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Please Don't Let Them Die!!

THE BUFFALO...........

It is believed that buffalo, or bison, crossed over a land bridge that once connected the Asian and North American continents. Through the centuries buffalo slowly moved southward, eventually reaching as far south as Mexico and as far east as the Atlantic Coast, extending south to Florida. But the largest herds were found on the plains and prairies from the Rocky Mountains east to the Mississippi River, and from Great Slave Lake in Canada to Texas.

Because the great herds were nearly gone before any organized attempts were made to survey populations, we may never know just how many buffalo once roamed North America, although estimates range from 30 to 75 million.

Although the buffalo's size and color, which ranges from light to dark brown, vary in different areas of the country, experts generally agree that all American buffalo belong to the same species. The difference in appearance probably result from the variety of environments in which they live.

Like their close relatives, domestic cattle and sheep, buffalo are clovenhooved. Both males and females have a single set of hollow, curved horns. The male buffalo, called bulls, are immense, often weighing a ton or more and standing 5 to 6 feet high at the shoulders. The huge head and great hump covered with dark brown wooly hair, contrast sharply with the relatively small hips. The females, or cows, are not as massive. Despite their great size and bulkiness, buffalo have amazing mobility, speed, and agility, and are able to sprint at speeds of up to 30 mph.

In the spring, buffalo begin to shed their heavy winter coats, and soon their hair hangs in tatters. To hasten shedding and possibly relieve their itching skin, buffalo rub against large stones and trees. By late spring, the only remaining long hairs or on the head, forelegs, and hump. To escape the torment of attacking insects, buffalo wallow in dust or sand.

With the arrival of the breeding season in mid-to late summer, the herds become restless. The bulls, aloof most of the year, now drifting among the cows and calves. Noticeably quiet at other times, the bulls bellow hoarsely and become quarrelsome. Many fights occur over females, and the combatants, with lowered heads, paw the earth defiantly.

Cows give birth usually every year, to one tawny to buff-colored calf. Most of the calves are born between the middle April and end of May, but some arrive as late as October. At birth, the calves have only a faint suggestion of the hump they will develop later. Buffalo begin grazing (primarily on grasses) while still very young, although some may continue to nurse until they are about a year old. Buffalo may live to be about 20 years of age.

By 1800, the small buffalo herds east of the Mississippi River were gone. Buffalo may have been killed to protect livestock and farmlands in that region. With westward expansion of the American frontier, systematic reduction of the plains herds began around 1830, when buffalo hunting became the chief industry of the plains. Organized groups of hunters killed buffalo for hides and meat, often killing up to 250 buffalo a day.

Unfortunately, many people at the time also wanted to eradicate buffalo as a way to take away the livelihood and well-being of Native Americans. Native American tribes depended on the buffalo's meat and hides, and many still today believe the animal has special spiritual healing powers, making it an important part of their culture.

The construction of the railroads across the plains further hastened the depletion of buffalo populations. Hunting from train windows was advertised widely and passengers shot them as the buffalo raced beside the trains. By 1883 both the northern and the southern herds had been destroyed. Less than 300 wild animals remained in the U.S. and Canada by the turn of the century out of the millions that once lived there.

Conservation of the buffalo came slowly. In May 1984, Congress enacted a law making buffalo hunting in Yellowstone National Park illegal. Eight years later, money was appropriated to purchase 21 buffalo from private herds to build up the Yellowstone herd. With adequate protection, this herd has steadily increased until it numbers almost 4,000 animals today. Thousands of buffalo also inhabit the National Bison Range in the Flathead Valley of Montana, the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Oklahoma, the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge in northern Nebraska, and the Sullys Hill National Wildlife Refuge in northwesters North Dakota.

Many other private herds have boosted the buffalo's overall population over the years as well. While the present herds, numbering about 200,000 buffalo in all, are not as large as the great herds that once ranged the North American continent, they are large enough to ensure the continued well-being of the American buffalo for generations to come.

WILL WILD BUFFALO ROAM NO MORE?

