Federals’ Buffalo Management
Plan Too Wimpy For Stockmen

CODY, Wy. —(AP)— The federal government's preferred plan to manage buffalo in Yellowstone National Park would be too lax in dealing with brucellosis, ranchers have told park officials.

"We should manage the herd like we manage a cattle herd ... and the problem could be solved if the park system would hire one old ranch hand that would manage the herd like that," said Robert Musser, a Cody-area rancher.

Musser and others spoke during a public hearing last Thursday in Cody. It was part of a series of meetings about the plan written by the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

The report identifies seven alternatives for a long-term program to manage the Yellowstone buffalo. The animals have posed a problem as they search for winter forage outside the snow-covered park.

Ranchers fear they will infect cattle with brucellosis, which could lead to strict sanctions from other states as well as the federal government itself.

The preferred plan is based on a goal of keeping the Yellowstone herd at between 1700 and 2400 animals.

The proposal recommends capture, testing and quarantine facilities outside the park to pare infected buffalo from the herd. Those testing positive would be shipped to slaughter; the rest would be quarantined.

Buffalo would be allowed to remain outside the park in certain areas and a hunting season would be used to help control the migrating animals, if approved by the Montana Legislature.

Wildlife advocates told park service officials the government should not slaughter buffalo as outlined in the plan. They also want the animals to be able to roam outside the park.

Resident John Wagner said the plan would give authority over buffalo to a minority group that controls the Montana livestock industry.

"If I wanted to see cows everyday, I would have stayed in New Jersey, but I can't see buffalo there everyday and I can here," he said.

Steve Torbit, a spokesman for the National Wildlife Federation, urged the federal government to adopt an alternative offered by a coalition of environmental activist groups.

That plan would provide more public land, referred to as special management areas, outside the park for buffalo. The plan calls for testing the buffalo for brucellosis and shipping to slaughter those with the disease.

If the herd becomes too large, animals free of brucellosis would be given to Indian tribes or shot by hunters.

It is "absolutely untenable" to manage the buffalo for total eradication of disease, Torbit said.

Jim Logan, acting Wyoming state veterinarian and member of the Wyoming Livestock Board, said he favors total eradication brucellosis, not simply management of the risk of transmitting the disease.

"The only way to have free-roaming buffalo in the Greater Yellowstone Area ecosystem ... is to eliminate brucellosis from wildlife in and around the park," he said.