By Bob Wolff Santa Monica Go back to being funny Re: Kenny Mack
A wonderful letter (”Save the bison,” page 4, June 2) spoke of taking action to help the Yellowstone bison. The situation is worse than described and help is definitely needed now.
The bison herd was about 4,300 going into the winter. This winter due to the disgraceful governmental management plan in effect, 1,447 bison who roamed outside the park in search of food were killed, over one-third of the herd. Additionally, 166 were killed legally by hunters, bison that you can walk within 30 yards of. That’s hunting? Another 400 to 700 have died from natural causes during this recent hard winter.
Add it all up, about 50 percent of the herd is dead, most wiped out by governmental action.
And why all this killing? A disease called brucellosis that bison and elk carry and can be transmitted to cattle. But there is more.
The ranchers from three states, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming want to protect their herds which makes sense. However, the cattle that interact with the bison from Yellowstone are less than 1,000 in number. They are put on the public land that the buffalo use in the spring for grazing.
Supposedly, the cattle can get brucellosis from grazing on grass where bison calves were born. The government could solve this problem by having the cattle delayed being put on the public land for a month, by then the bison are all back inside the park and nature has taken care of the calving areas. There would be no needless slaughter required and millions of dollars used in the kills could be used for positive uses.
Incidentally, it has never been proven that brucellosis is passed in the wild from bison to cattle; only in the lab. It does pass from elk to cattle in the wild, but I do not see the game departments of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho out shooting massive herds of elk. No, in fact Wyoming has winter feeding areas for them.
Here in Santa Monica, the government kills healthy trees; there in another of the most beautiful areas of America, the government kills another part of our patrimony.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 9, 2008. Read the original PDF.