Montana's governor on Tuesday barred Yellowstone buffalo exposed to a livestock disease from entering his state, effectively granting a temporary reprieve for the 217 buffalo targeted for slaughter.
The order by Governor Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, cited worries about brucellosis, a bacterial infection that can cause cows to miscarry, to temporarily delay government plans to ship buffalo exposed to the disease to slaughterhouses in Montana.
Schweitzer's move is the latest twist in a weeks-long saga over buffalo, or bison, that sought to escape the deep snows of Yellowstone Park in search of food in nearby Montana lowlands.
Government wranglers have corralled 525 of the straying bison, 217 of which have tested positive for exposure to brucellosis and were slated to be killed.
Tensions over the fate of the iconic Western animals have mounted in recent weeks, with conservationists seeking a stay of execution in U.S. District Court. A federal judge on Monday denied that request.
Saying that Montana lawmakers and cattle ranchers believe importation of Yellowstone bison presents "an unacceptable risk for the transmission of brucellosis," Schweitzer banned the animals from the state for 90 days.
Bison advocates welcomed the temporary reprieve.
"The effect is a stay of execution so we're very grateful for this news," said Dan Brister, head of Buffalo Field Campaign, one of several conservation, tribal and sportsmen groups that sued to save the bison from slaughter.
The Yellowstone bison, which number 3,700, are prized as the nation's last purebred herd of wild buffalo. The wildlife such as bison draw millions of visitors every year to Yellowstone.
It is not the first time that Montana's maverick governor has charged into a debate over wild bison.
In 2006, Schweitzer began brokering a deal with ranchers fearing the loss of the state's brucellosis-free status, which helps to maintain the 
market value of Montana cattle, and conservationists lobbying to protect the bison. The negotiations ultimately expanded the range Yellowstone bison could roam outside Yellowstone National Park without threat of execution.
Yellowstone officials on Tuesday said the governor's order was still under review.
Source:
Reuters,"Montana governor grants reprieve for Yellowstone bison", by Laura Zuckerman, accessed February 16, 2011
A congenital defect combined with U.S. government plans to kill bison exposed to an infectious cattle disease could doom America's last wild herd of pure-bred buffalo at Yellowstone National Park, a genetics expert said in a new study.
The findings were posted on Monday in Nature Precedings, an online archive for pre-publication research by scientists, as the government and environmental groups clashed in court over an icon of Western wildlife that dates to prehistoric times.
Government managers continue to corral hundreds of bison whose 
search for food has led them to stray from Yellowstone into nearby Montana grazing lands.
Livestock producers fear bison will spread brucellosis, a bacterial infection that can cause domestic cows to miscarry.
A planned slaughter of captive bison that test positive for exposure to 
brucellosis was placed on hold by the National Park Service last week after conservationists brought a lawsuit challenging the program.
On Monday, the Park Service filed a response reasserting its right to kill as many as 1,600 head of buffalo this year, depending on how the winter progresses.
The agency denied environmentalists' claims that killing brucellosis-exposed buffalo -- 76 are already slated for slaughter -- would irreparably damage the herd.
But the study from Thomas Pringle, a biochemist on the genomic team for the University of California at Santa Cruz, faulted the government as overlooking a hereditary weakness in the bison herd that could be amplified by the culling program.
He found that most Yellowstone bison whose DNA were tested carried a genetic mutation that affects cellular metabolism and makes bison lethargic, rendering them less capable of 
foraging in deep snow, fending off predators and competing for mates.
Pringle, whose work on other genomes has appeared in professional journals such as Science and Nature, said his bison research demonstrates that culling of the wild herd (see right) based on brucellosis, rather on the health of their genes, may push the species over the edge into a form of extinction.
"They're taking a really high risk of killing bison with healthy genes and getting into a situation where they can't go back; the good DNA will be lost," said Pringle, whose paper relies on published genetic data, 
analyses of bison fossils and samples from herds at national parks like Yellowstone.
Pringle said he was motivated to release his findings in advance of scientific peer review because Yellowstone bison can't afford the months-long wait while his paper is accepted for formal publication. (Link to current article)
A Yellowstone spokesman said the Park Service was not immediately acquainted with Pringle's study.
Millions of visitors flock to Yellowstone each year to watch wildlife like bison, whose numbers are estimated at 3,700. The West is home to several conservation bison bands, but Yellowstone's are prized as the last
wild, pure-bred herds, according to the Park Service. Other conservation herds have DNA contaminated with cattle genes from cross-breeding in the late 19th century, a Park Service report shows.
Hunting west of the Mississippi reduced herds that once numbered in the millions to the fewer than 50 that found refuge in Yellowstone in the early 20th century.
Early conservationists used that small band to save the species, but 
their efforts predated sequencing of genomes and inadvertently promoted inbreeding, Pringle said.
