Yellowstone Officials Weigh Options To Keep Bison Off Trails

Officials at Yellowstone National Park are looking ahead to next winter to come up with ways to keep bison off snowmobile trails and in the park.

Plans range from building fences and cattle guards, boring tunnels to let snowmobilers through but block bison, to closing down the park in the winter. Park officials want to keep the bison off groomed snowmobile trails, which allow them to more easily leave Yellowstone in search of food and enter Montana, where they are shot or shipped to slaughter.

“There’s a lot of in between,” said John Varley, director of the park’s Center for Resources. “We can do things to make it harder for bison to use those energy-efficient trails.”

Ranchers fear bison leaving the park will spread the disease brucellosis to livestock.