Bison to be hazed into Yellowstone

BILLINGS – Several hundred bison will be hazed back into Yellowstone National Park beginning today and lasting for several weeks, under a program to prevent the spread of a livestock disease.

Under the same program, an estimated 1,600 park bison were killed this winter as they attempted to migrate outside the park in search of food at lower elevations.

The hazing operation is meant to move 370 of the animals out of an area west of Yellowstone, where they are allowed during the winter and early spring but not in the summer when cattle return for grazing.

Park spokesman Al Nash said the hazing will be done differently than last year, when animals kept pushing back out of the park and into areas where cattle range. That stoked fears among the livestock industry that the bison could transmit brucellosis, a disease that causes cows to abort their young.

Nash said this year’s hazing will be carried out more slowly, to make sure bison are not moved too fast to higher elevations where snow still covers forage. He said that should allow the animals to remain in the park once they are moved.

“We’re going to move smaller groups” of bison, Nash said. “Basically, as one group vacates an area, it creates space where we can move another small group. We hope it will be a little more successful.”

Critics say the hazing is not necessary in at least one location – an isolated peninsula on Hebgen Lake known as Horse Butte, north of the town of West Yellowstone. Cattle no longer graze there, and bison advocates have been pressuring the Montana Department of Livestock to allow them to stay.

The slaughter program and natural mortality took a steep toll on Yellowstone’s herds this winter, reducing the population by more than half to an estimated 2,300 animals.

More than 330 bison remain in corrals on the north side of the park. Park officials plan to release those bison when forage conditions inside the park improve.