Wild Bison Advocates Disappointed in Yellowstone’s Bison Plan Decision

The Preferred Alternative Places Emphasis on Domestication and Excessive Hunting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 10, 2024

MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, WY:  Late last week, Yellowstone National Park released their Final Environmental Impact Statement for a new Bison Management Plan, specific to Yellowstone’s boundaries.

Of the three alternatives presented during the scoping and draft phases over the past two years, genuine wild bison (buffalo) advocates supported Alternative 3, which would have placed emphasis on natural selection and buffalo dispersal to regulate the population. Alternative 3 would also use excessive hunting to manage numbers, but gruesome capture-for-slaughter operations at Yellowstone’s Stephens Creek buffalo trap would largely have been a thing of the past.  

In a news release on Thursday, Yellowstone announced that Alternative 2 is their preferred alternative, bringing disappointment to champions of wild, migratory buffalo. Alternative 2 places emphasis on capturing wild buffalo for quarantine (domestication) and excessive ‘hunting’ outside of Yellowstone’s boundaries in Montana, while capture-for-slaughter would continue. 

“We were really hopeful that Yellowstone would choose Alternative 3, a courageous alternative that would have changed the status quo and actually considered the buffalos’ perspective,” said Stephany Seay, cofounder of Roam Free Nation. “Instead, it’s pretty much business as usual.”

“Yellowstone showed their cowardice in caving to threats by Montana Governor Gianforte, who said he would sue the Park if the population wasn’t driven down to the low numbers desired by the cattle industry,” said Cindy Rosin, another Roam Free Nation board member. “They failed to base their decision on science, instead playing politics with the very survival of wild buffalo.”

The Bison Conservation Transfer Program is a greenwash name for quarantine, or domestication. Quarantine involves rounding up buffalo at the Stephens Creek trap, separating families, handling them repeatedly, and shipping them off to other lands, away from their homeland and families.  

“The Bison Conservation Transfer Program really only serves the human, not wild buffalo,” said Seay.  “If you were to ask the buffalo their perspective, they would prefer not to be torn from their families or wild birthlands.” 

Continuing to allow the excessive hunting that takes place just outside of Yellowstone’s boundaries is a great way to ensure that there will never be wild, migratory buffalo anywhere outside of Montana’s Gardiner and Hebgen Basins. 

“The way these so-called hunts take place ensures that wild buffalo will never be able to restore themselves,” continued Seay. “Entire family groups are gunned down within minutes, pregnant females are killed leaving behind near-term calves in their gut piles, and migratory memory is seriously threatened. Most people who see these ‘hunts’ liken them to a slaughter.”

“It’s clear Yellowstone National Park doesn’t want to step on tribal hunters’ feet. As it should be, no one should,” said Jaedin Medicine Elk, cofounder of Roam Free Nation and Northern Cheyenne tribal member. “But, tribal hunters need to realize they are stepping on buffalo hooves, stopping wild buffalo from being wild buffalo on a much larger landscape. Rather than tribal people standing up for the last wild buffalo, they’d rather kill them to near extinction each year. Nothing changes. Yellowstone supports this. Slaughter and quarantine are all that’s promised to the last wild buffalo.”

A Record of Decision on the Final Environmental Impact Statement will be published at the beginning of next month.  

Roam Free Nation is a Native-led, Montana-based wild buffalo, wildlife, and wild lands advocacy group who speaks from and represents the perspective of wild nature. Their representatives have over fifty years of combined experience in the field, monitoring wild bison migration, documenting actions against them, and advocating on their behalf. Learn more at www.RoamFreeNation.org. 

###