Yellowstone Buffalo Headed to the Slaughterhouse

I just received word this morning from my friends up at the Buffalo Field Campaign in West Yellowstone. Montana’s Department of Livestock is planning on trapping and slaughtering 300 wild buffalo – including calves as young as a few weeks, and their mothers. The agency plans to begin the roundup on Thursday, May 31.   

It's crucial that we flood these offices with comments today!  Capture could begin as soon as tomorrow, with transport to slaughter beginning Friday.

TAKE ACTION NOW

I spent a couple weeks with the Buffalo Field Campaign in January 2005, as part of Patagonia’s environmental internship program. As you may know, the company pays our salaries and benefits for up to two months while we volunteer with an environmental group, and these guys are the real deal. Ron Hunter (Patagonia Enviro Programs, Reno) and I went up there to help out and got the full story. We were even granted an audience at the statehouse with Governor Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat with presidential aspirations, who expressed sympathy, but has done little more than pay lip service to protecting wild buffalo in his state.

The conflict in Montana is a modern day range war: cattle interests (a very powerful lobby there) pitted against the last genetically pure wild buffalo in the country, which live around Yellowstone park ...

The buffalo eat grass; hence they sometimes compete with cattle for rangeland. And some female buffalo carry a bacterial disease called brucellosis, which can infect cattle, though there’s never been a recorded instance of this happening. Long story short, commercial interests want to keep cattle and buffalo apart. And their interests supersede any rights wild nature has to exist. Government agencies in Montana, both state and federal, are incredibly intolerant of the buffalo and their protectors. In fact, they delight in harassing them, using helicopters, snowmobiles, and shotguns. They’ve been known to chase them to their deaths, drowning them in icy waters and running them through barb wire fences. So when the buffalo wander out of Yellowstone National Park, which they do quite naturally, they’re hazed, captured and all too frequently, killed.

The buffalo are losing ground. Their numbers are down from historical highs of an estimated 30 million in the day, to fewer than 4,000 these days. Last year alone, government employees from Yellowstone National Park rounded up almost a thousand wild buffalo (inside the park, where they’re supposed to be safe!) and sent them to the slaughterhouse. (Your tax dollars hard at work.) Yellowstone Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis oversaw that bloodletting, and now she’s about to become complicit in the next round.

Back to the matter at hand. The Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) say the most recent decision to kill the buffalo was made at an "emergency" Board of Livestock meeting in the governor's office on Tuesday, by Montana's acting state veterinarian Jeanne Rankin.

The rest of this post is copied from the BFC’s email. If you feel empathy for the buffalo, I hope you’ll take action on their behalf. It’ll only take a couple of minutes to help light up the switchboard at the Montana statehouse and fill the email boxes of the responsible parties.

HERE'S WHAT YOU CAN DO:

PLEASE CONTACT these three decision-makers TODAY demanding that they cease plans to capture and slaughter the buffalo who are trying to live wild and free!  Contact each by phone, fax, and email and let's not let them forget that the world is watching!

* MONTANA GOVERNOR BRIAN SCHWEITZER:  Demand that Schweitzer keep his campaign promise to provide tolerance for bison in Montana.
(406) 444-3111 (phone)
(406) 444-5529 (fax)
governor@mt.gov (email)

* MONTANA ACTING STATE VET JEANNE RANKIN:  Urge her to withdraw her decision to slaughter Yellowstone bison calves and family groups.  Remind her you are boycotting beef and your friends are joining you!
(406) 444-1895 (phone)
(800) 523-3162 (phone)
(406) 444-1929 (fax)
jrankin@mt.gov  (email)

* YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK SUPERINTENDENT SUZANNE LEWIS:  Ask her if it's really worth the lives of 300 wild buffalo, including newborn calves, to have Montana ship them to slaughter rather than deeper into the Park.
(307) 344-2002 (phone)
(307) 344-2005 (fax)
suzanne_lewis@nps.gov OR yell_superintendent@nps.gov (email)

It's crucial that we flood these offices today!  Capture could begin as soon as Thursday, with transport to slaughter beginning Friday.  Read BFC's press release from Tuesday for more information.

[Photo: Jim Little]

Comments

[Dan Brister]

Thanks Jim for helping to spread the word and to everyone who has answered the call to action! It is working. We just received word from Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis that she received so many emails that her account shut down today.

According to Suzanne, the agencies held a special meeting today and decided to hold off on slaughtering these bison until at least next Monday. While we are grateful for this temporary reprieve, we need to keep the pressure on and demand that, should the bison not return to and stay inside the Park come Monday, that slaughtering moms and babies is NOT an option.

Please take a moment to watch BFC's video, view photos, and read our press release and action alert, which you should forward far and wide. All can be accessed at: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/springslaughter.html

[wolfy]

Can't blame the ranchers. I believe the margin for them is pretty lame. Then people want to eat beef every day and only pay $0.69 for a burger, which is the real threat to the ranching way of life.

If McD's came out with a wolf/buffalo friendly Big Mac, I'd consider eating it (though I'd still be nervous about stray hairs).

-M

[Jim_Little]

You're right, Wolfy. The .69 burger is a scourge. If the price of that burger reflected the true costs of bringing it to market – with all of the downsides to the environment and public health – it would cost the same as sushi.

Best,

Jim

[Hannah Beane]

This is just another of the countless examples of humans raping the earth for their own economic benifit.

[jim]

What makes this even more ridiculous, and tragic, and wasteful, is that all the hazing, capture and slaughter is completely unnecessary. The Montana Department of Livestock, National Park Service, federal Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, even the Highway Patrol spend all this time and money messing with the buffalo under the pretext that bison infect cows with brucellosis. It's never happened, there's never ever been a recorded instance, and in fact it was a cow that first gave the disease to a buffalo. Anyway, these uniformed "protectors" of cows continue to hassle buffalo even in winter, when there's not a cow within 30 miles because they can't survive the harsh conditions. It's a sadistic business, to be sure.

[justin]

As the son of a beef farmer in Colorado, I can understand the threat felt by the ranchers of Montana; providing 69 cent hamburgers to McDonalds is becoming increasingly easier for those outside of the US, while small, family-owned US farms and ranches are going under every day at an alarming rate.
However, there appears to be a huge gap in the logic of killing the buffalo to protect the cattle industry. There should not be a mass killing of wild, free animals for the protection of US industry of any kind. There are better ways of handling the situation. Let us be sure that we are more educated than those making these decisions to avoid hypocrisy, and provide them with some inspiration for alternatives.
At the end of the day, we (YOU and I) decide what industries flourish in the US, and worldwide, based on where we put our consumer dollars. May we act more responsibly than those who represent us sometimes do.

[jim]

Well said, Justin. To your point about voting with our dollars, the Buffalo Field Campaign asks its supporters not to eat beef, because that's what's killing buffalo. It's doubtful we omnivores will ever give it up entirely, but perhaps we should start asking our butchers and restauranteurs for more information as to its origins, akin to what more and more people are doing around fish. If we let it be known in sufficient numbers that Montana beef is not acceptable because of their attitude toward buffalo, perhaps then we'd begin to see some change. A long shot, I know. But maybe possible. Best, Jim

[localcrew]

Though I can see the BFC's point, their request to not eat beef is a tall order for most Americans. They're asking the public to completely change their lifestyle for what is--for the typical U.S. citizen--a somewhat abstract phenomenon (most Americans have never seen a buffalo in person, and the vast majority of those have done so from inside of a car). Rather than asking people to change their lifestyle, maybe it's more reasonable to ask folks to change how they think about the choices they've made.
One very delicious alternative in this situation is to buy direct from ranchers. It takes a little leg work, but getting in touch with local ranchers can help the conscientious carnivore season their steaks with all the peace of mind they need. Here in Nevada, we're lucky to have access to some top-quality, locally raised, grass-fed beef. I met the ranchers I buy from through a local CSA(http://www.localharvest.org/csa/) and the summertime farmer's market. It's been my experience that no matter where I buy on the food chain, from broccoli to bovine, the folks who have the courage and commitment to bring their goods straight to market are not afraid to discuss the ins-and-outs of their particular method of food production, they're not afraid to listen to their customers and adapt their methods accordingly, and they are the people willing to step outside of the agro-industrial framework that helps perpetuate the $0.69 burger. In terms of such nebulous concepts as consciousness, energy, integrity, and honesty, choosing to do business in this way is choosing to enter into a positive feedback loop with the very tasty side-effect of out-and-out delicious food.

I take it as a sign of hope that in the birthplace of the Sagebrush Rebellion (started in large part by folks for whom Reagan was considered too liberal), the ranching newsletters are starting to speak the virtues of grass pasturing and direct-to-consumer sales (http://nevadarancher.com/news/2007/jan07c.htm)

Once again, it comes back to the consumer. We can complain, or put forth the effort it takes to choose different. Vote with your dollar.

[Jim]

You're absolutely right: Shy of giving up the pleasures of the flesh entirely, knowing where our beef comes from gets us closer to a solution. But I don't think buying direct from the rancher is problem-free. I too eat meat – though never without a tinge of guilt – because I know cattle do considerable damage to the land. And their presence is detrimental to other "less commercial" species their handlers protect them from: buffalo, wolves, big cats. A lot of the damage cattle do is on our public lands, some of which are pretty marginal to begin with. Once a herd is done grazing and dumping all over them, surface water is polluted, soil torn up, exotic plants introduced and existing vegetation severely pruned. It's a cost of meat that's never factored into the price.