Plan For Yellowstone
Buffs Panned By Ecos

HELENA, Mont. —(AP)— Environmental activist groups last Friday told a federal judge that the government failed to adequately assess the impact of an interim buffalo management plan for Yellowstone National Park.

The Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Intertribal Buffalo Cooperative are challenging the plan's legality. They want it blocked until a new environmental analysis is completed.

U.S. District Judge Charles Lovell took the case under advisement after hearing arguments from both sides.

About 1100 park buffalo were killed under the interim plan in the winter of 1996 to prevent them from mingling with domestic livestock outside the park where they could spread brucellosis, which causes cows to abort their calves.

Attorneys defending the interim plan said adjustments have spared hundreds of park buffalo and that an upcoming environmental report will includes ways of sustaining the thinned herd.

Attorney Jim Angell of the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund countered that the original environmental assessment done in 1995 was incorrect and that little has been done since to assess the impact of the interim plan on Yellowstone wildlife.

Angell said the 1995 assessment estimated no more than 500-600 of the park's 3900 buffalo would be killed under the interim plan. In addition to the 1100 head killed by federal and state officers, 500 more died because of the weather.

Not only did that significantly alter the size of the park's herd, it also affected grizzly bear populations, Angell said.

U.S. Justice Department attorney Martin LaLonde said the National Park Service has released and is gathering comment on a draft environmental report that addresses both the viability of the buffalo herd and grizzly concerns.

LaLonde said adjustments in the interim plan saved about 150 buffalo last winter. Maintaining the interim plan is essential to balance the needs of the buffalo with the state's need to retain its brucellosis-free status, he said.

John Bloomquist, representing the Montana Department of Livestock, said suspension of the interim plan could force the state to take unilateral action to defend that brucellosis-free status, and that could mean more buffalo deaths.