Badlands eyed for Yellowstone bison
Buffalo may soon roam Badlands National Park's southern unit if an agreement is reached to take 50 animals from a quarantined herd of Yellowstone buffalo.BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK — Officials at Badlands National Park have been asked to consider taking 50 buffalo from the Yellowstone National Park herd.
Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer Tuesday his agency is looking at multiple options for moving Yellowstone bison, including Badlands National Park and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
Brian Kenner, chief of science and natural resources for Badlands National Park, said the park service approached Badlands officials about a month ago.
"We were willing to look at it but realized it would be a sensitive issue in South Dakota," Kenner said. "We need to make sure the state is on board."
Badlands officials discussed the request with Dr. Dustin Oedekoven, the state veterinarian, who said he would consider the move, but stayed neutral, Kenner said.
The relocations are meant in part to avoid the periodic killing of buffalo leaving Yellowstone in search of food — an annual migration that cattle ranchers say raises the chance of livestock being infected by diseased bison.
Many of Yellowstone's 3,700 bison have been exposed to the disease brucellosis, yet the animals remain prized for their pure genetics.
"Yellowstone's the last known pure herd and there is real desire in the bison conservation community of getting Yellowstone genetics out to establish other herds," Kenner said.
Badlands currently has about 1,200 buffalo on about 64,000 acres of the park's 110,000-acre northern unit. If Badlands accepted the Yellowstone bison they would be placed on the 120,000-acre south unit, which is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and would be managed in cooperation with the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
An agreement with the tribe dictates if they ever decide to put bison on the south unit the park would supply the animals, but expensive fencing is needed before the animals can be reintroduced.
Buffalo in Wind Cave and Badlands national parks are also very pure but do have minute integration of cattle genes. Previously both herds were considered to be pure, but advancements in technology over the past 15-20 years have revealed the cattle genes.
"The level is so low that we're at the point of saying 'it doesn't really matter.' We can't purify the herd with the science we have now," Kenner said.The buffalo in question have been quarantined and are said to be brucellosis-free."That would allow them to be shipped to states that have a brucellosis-free status," he said. South Dakota maintains this status.
The disease can cause pregnant animals, including cattle, to miscarry.
While talk is underway between the parks, Montana's governor has balked at the idea,
After receiving the letter, Schweitzer issued an order blocking any fish and wildlife shipments by the Interior Department in Montana. The governor wants the bison to go to the National Bison Range near Moiese in western Montana.
He said he was concerned in part that the Interior Department's past actions have allowed animal diseases such as brucellosis and chronic wasting disease to spread across the region.
"These aren't Interior's bison to decide where they go. They belong to the state of Montana," Schweitzer said Wednesday. "We don't think Interior is very good in their wildlife management."
Interior officials earlier this month rebuffed a proposal from Schweitzer to relocate dozens of bison captured from Yellowstone onto the bison range. They said having Yellowstone animals on the Montana range would stigmatize the bison already there and make it harder to eventually transfer the Yellowstone animals to other states that are worried about the spread of the disease.
Salazar said in his letter that the transfer of bison to Moiese had not been ruled out, but an evaluation of such a move would not be completed during the upcoming winter season. Park biologists have predicted that more than 1,000 bison could exit the park this winter seeking food at lower elevations.
Millions of bison once roamed North America. Most of those herds were wiped out by the late 1800s, and by 1902 only about two dozen of the animals remained in Yellowstone.
After the park's herd gained new protections and gradually rebounded, Yellowstone administrators sought to keep bison numbers in check by killing the animals or shipping them elsewhere, said Keith Aune, a bison biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Those shipments continued into the 1960s, ending after the park adopted a policy of regulation in which bison numbers would be controlled by natural deaths.
But the park's herds soon began spilling over its border, and thousands of those migrating animals have been captured and shipped to slaughter over the past decade to guard against livestock being infected by brucellosis. Ranches that suffer infections are subject to lengthy quarantines.
Aune said the relocation of disease-free bison captured from Yellowstone has the potential to help the species recover in other parts of the country. And he said that can still happen if Salazar and Schweitzer can work through their differences.
"Badlands National Park is not going to take bison unilaterally,"Kenner said. "We're going to work with the state and different partners to make sure everyone is comfortable before we make a decision."
Schweitzer has said he will allow the state to transfer 66 Yellowstone animals to eastern Montana's Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Indian reservations.In 2010 Badlands National Park sent buffalo to the Oglala Sioux Tribe for a herd near Pine Ridge. Badlands buffalo were reintroduced in 1963, and by 1969 the park had "surplus" buffalo. The park has supplied buffalo to 21 tribes in nine different states.
Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer Tuesday his agency is looking at multiple options for moving Yellowstone bison, including Badlands National Park and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
Brian Kenner, chief of science and natural resources for Badlands National Park, said the park service approached Badlands officials about a month ago.
"We were willing to look at it but realized it would be a sensitive issue in South Dakota," Kenner said. "We need to make sure the state is on board."
Badlands officials discussed the request with Dr. Dustin Oedekoven, the state veterinarian, who said he would consider the move, but stayed neutral, Kenner said.
The relocations are meant in part to avoid the periodic killing of buffalo leaving Yellowstone in search of food — an annual migration that cattle ranchers say raises the chance of livestock being infected by diseased bison.
Many of Yellowstone's 3,700 bison have been exposed to the disease brucellosis, yet the animals remain prized for their pure genetics.
"Yellowstone's the last known pure herd and there is real desire in the bison conservation community of getting Yellowstone genetics out to establish other herds," Kenner said.
Badlands currently has about 1,200 buffalo on about 64,000 acres of the park's 110,000-acre northern unit. If Badlands accepted the Yellowstone bison they would be placed on the 120,000-acre south unit, which is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and would be managed in cooperation with the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
An agreement with the tribe dictates if they ever decide to put bison on the south unit the park would supply the animals, but expensive fencing is needed before the animals can be reintroduced.
Buffalo in Wind Cave and Badlands national parks are also very pure but do have minute integration of cattle genes. Previously both herds were considered to be pure, but advancements in technology over the past 15-20 years have revealed the cattle genes.
"The level is so low that we're at the point of saying 'it doesn't really matter.' We can't purify the herd with the science we have now," Kenner said.The buffalo in question have been quarantined and are said to be brucellosis-free."That would allow them to be shipped to states that have a brucellosis-free status," he said. South Dakota maintains this status.
The disease can cause pregnant animals, including cattle, to miscarry.
While talk is underway between the parks, Montana's governor has balked at the idea,
After receiving the letter, Schweitzer issued an order blocking any fish and wildlife shipments by the Interior Department in Montana. The governor wants the bison to go to the National Bison Range near Moiese in western Montana.
He said he was concerned in part that the Interior Department's past actions have allowed animal diseases such as brucellosis and chronic wasting disease to spread across the region.
"These aren't Interior's bison to decide where they go. They belong to the state of Montana," Schweitzer said Wednesday. "We don't think Interior is very good in their wildlife management."
Interior officials earlier this month rebuffed a proposal from Schweitzer to relocate dozens of bison captured from Yellowstone onto the bison range. They said having Yellowstone animals on the Montana range would stigmatize the bison already there and make it harder to eventually transfer the Yellowstone animals to other states that are worried about the spread of the disease.
Salazar said in his letter that the transfer of bison to Moiese had not been ruled out, but an evaluation of such a move would not be completed during the upcoming winter season. Park biologists have predicted that more than 1,000 bison could exit the park this winter seeking food at lower elevations.
Millions of bison once roamed North America. Most of those herds were wiped out by the late 1800s, and by 1902 only about two dozen of the animals remained in Yellowstone.
After the park's herd gained new protections and gradually rebounded, Yellowstone administrators sought to keep bison numbers in check by killing the animals or shipping them elsewhere, said Keith Aune, a bison biologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Those shipments continued into the 1960s, ending after the park adopted a policy of regulation in which bison numbers would be controlled by natural deaths.
But the park's herds soon began spilling over its border, and thousands of those migrating animals have been captured and shipped to slaughter over the past decade to guard against livestock being infected by brucellosis. Ranches that suffer infections are subject to lengthy quarantines.
Aune said the relocation of disease-free bison captured from Yellowstone has the potential to help the species recover in other parts of the country. And he said that can still happen if Salazar and Schweitzer can work through their differences.
"Badlands National Park is not going to take bison unilaterally,"Kenner said. "We're going to work with the state and different partners to make sure everyone is comfortable before we make a decision."
Schweitzer has said he will allow the state to transfer 66 Yellowstone animals to eastern Montana's Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Indian reservations.In 2010 Badlands National Park sent buffalo to the Oglala Sioux Tribe for a herd near Pine Ridge. Badlands buffalo were reintroduced in 1963, and by 1969 the park had "surplus" buffalo. The park has supplied buffalo to 21 tribes in nine different states.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment