Here are the stories that appeared in the media over the last several weeks.

1/7
Buffalo rally in Helena: Success of a small action inside a big problem (Jim Macdonald; BFC mention)
New West Unfiltered
http://www.newwest.net/main/article/buffalo_rally_in_helena_success_of_a_small_action_inside_a_big_problem/

Ranchers oppose bison relocation
Drovers ~ Cattle Network
http://www.drovers.com/news_editorial.asp?pgID=675&ed_id=5078

Ranchers oppose bison relocation
News from Indian Country
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5413&Itemid=118

1/6
Swearing-in Ceremony includes bit of history (BFC mention)
Billings Gazette
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/06/news/state/18-swearingin.txt

Ranchers oppose Yellowstone bison relocation
Jackson Hole Star Tribune
http://www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2009/01/06/news/wyoming/1bca3960274f9a94872575350079213a.txt

1/5
Op-ed - Montana Stockgrowers: Time to share with buffalo
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
*TEXT pasted below

Bison groups protest at inauguration (BFC quoted)
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2009/01/06/news/20bison.txt

Montana under new management (BFC mention)
The Missoulian
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/01/05/bnews/br21.txt
NOTE: We did a few interviews at the rally: Great Falls Tribune, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, NBC-Bozeman, NBC-Missoula, Beartooth-NBC
Also ran in:
* Billings Gazette: http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/05/news/state/21-montana.txt

Wild Bison Advocates to Hold Rally in Helena (BFC press release)
Individual.com ~ It’s News to You
http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=94250233

1/4
Ranchers oppose bison relocation
Billings Gazette
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/04/news/state/25-ranchers.txt
* also ran on
Idaho Local News 8, Pocatello
http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story.asp?S=9614019&nav=menu554_2_2

Bison activists plan march, rally (BFC mention)
Helena Independent Record
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2009/01/04/local/90lo_090104_bison.txt
AND
Billings Gazette
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/04/news/state/32-bison.txt

1/3
Bison backers to march in Helena (BFC mention)
Montana’s News Station
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=9577289&nav=menu227_2

Bison activists plan march, rally (BFC mention)
KPAX-TV, Missoula
http://www.kpax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9611534
* also ran in
- Montana News Station: http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=9611534&nav=menu227_7
- Idaho Local News 8, Pocatello
http://www.localnews8.com/global/story.asp?s=9611544
AND
East Helena Living
http://easthelenaliving.com/
AND
- The Missoulian
http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/01/03/bnews//br38.txt
AND
- The Casper Star Tribune
http://www.trib.com/articles/2009/01/03/news/breaking/doc49602f4f3a68f897922687.txt
AND
- News Tin - Organizing the News
http://www.newstin.com/tag/us/96339011
AND
The Billings Gazette
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2009/01/04/news/state/32-bison.txt
AND
KXMC-CBS, North Dakota
http://www.kxmc.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=315098
AND
KX-NET, North Dakota
http://www.kxnet.com/News/Nation/315098.asp
AND a whole slew of others:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=Bison+rally+in+Helena&start=30&sa=N

1/2
Wild Bison Advocates to Hold Rally in Helena (BFC press release)
Buffalo Allies of Bozeman
http://www.buffaloallies.org/node/125

Future of Horse Butte bison in question (BFC quoted)
West Yellowstone News
http://westyellowstonenews.com/articles/2009/01/02/news/news1.txt

Ten years ago in West Yellowstone (BFC mention)
West Yellowstone News
http://www.westyellowstonenews.com/articles/2009/01/02/news/news2.txt

1/1/09
EDITORIAL: Bison-tolerant policies don’t increase threat to ranchers (EXCELLENT!!!)
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
*TEXT pasted below

12/27
Mammoths grazed in prehistoric Joshua Tree (bison mention)
Hi-Desert Star
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2008/12/27/features/doc4955d4f780088428163489.txt

12/26
Thank you for helping us protect the buffalo (BFC Holiday Update from the Field)
News from Indian Country
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5319&Itemid=74

12/25
Cattle industry aims to stop park bison from roaming
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
*TEXT pasted below

Court asked to stop bison arrangement
Billings Gazette (AP)
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/12/25/news/state/18-brucellosis.txt
*also ran in
Ralph Maughn’s Wildlife News: http://wolves.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/mt-stockgrowers-ask-court/

Montana: Lawsuit over roaming bison
New York Times (edited AP story)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25brfs-LAWSUITOVERR_BRF.html?_r=1

12/24/08
Cattle industry seeks to stop bison from roaming
Forbes (AP, Matt Brown)
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/24/ap5859219.html

12/23/08
LTE: Little long-term hope for bison under DOL purview
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
*TEXT pasted below

Yellowstone bison get small reprieve (GYC)
Wyoming Business Report
http://www.wyomingbusinessreport.com/article.asp?id=97851

Forest Service OKs bison fence north of park
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2008/12/23/news/20fence.txt
* also ran on
KPAX-TV, Missoula: http://www.kpax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9573674

12/21/08
Bison are back, but can they survive
National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98418065

12/18/08
Elk foundation brings stakeholders to the table
HuntingLife.Com (Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation)
http://www.huntinglife.com/blog/detail/elk-foundation-brings-brucellosis-stakeholders-to-the-table

FWP Commission Approves Corridor to Nowhere (BFC Update from the Field)
BFC Blog
http://blog.buffalofieldcampaign.org/2008/12/18/fwp-commission-approves-corridor-to-nowhere/

State, federal governments loosen their rules on Yellowstone bison (BFC quoted)
Great Falls Tribune
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20081218/DC5/812180340

Montana, federal govt loosen rules on Yellowstone bison
Google / Associated Press (Matt Brown)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hGJjDSZv2IwomibrxXRCGYhXOdwwD9552CUG0

Bison get new access (BFC quoted)
Jackson Hole News & Guide
http://www.jhguide.com/article.php?art_id=4031

12/17/08
Montana, federal gov’t loosen rules on Yellowstone bison
KPAX-TV, Missoula (AP, edited)
http://www.kpax.com/Global/story.asp?S=9539899

Yellowstone, bison to be featured on postage stamp
Montana News Station / Associated Press
http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=9537148&nav=menu227_7

12/16/08
Land Board OKs $3.3M Royal Teton Ranch agreement
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2008/12/16/news/30bison.txt
* also appeared in
Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/12/16/ap5827718.html

Governor tightens budged proposal (brucellosis mention)
Helena Independent Record
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2008/12/16/top/60st_081216_budget.txt

********* TEXT

1/5
Montana Stockgrowers: Time to share with buffalo
By LOUISA WILLCOX
Guest columnist

On Dec. 17, an interagency agreement was approved that would let buffalo roam on the Horse Butte area outside Yellowstone Park near Hebgen Lake. Although far form perfect, this deal would allow hundreds of buffalo to graze peacefully in this area, rather than being hazed, captured and sent to slaughter as they were last winter. Within days, the Montana Stockgrowers Association moved to block the agreement in court - despite the fact the deal posed no risk to cattle because cattle no longer graze on Horse Butte.
The Stockgrowers’ position also stands in opposition to the view of 69 Horse Butte landowners, who earlier this year wrote that the state Department of Livestock’s harassment of buffalo on their land violated their private property rights. Does this suit by the Stockgrowers mean that they are now an anti-private property rights group? And why are the Stockgrowers involved in this debate anyway, since there are no cows on Horse Butte?
The debate over Yellowstone’s buffalo has never been about what is reasonable, or fair, or respectful, or compassionate: It has always been about hardball symbolic politics. Scratch below the surface, and you will find little about the actual animal - how they behave or the habitat they need. But you will find a lot about an age-old battle over park wildlife. The buffalo debate is about who controls wildlife outside the park, and to what ends. It is telling that buffalo is the region’s only wildlife species not managed by a professional wildlife agency, but by the Department of Livestock.
But Montana and the West are changing. The traditional frontier values that called for taming the wilderness and killing wildlife to advance agriculture, logging and mining are being replaced by values that cherish natural landscapes and wild animals. More and more, people within and outside the region want to protect the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem’s world-class landscapes and the wild creatures that have been extirpated elsewhere.
In Yellowstone, we are lucky to still have the last free-roaming wild buffalo herd in the country. After being reduced to just 23 animals a little over a century ago, Yellowstone buffalo miraculously rebounded, numbering some 3,000 individuals today. What’s more, scientists have shown that buffalo enhance the functioning of the ecosystem, helping to recycle nutrients by breaking up the soil with their hooves. And they are an important food source for a host of other wildlife, including the imperiled wolf and grizzly. The millions of people who flock to Yellowstone each year to see wildlife may not know about the latest ecological studies, but that does not diminish their appreciation for a magnificent animal that represents the essence of the Wild West.
Stockgrowers, it is time to catch up to the present. These times call for sharing the land where we can with Yellowstone’s unique wildlife, such as buffalo, and for respecting the wishes of a growing number of Montanans who want healthy wildlife. And they call for rationality and restraint: And there is nothing rational about harassing and killing hundreds of buffalo on Horse Butte.
Buffalo need places like Horse Butte to survive winters like last year, when deep snows forced more than 1,600 animals outside the park to seek grass at lower elevations. Under Montana’s “no tolerance” policy, these animals were shot in a slaughter larger than any since the 1800s. The new Horse Butte agreement is a long overdue first step towards a policy that honors our important connections to buffalo.
We at the Natural Resources Defense Council will battle the Stockgrowers in court in order to turn back its attempt to scotch the new Horse Butte approach. Because this is not just about giving back some space for buffalo to roam, after having taken away so much. This is a defining moment: will we acknowledge the many values of Yellowstone’s buffalo in society today, or look backward to the intolerant views that almost eliminated buffalo from the West?
Louisa Willcox is the senior wildlife advocate for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Livingston.

1/1/09
OUR OPINION
Bison-tolerant policies don’t increase threat to ranchers

In a move that was as predictable as it is counterintuitive, Montana cattle ranchers have gone to court to overturn a new agreement whereby the state would tolerate more bison outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.
It’s time for the cattlemen to put this old fight behind them and start focusing on the right villains in this saga.
State officials have slaughtered more than 5,000 park bison in the last 20 years, ostensibly in the name of stopping the spread of brucellosis, a disease that can cause cattle to abort their calves. The disease is carried by a significant number of the bison, though there is no recorded case of cattle contracting the disease from the bison.
An agreement between Montana and federal agencies would allow up to 25 of the bison to roam outside the park’s northern boundary, and an unlimited number will be tolerated outside the park’s west boundary in the Horse Butte area.
It’s the latter aspect of the agreement that is being challenged by the cattle industry. An attorney for the Montana Stockgrowers Association argues that the brucella bacteria can survive for months in aborted bison fetuses and pose a real threat to cattle.
But there are no cattle operations in the Horse Butte area, and the bison will be geographically isolated there by two arms of Hebgen Lake.
Bison have been absolved of blame in recent outbreaks of brucellosis in cattle in the Yellowstone area. Those cases were blamed on elk, some of which also carry the disease, and there is virtually no way to isolate cattle from exposure to the elk.
The stockgrowers need to turn their sights away from the bison and toward the disease itself, which is promoted by the artificial concentration of very large elk herds and bison in areas of Wyoming near the park where state wildlife feeding programs are conducted in the winter months. If these feed grounds were eliminated, incidence of the disease in wildlife would likely wane, substantially lessening the threat to livestock from wild elk.
This butting heads over bison has gone on long enough. The ranchers have every justification for being concerned about the brucellosis threat to their livelihood. But the fight needs to be waged in a way that can get some real results - not aimed at the ranchers’ symbolic nemesis, bison, which will pose no increased threat under the state’s new and more bison-tolerant policies.

12/25
Cattle industry aims to stop park bison from roaming

BILLINGS (AP) - Attorneys for Montana’s cattle industry on Wednesday asked a state court to block a new agreement that would allow more bison to roam freely outside Yellowstone National Park.
In the last two decades more than 5,000 bison leaving the park have been slaughtered by government agencies and shot by hunters, to prevent the spread of the disease brucellosis.
An agreement reached Dec. 17 between Montana and federal agencies could slow the killing. It would let bison - including some that carry the disease - migrate to limited areas outside the park as long as cattle were
.
The agreement broke a longstanding impasse on how to manage Yellowstone’s estimated 3,000 bison, one of the largest surviving herds of a species pushed to near extinction in the 19th century. But the cattle industry says the balance has now tipped too far in favor of bison, putting livestock at increased risk of disease.
Industry attorneys submitted court filings asking state District Judge Loren Tucker of Virginia City to block part of the new agreement.
They are opposed to unlimited numbers of bison roaming during winter on about 10,000 acres west of Yellowstone park.
The area in contention, known as Horse Butte, no longer has cattle ranches but is adjacent to rangeland where cattle graze in the spring.
Montana Stockgrowers Association attorney Jim Brown said brucella, the bacteria that causes the disease, can survive for months in the remains of aborted calves.
“By allowing an unlimited number of bison and untested bison the exposure to the brucella increases substantially,” Brown said.
Attorneys said that in a Wednesday teleconference with Tucker, the judge set a late January deadline for legal arguments but no date for a hearing.
Brucellosis causes cows to prematurely abort their calves. It has been wiped out nationwide except in the Yellowstone area.
No direct bison-to-cattle transmissions of the disease have been recorded. Infections found in seven cattle herds in Wyoming, Idaho and Montana in recent years were all linked to elk - although those elk could have been infected by Yellowstone bison.
The Stockgrowers request for an injunction did not extend to pending bison management changes on the north side of the park, where 25 disease-free bison will gain access this winter to about 2,500 acres of Forest Service land.
Other plaintiffs in the case are Sitz Angus Ranch and rancher Bill Myers.
They first sued Montana officials and the Montana Department of Livestock last spring, claiming the state was not enforcing the Interagency Bison Management Plan. That 2000 document governs the bison capture and slaughter program. The Dec. 17 agreement altered the document, to relax rules for bison.
Even before that change, state and federal officials had shown more tolerance for bison in the Horse Butte area. Montana livestock officials were no longer testing all bison for disease as called for in the 2000 plan.
Christian Mackay, executive officer of the Montana Department of Livestock, said his agency has tried to walk a fine line between satisfying cattle interests and showing more tolerance for bison.
“We’ve got a pretty sound plan in place,” Mackay said. “We have not had a transmission from bison to cattle. We’ve maintained a wild, free-ranging herd, as outlined under the IBMP (Interagency Bison Management Plan). And as a result of that, nobody’s happy.”
Conservation groups and members of Congress from outside Montana had pushed for the more relaxed management rules adopted last week. Groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council contended the changes did not go far enough.
The environmental law firm Earthjustice has intervened in the Stockgrowers lawsuit to defend the government’s increased flexibility on bison.
“We’re going to oppose the Stockgrowers’ efforts to stop those reforms,” said Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso.

CHRIS KERR/CHRONICLE
A bison forages near the Madison River in Yellowstone National Park on May 23.

12/23
Little long-term hope for bison under DOL purview

Gov. Schweitzer has described the Royal Teton Ranch deal with the Church as an “expansion valve” for bison - an alternative to confining and feeding the animals (allowing further herd increase) and/or sending them to slaughter. In fact, only 25 to maybe 100 bison may be hazed across the narrow RTR corridor each year. If the RTR agreement were in place last year, “only” 1,409 bison would have been slaughtered, rather than 1,434. The $3.3 million RTR agreement will not end the slaughter of bison.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, National Parks Conservation Association and Montana Wildlife Federation described the RTR deal as a small step forward. Forward toward what end? When does the public get to see a realistic long-range plan?
Yellowstone Park needs about 4,000 bison for a “genetically-viable” population. If the annual population growth is 10 percent, an average of 400 bison must be removed yearly to maintain the herd at 4,000. In mild winters few bison leave the park; thus more than 400 must be removed in a subsequent year. If bison are allowed year-round on any areas outside the park, the base population will be larger and the required annual take will increase. How, where, and at what season will these bison be removed from the herd?
It is the responsibility of Montana, not the Park Service, to plan the future of wild bison in our state. Our Legislature mandates the Department of Livestock with authority over wild bison in the Yellowstone area. I see little hope for a long-range bison management plan under DOL. We will continue slaughtering bison near the park boundary. It is time to return authority for bison management to Fish, Wildlife and Parks where it belongs. Then it will be time for leadership in the management and conservation of wild bison in Montana.
Jim Bailey
Belgrade
–
Media & Outreach
Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

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