In a disgusting display of submission to the livestock industry and the State of Montana, Yellowstone captured over 300 wild buffalo in the Stephen’s Creek capture facility, and began shipping them to the slaughterhouse on Monday.
Last Friday, as I went back towards Gardiner along the dirt road called Old Yellowstone Trail, I got caught in a “buffalo jam” – the road flowed with a river of buffalo – passing by the car on both sides for about fifteen minutes. There must have been hundreds. It was incredible. You’ll want to play this video with the sound on.
The next morning, Saturday, there were over three hundred buffalo wandering freely between the Roosevelt Arch and the actual northern border of the park. By Sunday morning, there were less than fifty. It’s like the Park came out and rounded up every buffalo in the area. Attempting to count the buffalo in the trap from a high vantage point proved difficult, but there were at least 350 held captive there. What you could see, though, was Yellowstone and Montana Department of Livestock pushing buffalo through the sorting and testing areas of the trap.
On Sunday night the livestock trailers showed up in town, a sure sign of impending ship-to-slaughter operations. Sure enough, before daylight on Monday a parade of vehicle lights traveling up the road to the trap make their intentions clear. In an hour, two trailers containing 26 buffalo rumbled up the dirt road to make their way to the highway.
I stood on the edge of the car, attempting to catch a last glimpse of the beautiful beings inside, but only could see bits of their big furry backs. I think of how confused and scared they must be. As I followed the gruesome procession, I saw a bit of buffalo fur fly from one of the gaps in the trailer. I went and collected the bit of fur later, sat with it, wept with it, the smell of buffalo still strong.
The transportation to slaughter is done by the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, with security along the way provided by the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, and APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service). In the past they’ve driven the doomed buffalo to White’s Meats in Ronan, MT, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, but last year we discovered that was no longer the case.
On Monday one of our amazing allies followed the trailers as they headed north, until the buffalo met their final end at Tizer Meats in Helena. We put that information out to the public in a press release, and it forced a response from the slaughterhouse in question. You can read that article in Cowboy State Daily.
By Monday evening the trailers were back in town. Yellowstone and the other Interagency Bison Management Plan partners are not done with their dirty deeds. Two trailers went to the slaughter house on Tuesday, and another two on Wednesday. The trailers are back tonight, with round four of doomed bison to be sent to their deaths tomorrow.
Government agencies, even those like the National Park Service that ostensibly are supposed to serve the wildlife, do a lot of pretty terrible things in the name of wildlife and wildlands “management”. But no other wild native species is treated so much like livestock as Yellowstone’s wild buffalo.
I feel our comments to any federal agencies are being increasingly ignored, but you can still let Yellowstone know how you feel.
Call Yellowstone’s Superintendent Cam Sholly at (307) 344-2002
Email: Yell_Superintendent@nps.gov
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