Montana Cattle Ranchers keep a tight fist on where Buffalo can roam, treating them as Cattle rather than wildlife..........As George Wuerthner and others on this blog have pointed out, the Ranching lobby always uses the economic scare tactic that Bison can transmit Brucellosis to cattle(and therefore financial ruin will befall Montana) .............Yet, no evidence of this disease being transmitted by Buffalo...............It is Elk who most readily transmit this disease to cattle............. Yet, no one is calling for Elk removal from the land---Perhaps we bring back buffalo hunts and let wild herds traverse the Rockies once again............Bring in the $$ from the hunters and the Ranchers will have to go along for the ride

Regulating Montana Bison: Are They Wildlife or Livestock?

A breakdown of the major changes to bison management to come out of the 2011 legislative session.

By Kate Whittle,
The recently concluded legislative session will likely and significantly alter the way Montana manages its population of bison. Senate Bill 212 and Senate Bill 207 both add regulations for how bison are handled in the state. Gov. Brian Schweitzer sent the bills back to the legislature for amendments and they now await his final approval. The bison-related bills this session were prompted by the long-debated fate of the wild herd in and around Yellowstone National Park. Advocates of the regulations say the bills are necessary as a means to control the spread of brucellosis. Opponents say it's unnecessary catering to the cattle industry.
Of the bills that passed, bison activists are most concerned about Senate Bill 212, which adds rules to Fish, Wildife and Parks' management of bison. The new law requires state officials monitor, tag and, if necessary, fence any wild bison that are transported or move into the state. It's a step backward for people who'd hoped for less regulation on bison, explained Darrell Geist, a habitat coordinator with the activist group the Buffalo Field Campaign.
Senate Bill 212 officially defines bison as a "species in need of management." While several groups, including FWP and the Montana Department of Livestock, have already operated under that assumption and in accordance with the Interagency Bison Management Plan since 2000, this new legislation essentially gives that plan force of law, said Geist.
In the past, state officials have had the most trouble dealing with Yellowstone bison that wander out of the park in the winter in search of food. Senate Bill 212 grants FWP a new authority to tag, monitor and fence those animals if it finds it necessary. It's excessive to Geist, who described it as "game farm management." The Buffalo Field Campaign has long fought to do away with bison management and "keep wild buffalo wild," as Geist said. "Now we're back to square one."
Representatives from the Fort Belknap and Fort Peck Indian tribes fought the legislation, as well. Wild bison aren't allowed to roam in the state, with an exception on land reserved for Indian tribes, who can keep their own small herds for cultural and religious reasons. Fort Peck Wildlife manager Robert Magnan said he just doesn't care for the legislature's attempts to manage bison. "People need to understand they're wildlife," he said. "The livestock industry's so powerful, they don't want to share the land for anything but cattle."
Magnan is still frustrated with how the legislative session turned out. He said representatives from several tribes went to Helena to lobby against several bison bills, but their voices weren't accurately represented as several hearings were scheduled at the same time.
Magnan said the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap tribes were especially worried about Senate Bill 207, which began as one of the most controversial bills of those proposed. When Sen. Frederick Moore (R-Miles City) introduced the bill, it required permits to transport both wild and domestic bison around the state. It alarmed Magnan, as the tribes are experimenting with shipping bison from Fort Peck to the Fort Belknap packing facility.
After several revisions by the legislature and the governor, the law now requires anyone transporting domestic bison across county lines to get a permit, said Montana Department of Livestock officer Christian Mackay.
He explained his office will likely use the same system in place for sheep, where people moving them need to buy $1 permit online. The permits mostly serve as a way to keep track of livestock that aren't branded. "It pays for the paper to print it, that's about it," he said, and noted that since it was amended, no one came to hearings to protest the bill.
For Magnan, though, it still represents the main problem he has with bison legislation: that bison aren't being legally treated as wildlife. Bison don't need a permit process like sheep have, he said, because they're not comparably domestic animals. "When you get a deer someplace and transport it, you don't have to pay for transport tags," he said.  He thinks FWP is the appropriate department to oversee bison.
The Buffalo Field Campaign lobbied against SB 207, but once the legislature amended it, the bill became "innocuous," said Geist.
They're still, however, hoping the governor will veto SB 212.
The legislative session was bittersweet for Geist. "I'm kind of somewhat happy that we were able to kill a lot of terrible legislation that would have done even worse things for buffalo," he said. "We did something. We had an effect. But some things snuck through."
He promised that this wasn't their first legislative rodeo, and it won't be the last. "We'll be back," he said.