Back to StoriesWeighing new options for Yellowstone bison, NPS records 12,500 comments
October 5, 2023
Weighing new options for Yellowstone bison, NPS records 12,500 commentsDeadline for public comment on new bison management plan is Oct. 10
Approximately 6,000 bison roam through Yellowstone National Park and officials have been wrestling with plans to manage them for years. The Interagency Bison Management Plan was introduced in 2000 and now the National Park Service is taking public comment through Oct. 10 on three new options. Photo by Neal Herbert/NPS
by Bella Butler
The National Park Service is calling on the
public to engage in the process of updating its bison management plan for
Yellowstone National Park, a significant milestone in one of the nation’s most
revered stories of conservation.
Per a recent extension, interested parties
have until Oct. 10 to comment on a draft environmental impact statement
published by the park service which presents three alternative actions for
bison management inside Yellowstone. These alternatives offer a spectrum of
ways the park can work with state, federal and tribal agencies as well as other
stakeholders to manage the herd for varying populations unique to each
alternative.
The action toward a renewed management plan
for the park was prompted by recent studies and new circumstances that update
information previously used to inform the currently operating Interagency Bison
Management Plan, created in 2000.
Among this new science is evidence that
brucellosis, a disease that has been known to be transmitted from bison to
livestock, is now understood to be primarily transmitted by elk instead.
Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that can harm cattle, elk and bison,
including causing them to abort their babies. It’s an epidemic that’s had
rippling economic impacts on ranchers as well as wildlife-related industries.
“All recent cases of brucellosis in [Greater Yellowstone] cattle are
traceable genetically and epidemiologically to transmission from elk, not
bison,” reports a 2020 study by the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine. The study adds that of the 27 cattle herds affected
by brucellosis between 1998 and the time of the study, no cases were
transmitted by bison. It’s a change the study says is likely due to both the
Interagency Bison Management Plan, as well as reduced cattle operations in Greater
Yellowstone where bison migrate outside the park boundary.
“The important thing is that we need to try to find common ground among these very different opinions. And that's where science can come into play.” – Chris Geremia, Bison Program Manager, Yellowstone National Park
Currently,
the park employs a number of methods including hazing, hunting, relocation and
slaughter to keep the park’s bison population at a capacity that its resources
can handle to limit their migration outside the boundary. In cooperation with
the Interagency Bison Management Plan, that number is currently between 3,500
and 5,000. The first alternative presented by the park is to maintain this
plan.
The
second option increases the estimated population range to between 3,500 and
6,000 animals. This plan prioritizes management methods involving Native
American tribes, including treaty hunting outside the park boundary as well as
use of the Bison Conservation Transfer Program, a collaborative conservation
effort in which brucellosis-free Yellowstone bison are rehomed on tribal land. These
methods are used in the current plan, but this second option emphasizes collaboration
with tribes in hopes of creating more hunting and relocation opportunities.
The
third alternative would cease slaughter efforts, leaning entirely on hazing,
tribal and public hunts, as well as the Bison Conservation Transfer Program to
manage for an estimated population of between 3,500 and 7,000. Though slaughter
isn’t detailed in each alternative, the park service retains the right to
employ such methods as necessary for maintaining the overarching goals laid out
by the Interagency Bison Management Plan.
Chris
Geremia, bison program manager for Yellowstone and a contributing party to the
EIS, explains the management of bison as a dichotomy between conserving them
for wildness inside the park boundary, while accounting for conflicts and
additional interests on neighboring private and public land.
“It’s
hard for anyone to get a grasp of how complicated the issue is,” he said during
an Oct. 4 interview with Mountain Journal.
“How different agencies or entities or organizations control different pieces
of the puzzle of basic conservation.”
This
dichotomy is further emphasized by the hot-button issues that render bison a
popular headline. While America’s national mammal is pedestaled as an icon
following its return from the brink of extinction, many continue to fight to expand
protections and allowances for bison. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is
moving forward in the process to evaluate Yellowstone bison for endangered species
status following three petitions filed between 2016 and 2018. Just this month, the Department of the Interior
announced that $5
million from President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda would support
the restoration of bison populations and grassland ecosystems in tribal
communities.
Yet the
bison is also a symbol of challenge at the interface of wildness and developed
society. Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, its Attorney General Austin Knudsen and
the Montana Stockgrowers Association each filed to appeal the Bureau of Land Management’s decision
this summer to lease 63,000 acres of land to the American Prairie Reserve for
its conservation herd of bison to graze.
Similarly,
Geremia said Yellowstone bison are a contentious subject, with opinions on
management ranging from reducing the population so bison won’t leave the park
at all, to allowing for unlimited numbers of bison managed solely by the
tribes. “That means that there are a lot of different people with different
visions, different cultural values of bison, and in turn different visions of
how this resource should be managed,” Geremia said. “The important thing is
that we need to try to find common ground among these very different opinions.
And that's where science can come into play.”
The
science of note in the context of this EIS, according to Geremia, points to an expanded
capacity for larger populations. “It’s important to recognize that we’ve learned that larger numbers of
animals have sustained, and in some cases enhanced, the Yellowstone ecosystem.
We've also learned that larger numbers have provided an opportunity for tribes
to harvest animals outside of the park and receive animals that are brucellosis
free to start their own herds. We've learned that we can manage brucellosis
spilled over to livestock under a much wider range of population numbers than
we initially thought.”
More
than 12,500 comments had been received as of Oct. 5, Geremia said, comprising a
critical component for next steps in the process. “This is a really important
time for people because we need to receive input on what we didn't get right in
our analysis, or what alternatives we didn't consider that we should be
considering,” he said.
Following
the Oct. 10 deadline, the National Park Service will consider public comment
with the goal of producing a final document in June of next year, followed by
an official record of decision.
Public
comment can be submitted via the park service’s preferred form here. Comments may also be mailed to: Superintendent, Attn: Bison Management
Plan, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190.
Related Stories
August 2, 2024
Food-Conditioned Grizzly Killed in Yellowstone River
FWP
says it euthanized Grizzly 769, removing its head and paws after multiple conflicts in
Gardiner, Maiden Basin.
April 8, 2024
Can a Groundwater Recharge Program Save Teton Valley's Farmers?
In Teton Valley,
Idaho, where water is as precious as its native trout, irrigators and
environmental groups have teamed up to recharge the...
November 28, 2023
The Evaporation of Water in the West
Bozeman
is growing at breakneck speed. As its population ripples outward, the city looks
to combat supply and demand challenges with a new...