Deal reached to reduce Yellowstone's bison herd by 600-900

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — Officials have agreed to allow as many as 900 bison from Yellowstone National Park to be shot by hunters, sent to slaughter or placed in quarantine this winter in a program that seeks to prevent the animals from spreading a disease to cattle.

An additional 200 bison among the park's more than 5,000 bison could be captured or hunted in the late winter if those numbers are met, federal, tribal and state officials agreed in a meeting Wednesday.

Bison routinely leave Yellowstone and head north into Montana each winter, raising concerns that the animals could spread brucellosis to cattle. Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that can cause cows to abort their calves. The disease can spread to people but is rare in humans in the U.S.

Elk have spread the disease to livestock but there are no documented cases of bison spreading brucellosis to livestock in the wild, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/deal-reached-to-reduce-yellowstones-bison-herd-by-600-900/ar-AARoTnc

[niyad]

1. What am I missing? There are no documented cases of bison

spreading this disease, yet 20 percent of the bison herd can be hunted to prevent the spread? Huh??

[ret5hd]

2. Hey, gotta kill SOMETHIN'!

[mopinko]

3. i believe it is endemic in the herd.

it hasnt spread because of herd management.

[2naSalit]

4. Not really.

As the article says, elk have it and they are the ones who spread it. Elk have a bigger lobby than the bison do. It's all about who gets to eat the grass (elk, bison or cows) and who gets to make the rules (very red state government all about keeping cattle as the sacred cow that brings in a lot of subsidies). That's it in a nutshell, oh and greed.

ETA: https://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/

[niyad]

5. Thank you. Pretty much what I guessed.

[abqtommy]

6. There is a vaccine for critters that can be affected by brucellosis*. I'd rather see

the critters than a group of hoomans shooting them down.

*search results:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=is+there+a+vaccine+for+brucellosis+in+buffalo+and+cattle

[Bayard]

7. Almighty Beef Has Spoken!

I don't think the bison will much like their, "deal".

So now....if they have Brucellosis, are their killers planning on eating the meat? Per the CDC:
"People can get the disease when they are in contact with infected animals or animal products contaminated with the bacteria. Animals that are most commonly infected include sheep, cattle, goats, pigs, and dogs, among others."

I, for one, don't want my bison killed in my national park.

[NickB79]

8. All habitats have a carrying capacity. Parts of Yellowstone are approaching, if not surpassing, that

https://montanafreepress.org/2020/04/09/study-says-yellowstone-bison-are-exerting-an-unhealthily-heavy-footprint/

Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley has been called the American Serengeti, a landscape where people can see bison, elk, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, moose, wolves, coyotes, grizzly bears, black bears, otters and beavers.

But the habitat of Lamar Valley has been degraded in recent years, thanks in large part to record numbers of bison eating, trampling and rubbing their horns on woody plants. These behaviors drastically alter plant communities, stream and river channels and food webs, according to a new study published last week by researchers at Oregon State University.

“This system is on a trajectory that is not so good ecologically for everything except for bison,” said Bob Beschta, a professor emeritus of ecology and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Food Webs.

snip

“Maybe bison are more important than any other species,” Beschta said. “But for a fish, a beaver, a small mammal, a bird, a bear or whatever to try to make a living in the Lamar Valley bottom, the habitat has been pretty well decimated.”

Since the megafauna mass extinction event 10,000 yr ago, the primary natural predator of bison in North America has been humans. Wolves, cougars and grizzlies take out some of the young, old and sick, but nothing like the sabertooth cats, short-faced bears, dire wolves and American lions before them did. And whether they're hit with an arrow, a bullet, or run off a cliff by the hundreds, at the end of the day they're still dead.

I don't see a problem with this reduction plan. I'd prefer more capture and release into new habitat, but the link I posted above does say that most of the bison hunted are done so by Native Americans exercising treaty rights, and I'm a big proponent of respecting treaty rights.