I live in West Yellowstone, Montana, about 4 miles from YNP.
What l am about to tell you is an ongoing problem with our 191 highway. The buffalo come out of the park to where l live to migrate; they are the Central Herd. They have to cross this highway (191) to reach my neighborhood. The speed limit is 70 miles, and at night 55, and always 55 when buffalo are on the highway. Truck drivers only have one route. This story is very sad. Yesterday in the daylight an 18 wheeler was driving very fast. He saw the buffalo but hit it. Not sure if it was a bull or a pregnant mom. He left the scene. The buffalo was still alive, but they had to put it down. About a week ago same situation, mom and baby hit. There needs to be someone who can help. I am a very concerned person who loves my buffalo. Please let me know your options.
Stephany Seay, our co-founder responded:
Law enforcement is aware of the problem. What we need is safe passage infrastructure. When I was with BFC we had a meeting with the Montana Department of Transportation. While they all agreed that safe passage was needed, they said it was not feasible (i.e. worth spending the money) until human life is lost. This is absolute b.s. and I think we need to put the pressure back on the MT DOT and perhaps Montana representative and senators in Congress. I would suggest contacting Governor Gianforte, but we know what he is. If we still had a local paper, I would suggest an advertisement, letters to the editor (the Bozeman Chronicle would still be worthy, and the Billings Gazette), and a PSA on local radio stations. The problem is, you can be there with all the lights and signs in the world but these truckers are in a hurry and warnings are ignored. We really need safe passage. On the edge of Yellowstone, it only makes sense. That, or take a jackhammer to that damn road…. my favorite option.
Thank you to everyone who commented! The overwhelming majority of comments – 75% – were for adding additional protections for the buffalo. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks voted to approve the current bison hunt regulations without any change. So much for public comments – but they heard our voices, even if they didn’t want to, enough so that they even skipped over the public commentary period on bison issues at their February 4th public meeting.
Buffalo mourning a fallen relative.
Comments now needed by January 21st, on Montana’s 2022-2023 Bison Hunt Regulations!
This is a great opportunity to raise our voices for Yellowstone’s imperiled Central herd, the last truly wild, migratory buffalo left in the country. It’s also an opportunity to challenge the slaughter disguised as a “hunt” in the Gardiner Basin, especially at Beattie Gulch. Public comments are being accepted for a very short time, now through January 21, 2022.
MT FWP is proposing no changes. Comment and share widely!
1. Urge Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks to close bison hunting in the Hebgen Basin, west of Yellowstone National Park to offer some protection to the imperiled Central herd.
• The Central buffalo herd – the direct descendants of the 23 survivors of the 19th century government slaughter – remain in danger. Central herd buffalo migrate both west into Montana’s Hebgen Basin, and also north into Montana’s Gardiner Basin, making them doubly impacted by “management” schemes, including excessive “hunting”, capture for slaughter, and capture for quarantine (domestication). Central herd buffalo are the only ones who migrate west into the Hebgen Basin, and they are in so much trouble that for the past few years Yellowstone NP and Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks officials have called for NO KILLING of buffalo in the Hebgen Basin. So far, these have only been recommendations and they have fallen completely on deaf ears. State and treaty hunters don’t seem to care that the buffalo they are hunting are in such dire straits.
• The Gardiner Basin / Beattie Gulch – here, the buffalo rarely ever make it further than Beattie Gulch, Forest Service land adjacent to Yellowstone’s north boundary. What passes for a “hunt” make the buffalo unable to access another eleven miles of habitat to the north. Because of hunting they can barely access one square mile out of the 75,000 acres of habitat they’ve been granted in the Gardiner Basin. That situation is created by hunters. Also in the Gardiner Basin, the Travertine/Jardine/Eagle Creek area used to be teeming with buffalo. Since the hunt began, very few buffalo are found there now. Family groups from 20-30 buffalo at a time are gunned down at Beattie Gulch in the span of 5 minutes; often buffalo are hit but not killed – jaws blown off, gut shot, fleeing back into the Park, for park officials to “dispatch.” Pregnant female buffalo continue to be gunned down just weeks prior to calving season, leaving baby buffalo in the gut piles of their mothers across the Beattie Gulch landscape. There will never be the ability for wild buffalo to restore themselves when every single one who leaves Yellowstone through Beattie Gulch is gunned down. At the very least, the hunting of adult females must end. Too many calves are never born because they are left in their mother’s gut piles. It is the adult females who are the matriarchs of the family groups, the ones who hold the wisdom and teach the others.
PLEASE SUBMIT COMMENTS! Yellowstone’s buffalo herds are this country’s last wild, migratory herds. They are ecologically extinct and fundamentally endangered, though they are afforded zero protections. In either Basin, hunters are teaching the buffalo not to migrate in the direction of restoration. They are also killing off migratory memory and changing the herd dynamics by taking so many of the matriarchs who lead the family groups. Urge MT FWP to place a moratorium on hunting in the Hebgen Basin and end the firing-line slaughter in the Gardiner Basin and allow wild buffalo to recover and restore themselves on the lands that are their birthright. How do we measure recovery? Montana alone could sustain at least a million buffalo. That’s a good place to start.
Some good news for the last wild buffalo, the Yellowstone herds! In a court battle over Endangered Species Act protections for these imperiled gentle giants, a federal judge has once again ruled in favor of wild buffalo. Yesterday, January 12th, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph D. Moss ordered a “remand” requiring the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to reconsider their (second) 90-day finding. According to one of the plaintiffs, “An affirmative 90-day finding would then compel the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to undertake a 12 month species status review, a comprehensive look at all factors that threaten or endanger Yellowstone bison.”
Montana’s bison “hunt” begins today, November 15. The state issues eighty tags for either sex, any age. It used to be that a buffalo tag holder would have a two week period within one of two districts (Hebgen Basin, West or Gardiner Basin, North), and that was the window of opportunity. Now, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has thrown that out, so that any state tag holder can hunt either district at any time during the duration of the hunt (Nov 15 – Feb 15), meaning if a hundred buffalo migrate into the Hebgen Basin – which would be imperiled Central herd buffalo – state hunters could kill eighty of them at once. The state also has it set up so that if there is a “large” migration, they can issue up to 250 more tags! 250 more tags!! Now, tell me if this doesn’t sound like a bison extermination program? To top that off, hunters don’t need to even hunt… all they have to do is call a Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hotline to find out if there are buffalo in huntable areas. On top of this, seven tribes are also hunting under treaty rights. As sovereign nations, they set their own seasons and quotas. All told, the buffalo “hunt” is over six months long, with some tribes continuing to hunt year-round. This is how Montana livestock interests use hunters to facilitate the destruction of the country’s last wild buffalo.
