Native Americans gather in Montana to protest slaughter of Yellowstone bison

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Native Americans gather in Montana to protest slaughter of Yellowstone bison

BY LAURA ZUCKERMAN
Tue Feb 10, 2015 9:09pm EST

(Reuters) - Native American activists gathered in Montana's capital on Tuesday to protest the deaths of hundreds of Yellowstone National Park bison killed this year to ease the worries of Montana ranchers about a cattle disease carried by many park buffalo.

The demonstration marked a week of protests over federal-state management of Yellowstone bison that entails culling the herd each winter when some animals cross from the park into neighboring Montana in search of food.

"This is a new beginning to protect the bison and other wildlife in Indian country," Jimmy St. Goddard, a self-described spiritual leader of the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana, said in a telephone interview from outside the Montana Capitol in Helena.

He was among dozens who gathered to call for an end to the slaughter of Yellowstone buffalo, which are a major attraction for the 3 million people who visit the park. They are the largest purebred herd of wild buffalo in the United States.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/11/us-usa-bison-yellowstone-idUSKBN0LF04J20150211

[Panich52]

1. And the buffalo are not the great disease threat to cattle ranchers want us to think.

PBS - The Buffalo War: the disease:
"wildlife officials, not a livestock agency, should be managing bison. ... Known transmission has only occurred in the lab."
http://www.pbs.org/buffalowar/war1.html

Points 3-6 of 35 from "Yellowstone Bison - Cattle Conflict Fact Sheet:

3. Yellowstone Park bison have lived with the disease, brucellosis, for 80 years. The disease has no effect on the population.
4. No bison have died from the disease, but several thousand bison have been killed because of it.
5. Although it is theoretically possible for bison to transmit the disease to cattle, in the many decades Yellowstone bison have lived with the disease, they have never done so.
6. Cattle and bison have co-mingled in Grand Teton National Park for 40 years. Cattle are allowed to graze inside that park. A greater percent of those bison test positive for the disease compared to Yellowstone bison. Just as in Yellowstone, they have never transmitted the disease to cattle.

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/factsheets/buffalocattle.html

...
I googled "buffalo do not spread disease to cattle" & got lot of articles to select.

Those Natives have a right to be bitching


..

[tclambert]

2. Is this disease by any chance called "competing-with-our-business-itis?"

[DeSwiss]

3. ''Native Americans gather in Montana to protest slaughter of Yellowstone bison.''

- Again.

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K&R

[Cha]

4. Good Luck to the Native AMericans and their Wild Bison they want to protect.