Maria Daines
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1/18/2007 6:56:17 PM
Buffalo Field Campaign Newsletter
Buffalo Field Campaign
Yellowstone Bison
Update from the Field
January 18, 2007
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In this Issue:
* News from the Field
* Send a Personalized Valentine and Support BFC!
* Last Words
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* News from the Field
Yesterday, January 17, 2007, marked the start of the latest phase in the Montana bison hunt. BFC's Gardiner patrol took to the field at first light and discovered three bull buffalo already in the hunters' sights near the Eagle Creek campground, and our hopes for a quiet day were shattered. With time against us we had to choose our location rapidly but wisely, having only one chance to sufficiently capture the day's events.
Unfortunately, before we were able to get in position, the telltale crack of a rifle told us that the first buffalo had been shot. As we've seen time and again, when one buffalo is killed his companions tend to stay in the area rather than scatter and run. This enabled a second group of hunters to sight in on the second buffalo with great ease. Because of our location, we were able to capture on film the multiple shots needed to bring the second buffalo down. With so many shots we lost track at five but later overheard a conversation about seven brass casings being recovered at the scene.
As the third buffalo looked on towards his fallen brothers we approached the hunters and engaged them in conversation. We discussed Montana's intolerance for bison, the nearly perpetual hazing and lack of habitat in Montana due to the complete failure of the Inter-agency Bison Management Plan. While we disagreed about the merits of the bison hunt we found some common ground in our views of how wild bison should be treated in the state. Although BFC disagrees with the hunt, we recognize the power of Montana's hunting community and hope that such dialog, education, and outreach will eventually lead to positive change for the bison.
Later we came across a third buffalo that was shot in the Travertine area, on the other side of the hunt zone. We were able to document the loading of the carcass into the hunter's truck. These hunters weren't interested in dialogue and simply loaded up and left.
Near West Yellowstone another group of hunters, apparently frustrated at the lack of bison in Montana and their resulting failure to shoot one, have been untruthfully complaining to the local game warden that BFC patrols are chasing bison back into the park. Their frustration would be better directed at the Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Commission, which ignored the advice of its own scientists and issued more permits than there are buffalo in the state. Rather than making up false excuses for their unsuccessful hunt, these hunters would do better to demand on-the-ground changes in bison management that would allow bison to flourish on Montana soil.
Over the weekend members of the Nez Perce tribe shot three bison near Gardiner in a hunt authorized by their government and falling outside the scope of the current hunt administered by Montana. The Nez Perce have hunted in the region for thousands of years, a relationship acknowledged under an 1855 treaty with the US government. If not for the incredible destruction vi
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