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http://news.yahoo.com/yellowstone-begin ... 15982.html

Joe

On the surface it looks like a well thought out and executed management practice to me. I guess you could let them starve to death and destroy the range by overgrazing if you don't want human intervention. Maybe they could take out all of the roads and plant grass where the roads were to increase the holding capacity. The bottom line is that there are no intact ecosystems in the lower states. Yellowstone comes as close as anywhere but it still requires management and not everyone is going to agree with any one form of management.

To me, it looks like the hunters and the ranchers of Montana have figured out a way to get rid of what they perceive as a threat to their cattle. Which is a crying shame since it is the diseased elk that threaten the cattle, not the bison. Of course, you don't hunt bison. You do hunt elk. So they can't slaughter the elk as a means of capacity and disease control.

Just my opinion...

Cattlemen's Association holds sway in these Eastern states (speaking as a westerner.

Here are a couple more links I posted last spring on the same subject, different year:

Yellowstone Bison

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/med ... 30714.html

Joe

Here's another article:

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/12 ... die-winter

Joe

And again now:

http://news.yahoo.com/yellowstone-park- ... 38381.html

Joe

Two thoughts:

1.  Scott Baxter said it best:  "The bottom line is that there are no intact ecosystems left in the lower states."

We have lost sight of what has happened.  And we have watched the media-embellishments of how spectacular Yellowstone is.  Before stumbling onto Joe's post here, I had just watched another Yellowstone program tonight.  You got the impression that the wolf packs would cull the bison to the extent that there would be no problems at all with the bison.  Nothing was said about an overflow of bison and resulting commercial slaughters.  

But throughout the program I thought that this park is a very small part of what was once almost half a continent of wilderness.  I looked it up.  The great plains in the 1840's supported nearly 60 million buffalo before Caucasian man came.   
And, then I found this reference…..the Great Bison Belt!  This one put the bison numbers at between 20-30 million with an estimated 1.5 million gray wolves preying on them.   Now that would have been something to be awestruck by.   It is gone!  

And this map illustrates the small remnant that is Yellowstone, within the natural continental land mass before Caucasian men arrived.

Nat Geo does not talk about these things in their grandiose programming.

I should be thankful for Yellowstone.  But I have always fantasized about living my life (even half of it and dying younger) back in those days before Caucasian man ruined it all with the Industrial Revolution.  Oh yes, that is exactly what happened.  The American Aborigine would never have destroyed it.  No way!

2.  In your article of last year it said the park refused multiple requests from Associated Press and others to visit the site where they held the bison before going to slaughter  

Just wondering:  Can any National Park legally prevent the public from seeing (through the media) what is happening in there?  These National Parks belong to the people….us!

Robert King
http://itsaboutnature.net

Another reason to cut back or eliminate your consumption of animal product.

We have lost sight of what has happened.  And we have watched the media-embellishments of how spectacular Yellowstone is

The pretty picture always presented belies the real truth. of things going quite badly. Great point Robert....

1.  And with this image you get a pretty good handle on why the ecosystem is no longer intact.

2.  According to this reference, the American Bison went from a population that was in the multiple millions to about 1000 animals…..in about 50 years (1840-1890) ! 

3.  According to Professor Richard Van Gelder in Mammals of the National Parks, the American government had the American Bison slaughtered en masse, in order to wipe out the American Aborigine's greatest food source.

Hmmm…..Nat Geo didn't mention any of these things on that Yellowstone Special the other night.