Herd Mentality Groomed Trails Lead Bison To Slaughter, But Roads Crucial To Towns’ Economies

The just-opened winter season in the nation’s oldest national park brings a new conflict between man and bison that can mean life or death for a national symbol or for dollar-dependent towns.

Each winter, more than 110,000 people pour into the park, many of them riding some 60,000 snowmobiles that belch blue smoke as they bound across the landscape, the whine of their engines echoing off the hills.

The machines follow 200 miles of groomed trails carved into the snow through forest and meadows.

The problem is that bison also are drawn to those open trails because they allow the big beasts to avoid a tiring struggle through deeper snow as they search for scarce winter forage. Environmentalists say that makes it easier for the bison to keep moving, wandering out of the park and into trouble.

Last year, a record 1,100 bison - about one-third of Yellowstone’s herd - were shot or shipped to slaughter because they strayed outside the protection of Yellowstone’s boundaries and into Montana.

Ranchers fear the bison will spread brucellosis to their cattle and that even the threat of exposure to the calf-threatening disease could mean their livestock will be shunned by buyers from other states.

Last week, a federal judge refused to stop the killing of bison that wander out of Yellowstone, but said no more than 100 bison can be killed without another court hearing.

Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the National Park Service earlier this year to force a study on winter recreation.

”(Bison) share the road with snowmobiles. It may be a great thing to see, but it’s precisely the problem,” said D.J. Schubert, a wildlife biologist in Washington. “What most people don’t realize is there are consequences to bison using (snowmobile) trails.”

Snowmobilers and the businesses they support wonder whether the bison will be used as an excuse to keep them out.

“The bison are simply smoke and mirrors,” said Vikki Eggers, executive director for the West Yellowstone, Mont., Chamber of Commerce. “That’s the vehicle they’re using to drive their agenda, which is to stop snowmobiling in the park.”

In response to the lawsuit by the Fund for Animals and the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, the Park Service agreed to conduct an environmental impact statement on Yellowstone’s winter use.

The Park Service also agreed to consider closing 14 miles of previously groomed snowmobile trail this winter for a study to determine the effect on the bison. The park’s winter season opened on Wednesday.

Many people who depend on the park for their livelihoods say the environmentalists are trying to reduce access to Yellowstone.

“This is a small, elite group of individuals trying to carve out a piece of Yellowstone so only they can visit it,” said Bob Coe, the owner of Pahaska Teepee, a hunting lodge where Buffalo Bill Cody once entertained dignitaries.

“We have built our town in good faith in our relationship with the Park Service,” said Eggers, who grew up in West Yellowstone and remembers the years before snowmobiles, when only a handful of businesses could stay open in the winter. “We’re talking about millions and millions of dollars invested in this community. It feels like the partnership is strained.”

Some people are trying to address the environmental concerns raised by snowmobiles. For example, service stations in the area sell snowmobile fuel blended from gasohol and synthetic oil to eliminate the vehicles’ blue smoke.

“We believe there are good, scientific solutions to any problems that exist,” said Paul Hoffman, executive director of the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce.

But he says that along with decisions based on the environment, the National Environmental Policy Act says the Park Service also is supposed to consider economics.

Environmentalists say economic concerns should be secondary to the plight of wildlife.

“I’ve lived in the Yellowstone ecosystem for 20 years,” said Steve Thomas, a spokesman for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition in Cody. “I never felt like the park owed me a living. The gateway communities exist because the park is over there.”

The coalition says some snowmobile traffic can co-exist with bison, although it also believes action is needed to protect the animals.

The Fund for Animals, however, believes the cost of snowmobiles to the environment and wildlife is too high.

“There’s a cost in terms of impact to air quality, the impact to the health of employees who are subjected to carbon monoxide,” Schubert said. “When a bison walks out of the park and is shot, that bison is priceless. That kind of cost has to be figured into the equation as well.”