By Laura Zuckerman
Jan 21 (Reuters) – Yellowstone National Park managers have
rejected a plan to use air rifles to shoot the nation’s last
herd of purebred bison with so-called biobullets containing a
vaccine against a cattle disease, in a decision that has riled
the U.S. livestock industry.
Roughly half of Yellowstone’s 4,600 bison are estimated to
have been exposed to brucellosis, a bacterial infection that can
sometimes cause cows and bison to miscarry.
Worries that infected bison may endanger cattle in states
such as Montana that border Yellowstone had prompted the
powerful ranching lobby to endorse biobullets – absorbable
projectiles packed with vaccine. They would cut disease rates
among bison by as much as 35 percent over 30 years.
The proposal was the latest decades-long efforts to ease
conflicts between livestock interests and wildlife advocates
over management of Yellowstone bison.
Park officials said they decided against the remote
vaccination program because of its $9 million price tag,
questions about its effectiveness and the possible impact on the
millions of visitors who flock to the park to view iconic
Western wildlife like bison.
The measure would have required shooting the animals once a
year for three decades, raising questions about how increased
human interaction could affect bison within the wild herd.
“We have concerns about how that repeated contact might
impact bison behavior and their visibility to park visitors,”
said Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash.
Nash said there was no documented case of wild bison
transmitting brucellosis to cattle, which he said signifies the
success of existing measures designed to separate the park’s
herd from domestic livestock.
Those practices include returning bison that leave the park,
testing and vaccinating bison that leave Yellowstone, and
slaughtering some infected animals.
Errol Rice, executive vice president of the Montana
Stockgrowers Association, said the threats posed by infected
bison to Montana’s brucellosis-free certification, which
protects the market value of cattle, warranted using biobullets.
He said the program would have lessened the public outcry
that erupts when wandering bison are corralled and shipped to
slaughterhouses.
“The capture and removal of bison has been a challenging
issue for the park and Montana. Remote vaccination would have
helped alleviate the public relations burden we have to deal
with when bison migrate out of Yellowstone,” he said.
Stephany Seay, spokeswoman for Buffalo Field Campaign, a
bison advocacy group, applauded the park’s decision not to shoot
bison with vaccine.
“It was a mismanagement scheme based on a livestock model.
We don’t vaccinate skunks against rabies or mosquitoes against
West Nile virus,” she said.
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)
