Protecting the Buffalo Herd from Near Extinction – Again
By Aly Duncan Neely
Native Sun News Today Correspondent
PIEDMONT –– In Southwestern Montana, Fort Peck and Ft Belknap tribal members and wildlife supporters struggle to kill legislation that protects only the assumed rights of livestock owners.
The legislation allows for the senseless slaughter of the few remaining genetically pure wild buffalo, inhabitants of the Yellowstone National Park system, according to information from the Buffalo Field Campaign, 2016.
Instead of listing the wild herds as endangered and putting infrastructure in place to enforce their protection, tax dollars are being spent to protect the special interests of a single industry, the beef industry
Reinforced by the current legal measures, a hideous scene unveils as horseback riders and four-wheelers harass, corral and separate young buffalo calves from their mothers often causing injury, while low-flying helicopters frighten and torture entire herds, including pregnant cows and newborn calves, trapping, injuring, and slaughtering the wild herds by means of stabbing and shooting in an effort to diminish their already dwindling numbers, a method known as hazing.
These vicious attacks, inspired by shortsightedness and immediate short-term monetary gain for a few local ranchers and land owners, are the bane for the existence of these struggling, diminishing herds. Newborn calves that have not yet reached a few hours old, much less old enough to get their footing to navigate rugged trails, are driven long distances and separated from their nursing mothers, often to die a horrible negligent death in a makeshift, hellish captivity. Horseback riders negligently drive their mounts into treacherous waters, bogging them in muddy wetlands, and coaxing them over rocky terrain, causing injury to even their treasured animals.
It seems to take several law enforcement employees, paid equestrians, and state or county hired four-wheel, off-road vehicle operators to take down one newborn buffalo calf. Now that is your tax dollars hard at work. It apparently takes as many paid hazers, in addition to several rifle-toting wannabe hunters, to take out several herd members.
A Yellowstone volunteer for the BFC, and former Hot Shot firefighter, Dianna Suarez, stated that after the numbers of wild bison deteriorated from hundreds of thousands to only 23 individual bison in the 1800s, Yellowstone was later designated a national park in order to increase the population of its wild inhabitants and wild biota. Because of effective management of the bison, the population increased to 4500 individuals. At that point the park service, under pressure from judges and senators who had allegiance to the powerful livestock lobbies in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming, amended the policy so that any buffalo straying from the invisible borders of the park was fair game for land owners to gun-down. National forest system land on the outskirts of Yellowstone could be legally used by livestock owners for grazing using the misguided free-range method. The livestock owners then promptly decided that they no longer wanted to share the range with the wild bison. A prime example of the classic if it’s wild, kill it philosophy ensued.
MLA 81-2-120 is a state law that dumps the management of wild bison firmly on the lap of the Montana Department of Livestock. Suarez stated “They [the livestock owners] want to kill them all to have more grass for their cattle.”
Recently, Suarez continued, 1500 bison were corralled in the Stevens Creek Capture Facility inside Yellowstone National Park, where authorities planned to kill nearly two-thirds of the bison. Calves were to be quarantined for 10 years, separated from their hereditary family groups. Suarez stated that those calves that do not die of a broken heart were to be sold.
The convoluted logic behind the legislation is that the bison carry a disease, ironically one that originated in cattle. The wild bison have gained immunity to the disease; but the bison are blamed for infecting the cattle. Instead of risking the loss of cattle that costs the livestock owner money, regardless of whether their cattle are carriers of the disease or not, the bison are an easy target, easy to blame for causing a sickness against which their immune systems have adequately evolved. According to Suarez, the bison are first tested to see if they carry the disease. If they are immune they will test positive. Then they are further tested to affirm whether they are themselves diseased. The testing method kills the animal.
The original Buffalo Field Campaign was co-founded in 1997 by Mike Meese and the late Rosalee Little Thunder along with BFC publicity coordinator and photographer, Stephany Seay. Little Thunder branched-off and renamed the group Buffalo Nation, which is now called Pte Oyate, meaning buffalo nation in the Lakota language.
Her nephew, Goodshield Aguilar, now spearheads that branch of the BFC. As a musician and activist, Aguilar is able to bring the message of the wild bison to people from many walks of life. He collaborates with other activists, musicians and community leaders to make legislation more sustainable for everyone and to preserve the Oglala Lakota heritage of his father by helping to bridge the gap between the human nation and the buffalo nation.
For additional information, visit the BFC website at www.BuffaloFieldCampaign.org