Less Bullheadedness Called For In Bison Dispute Science An Issue, But It’s Clouded By Entrenched Politics, Official Says

Everyone in the controversy over bison management needs a new attitude, if the controversy is to be resolved, a Montana expert maintains.

People on all sides have been unyielding, distorted facts and emphasized values over knowledge, says John Mundinger of the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Ranchers, hunters, Indian tribes, animal-rights activists, environmentalists and others all have valid interests and deeply held beliefs, but they refuse to grant the same status to groups with opposing views, Mundinger said. And government employees seem to make matters worse.

“Even the technical experts - people who are trained to understand the difference between objective facts and subjective conjectures - argue about whose science is correct,” Mundinger said.

“There are no neutral-ground scientists, universally accepted as experts on the topic of bison and brucellosis,” he said. “Consequently, efforts to manage bison have been remarkably similar to those to solve longstanding religious and ethnic disputes in the Middle East.”

Thousands of Yellowstone bison have been shot or shipped to slaughter after they wandered into Montana. They were killed to prevent the spread of brucellosis, which causes cows to abort their calves.

While science is an issue, Mundinger maintained the debate is really political.

Gov. Marc Racicot, Mundinger’s boss, often has criticized the federal government because the National Park Service and the U.S. Agriculture Department saddle Montana with conflicting mandates. The Park Service wants to let bison roam at the same time the Agriculture Department threatens Montana with sanctions on beef because of possible brucellosis exposure.

The rift filters down to state government as well, Mundinger said. The Fish, Wildlife and Parks department and the Montana Department of Livestock, two state agencies charged with managing bison, “operate from very different mandates and the tension between us … more or less parallels that of the two federal agencies.”

Mundinger is participating in the preparation of a long-term plan for the management of Yellowstone bison. A draft of the document is expected to be complete in July.