The founding population for today's wild bison and for commercially bred buffalo possessed the genetic defect that now plagues 72 percent of bison tested at Yellowstone and all those tested at Grand Teton National Park, according to the study.
Buffalo are produced commercially on ranches, like the Montana spreads of billionaire Ted Turner, but those animals are not considered pure-bred because many have cattle genes.
Source:
Reuters, "Study links Yellowstone bison fate to genetic flaw", accessed February 7, 2011
Nature Proceedings, "Widespread Mitochondrial Disease in North American Bison", accessed February 7, 2011
Conservation groups asked a federal judge on Thursday to grant a stay of execution for hundreds of buffalo who strayed outside of Yellowstone National Park.
Wild bison allowed to migrate north of Yellowstone National Park for the first time in decades have strayed off their new grazing grounds, 2,500-acres of grazing 
grounds within the Gallatin Forest. The first bison that strayed were to be hazed back onto the Gallatin National Forest (right). If they left again, officials said, it was uncertain what would happen if they continued to enter areas where they could encounter cattle.
For years, bison trying to leave Yellowstone to graze at lower elevations 
in Montana were captured and slaughtered to prevent the spread of brucellosis. The first bison on the Gallatin - part of a pilot program that was years in the making - tested negative for the disease.
Those animals are part of an initiative to expand areas outside the park where bison can roam.
Hundreds of bison attempt to leave the park during harsh winters. With snow piling deep this year, 63 of them that tried to leave the park in mid-January but were captured at the park's northern boundary.
Nearly 400 of the nation's last purebred herd of buffalo, or bison, have been herded into a fenced enclosure at the park after the search for food led the animals into nearby Montana, where they are not tolerated.
The state's billion-dollar livestock industry fears Yellowstone bison will infect cattle with brucellosis, a disease that causes cows to abort.
That is the primary reason for killing herds of buffalo escaping the deep
snows of Yellowstone to forage in historic winter grazing grounds in the lowlands of Montana.
Government officials this week announced that captured bison exposed to brucellosis would be shipped to slaughterhouses.
That plan came to a temporary halt on Thursday after several conservation groups sought a restraining order in federal court.
The legal motion is part of a broader federal lawsuit by sportsmen and environmentalists, who argue government land managers are violating their own regulations and the public trust by chasing, confining and killing Yellowstone's wild bison.
"These bison are incredibly important; the idea of just slaughtering some is mind-boggling to me," said Glenn Hockett, head of Gallatin Wildlife Association. The Montana-based group represents hunters and anglers and is one of the several organizations suing over the bison.
Testing of 161 captive bison revealed that 53 had been exposed to brucellosis and were candidates for slaughter. But no shipments have been scheduled, said Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash.
Nash said park attorneys had not yet responded to environmentalists' court filing to stop the slaughter. He said officials would continue to test and sort animals, which are in fenced pastures with water and hay.
Nash said an additional 47 bison were penned on Thursday, bringing to at least 368 the number of captive animals.
No bison were sent to slaughter in last year's mild winter. But this winter's higher-than-average snowfall in Yellowstone and bitter temperatures means hundreds more hungry buffalo are staging to leave the park.
"Most are several miles from the park boundary but bison can cover a lot of ground," said Nash. "They're bison, their movements are challenging to predict."
There is no documented case of wild bison infecting cows with brucellosis, but such a transmission has been produced in a laboratory, said Montana Department of Livestock spokesman Steve Merritt.
More than 3,500 Yellowstone bison have been killed since 2000, mostly by the government. The latest estimate puts the total size of the herd at 3,900.
Wildlife officials, working on the project with bison in the Gallatin National Forest, had hoped the bison would be contained by natural features including the Yellowstone River. But in one incident about a dozen animals crossed the river three times in just a few days.
John Youngberg with the Montana Farm Bureau said it could prove impossible to keep the bison contained.
"How do you control them?" Youngberg asked. "They are a large, large ungulate. Fences don't seem to make a whole lot of difference with them."
Source:
Reuters,"Groups ask judge to stay killing of Yellowstone bison", accessed February 3, 2011
Kansas City Star, "Yellowstone bison wandering off grazing grounds", accessed February 3, 2011
Montana's governor on Tuesday barred Yellowstone buffalo exposed to a livestock disease from entering his state, effectively granting a temporary reprieve for the 217 buffalo targeted for slaughter.
"The effect is a stay of execution so we're very grateful for this news," said Dan Brister, head of Buffalo Field Campaign, one of several conservation, tribal and sportsmen groups that sued to save the bison from slaughter.
market value of Montana cattle, and conservationists lobbying to protect the bison. The negotiations ultimately expanded the range Yellowstone bison could roam outside Yellowstone National Park without threat of execution.
