Yellowstone chief says he is ousted after dispute with Trump administration
The superintendent of Yellowstone National Park said on Thursday he was being forced from his post after disagreeing with the Trump administration over management of the park’s famed bison herd.
Dan Wenk, who has led one of the nation's most popular national parks since 2011, said in an interview broadcast by public radio that he and his boss, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, had been at odds over bison but that he believed they had settled their differences.
"I thought we were on track and I thought that he was very supportive of what we were doing and how we were doing it and that we were going to get it done,” Wenk told the Mountain West News Bureau, without specifying the nature of their disagreement.
Conflicts have raged for years over how many bison the park can sustain and methods used to keep the population contained.
The park’s practice of capturing and shipping to slaughter a certain number of bison that wander from Yellowstone in winter in search of food in Montana, Zinke’s home state, is driven in part by ranchers there who are concerned about competition for rangelands and about the spread of brucellosis, a disease carried by some bison that can cause cows to miscarry.
During Wenk’s tenure, the park has argued Yellowstone can withstand many more bison than the target of 3,000 that is supported by the Montana Department of Livestock and the ranchers it represents.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/yellowstone-chief-says-he-is-ousted-after-dispute-with-trump-administration/ar-AAymRMt?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
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