think your motives are very laudable. But I don't think it's that easy................

[painted wolf]

If the price could be figured out, the money could be found. In the long run what is cheeper, vaccinating the animals once or rounding up the entire herd for indefinate quarintine and then eventually having to do the whole thing over again with the released 'healthy' animals?
What about the Elk? They too can spread the disease, do we wipe them out as well?
Shall we empty Yellowstone of its animals so ranchers can graze thier cows there?

Remember that the Bison are one of the biggest draws in Yellowstone. The tourists spend millions of dollars in the surrounding area. Protecting the Bison is good business sence.

Also I'm shure that much of the money could come from donations, not only from the First Nations but from all American who are concerned with preserving our natural heritage. Loosing the Bison doesn't just hurt Native Americans, it hurts the nation as a whole. What is to be said about a nation that can't keep its own landmark species from dying out in the wild? What incentive can we provide to other nations to protect thiers? In the end how important are wild animals to the world and to humanity?

wa:do

[Seyorni]

Wolf mentions the elk in her last post. It's common knowledge that the local elk are often infected, but no-one's calling for their extermination. Nor is anyone saying anything about the infected veterinarians.

Ranchers operate on very slim margins, which is why they prefer the government funded bison shoots over self paid vaccine.

[kreeden]

Anyone who has ever heard the thunder of a bison's hooves would want to save them ... or ran in fear . A single bison makes the ground thunder . I can only wonder what a thousand would sound like . { and I have no idea why their ran makes such a sound ... they really aren't that large ??? }

As for the money , it could be found . There was a cariboo drive across the Bering Straight to the Mackenzie Delta back in the '50s ??? or was that earlier ? Anyway , the cariboo had died off and they drove thousands across the straight in the dead of winter . And the Buffalo ... well . unless you look into the culture of the Plain Indian , you can't understand the importance it is to them . I'm not sure that I do , totally .

On the up side Painted Wolf , Bison have been re-intereduced in several areas before .