Ready for the bison hunt

Buffalo Field Campaign promises 'public relations nightmare'

Montana's first hunting reality show tentatively debuts Nov. 15.

No, it's not something that Donald Trump dreamed up.

This nationally televised event will take place with help from the Buffalo Field Campaign, a bison-conservation group that plans to distribute footage of Montana's first bison hunt in eight years.

"We'll definitely be in the field, documenting this hunt and escorting other media to witness what a so-called buffalo hunt looks like," Stephanie Seay, outreach coordinator for the Buffalo Field Campaign, said in a telephone interview. "This has the potential to be a public-relations nightmare for Montana, and we want to help create that."

Hunters have until Sept. 30 to apply for one of 50 permits to hunt bison in Southwest Montana between November 2005 and February 2006.

As the hunt draws near, conservation groups are firming up their stance on the policy that governs the hunt. But the conservation groups interviewed for this article - including the Buffalo Field Campaign - are not necessarily against the bison hunt.

These groups are primarily concerned about who manages the bison that enter Montana from Yellowstone National Park and the amount of public land the bison are allowed to roam outside the park.

The Montana Department of Livestock manages the bison because of the threat of bison carrying brucellosis, a disease that can cause domestic cattle to abort their fetuses. No cases of this happening have been confirmed.

THIS IS the second attempt at the hunt in two years. In 2003, the Legislature passed a law giving the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission authority to establish a bison hunt in Southwest Montana.

The intent of the hunt is to allow Montana hunters to harvest wild, free-roaming bison under fair-chase conditions and to reduce damage to private property by altering bison behavior and distribution. The bison hunt was set to start Jan. 15, 2005, but the commission delayed the hunt because it wanted to expand the hunting area and give hunters "fair-chase" conditions. The hunting area now includes more than 460,000 acres of wildlife habitat on public land. Sixteen of the 50 bison permits will be allotted to Montana's Indian tribes.

The 10 hunters who drew last season's permits also will get to hunt this year. The licenses will be valid on private lands with landowner permission, and on those public lands specifically defined as bison areas outside the northern and western boundaries of Yellowstone National Park.

The Sierra Club and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition have said they're not against the hunt; they're against the Montana Department of Livestock having control of bison that cross into Montana. A better policy, these groups say, would be for the bison that venture out of Yellowstone to be managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks - the same way that Montana's elk, deer and other wildlife are managed.

Bob Clark, spokesman for the Missoula field office of the Sierra Club, said the conservation organization does not have a formal position on the hunt.

"Obviously there are some things that we would favor in terms of management of bison" in Yellowstone, Clark said.

Livestock officials fear that if

cattle become infected with brucellosis, Montana could lose its "brucellosis-free" status and the state's livestock industry could be damaged.

Amy McNamara, national parks program director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, said her group supports treating bison as wildlife and expanding bison habitat on public lands surrounding Yellowstone National Park. The current bison management plan limits the areas where bison are allowed outside Yellowstone in the winter.

When they roam outside the park, the animals are hazed back into the park, quarantined and tested for brucellosis, and slaughtered if they test positive for the disease.

"We believe more habitat should be made available outside of the park to provide some breathing room for bison in the winter," McNamara said. "We think it's positive that [officials] are taking it slow. We can manage bison in Montana as wildlife, as well as managing for the risk of brucellosis … Montana should have a wild bison population that has room to roam outside the park on public lands, and also maintain a healthy livestock industry.

"They're both important and they both can be accomplished. We don't treat bison like wildlife in Montana, and we need to make that shift."

Clark, of the Sierra Club, said "the chances are almost nil" that the bison could come in contact with domestic cattle in the winter, because the animals share the habitat at different time. "It has nothing to do with brucellosis," Clark said. "It's a smoke screen."

Clark, an elk hunter, said the Montana Department of Livestock has no business managing Montana wildlife. "Wild bison from Yellowstone should be managed by wildlife professionals, whether it's Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service," he said.

"We want wildlife professionals managing Montana's wildlife."

Clark reiterated that the Sierra Club is not against hunting. "In general, the Sierra Club supports regulated hunting and fishing," he said.

McNamara compares the issue to the roughly 15,000 elk that inhabit the northern portion of Yellowstone National Park. Those elk range freely in and out of the park and during hunting season are fair game.

"Hunting is part of wildlife management," McNamara said, "and it will play a part in bison management as well. It [the bison hunt] is a good step forward."

The Buffalo Field Campaign, meanwhile, is mobilizing national media to descend on the hunting grounds and is planning to set up another field camp to assist media personnel, Seay said.

"It's a canned hunt, in a lot of ways," she said.

She hopes this year's hunt, although perhaps heavily publicized, will be a step in the right direction of future bison hunts.

"We're not opposed to ever having a bison hunt. But buffalo need to be recognized and honored as a native and wild species," Seay said. "They need to be given the opportunity to thrive as a wild herd and be given habitat. Then we can come to the table and talk about a hunt."

The Buffalo Field Campaign, which operates out of a tepee and a cabin near West Yellowstone, is a nonprofit group that receives financial assistance from private donors plus companies such as Patagonia, which donates not only money but clothing to the organization, Seay said. "They help us a lot."

Seay agreed that the best thing that could happen out of this year's hunt would be for the Department of Livestock to get out of the wildlife business.

"That's something we've wanted for a long time," she said. "Then they can go back to managing cattle."

Gov. Brian Schweitzer, in an interview last week, said he respects the Buffalo Field Campaign's right to protest the hunt.

"They just want to see that the hunt is done right," Schweitzer said. "And I'm very close to getting this right."

An estimated 4,900 bison roam Yellowstone Park - the highest population documented, park officials says.

"I want to protect that herd, but as they grow in numbers and leave the park, we need to be able to control them," Schweitzer added.

He agrees that the hunt is not a way to control the bison herd's population, but it could be a way to help determine future movements of the herd.

The idea is that by establishing a hunt, the animals soon will learn that leaving Yellowstone and entering surrounding private and public land could be deadly.

Because bison are not used to being hunted, hunters won't face wary buffalo the first couple of years, Schweitzer said. "But I think we'll make it a better hunt every year."