By Virginia Ravndal Guest Columnist

Indian Country Today; Sept. 21-28 Indian Country Today Online

(Editor's note: Virginia Ravndal is a Wildlife Ecologist who studied buffalo in South Dakota and has been active in seeking a solution to avoid killing or confining Yellowstone buffalo to manage disease)

Beginning next year, after thousands of years of roaming free, wild buffalo will roam no more, at least not in the country which informally adopted this animal as its symbol of strength and wild spirit. Not if the government gets its way.

The recently released \$50 million federal plan to manage the nation's largest and longest free-roaming herd of Amercan Bison is bad news for the icon of the West. It involves capturing, confining, killing, quarantining, and trucking to slaughterhouses some of the last wild buffalo.

This is not the first time a government plan has spelled disaster for buffalo. Little more than 100 years ago, the government implemented a policy to exterminate buffalo so as to subjugate Indian people. It may have seemed impossible to get rid of an estimated 60 million buffalo, but once the killing wa s over, only about 50 wild buffalo remained, mostly in what is now Yellowstone Park. The present day Yellowstone herd is descended from the few survivors of the slaughter of last century. The killing did not end back then. One-third of Yellowstone's buffalo herd was killed not last century, but last year (1996/97).

The "interim" plan which called for the slaughter is still on the books today. And, the recently released proposed long-term plan looks just as bad. Why has the government proposed killing wildlife we worked diligently to bring back from the brink of extinction? A few powerful cattlemen might best answer that question. They claim to be concerned that buffalo will transmit a disease, brucellosis, to their cattle. ( A disease, incidentally, which buffalo originally contracted from cattle.) But their real concern appears to be quite different from their stated concern. How much of a threat is this disease?

Yellowstone buffalo have lived unaffected by the disease for 80 years, and have never given it to a single cow. Cattle have co-mingled with infected buffalo inside bordering Grand Teton National Park for 50 years, with no attempts to separate the two (until recently), and without ever contracting the disease. Dr. Paul Nicoletti, a leading expert on brucellosis, says the risk that Yellowstone buffalo will give the disease to cattle "is as close to risk-free as you can get". A vaccine for cattle exists, yet Montana does not advocate mandatory vaccination. The far more numerous elk in and around Yellowstone also have the disease and, unlike buffalo, elk have transmitted the disease to livestock, yet, the livestock industry has never suggested that government employees shoot elk that leave the Park. (elk hunting is a multi-million dollar industry in Montana).

The real reason federal taxpayers are paying Montana's livestock industry to kill and confine buffalo is fewer than 1,000 cows, owned by nine ranchers, can continue to graze, with hefty subsidies, on some of the country's most pristine public land (much of which was purchased by the federal government specifically for wildlife). Yellowstone buffalo are being killed in Montana because they are perceived as a threat by ranchers who insist that the West belongs to cattle, and cattle alone.

There is no place for buffalo except within the confines of a few parks. There are much more reasonable and cost-effective approaches to resolve the buffalo/brucellosis dilemma, such as Plan "B", a plan developed by wildlife professionals with input from hightly qualified veterinarians. But, pacifying a powerful special interest group that considers buffalo (not the disease some of them carry) a threat, appears to be the real goal of the government plan. Wild buffalo and the more recent inhabitants of the West, cattle, can co-exist in the West; that is unless the cattle industry continues to force the choice between one or the other.

In that case, we will be forced to choose between adding to the 1.3 billion cattle on the planet or, setting aside a small fraction of the land for the few wild buffalo left in the world. *********************************

NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for research and educational purposes.

For more information about Plan B, check out Plan B

February 11, 1999. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies has just gotten NREPA, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act, reintroduced into the 106th Congress.Check out their website that has links to the full-text version of the bill, and what you can do to show your support.

Buffalo Nations' Website is being updated as this season's assault on buffalo by the Montana Department of Livestock continues. MTDOL's zero-tolerance policy of wild buffalo in Montana has reslulted in many animals being needlessly slaughtered. The activists at the Field Camp in West Yellowstone are prepared to fight for the safety of the Yellowstone Buffalo, as they migrate out of Yellowstone this winter and spring. They need your help!

Buffalo News at Kat's Korner