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Thu 12 Apr 2007 22:57
by Kevin McGehee
55° and clear
in Coweta County, GA
[Out West]
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I’ve blogged before about my liking for buffalo meat, and how there are a handful of restaurants here in Coweta County or nearby, where buffalo is on the menu.
There used to be a few head of buffalo on land near the small Coweta County town of Turin, but it’s been over a year since I’ve seen them there; however there’s a place south of Grantville, just inside the county line, where a few head can be seen fairly regularly.
A neighbor of ours in Alaska—who is a member of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly—had a few head on his property near Plack and Greenwood roads, and there’s a free-range herd in the Delta Junction area, which can be hunted if you’re very lucky.
I also reported on the plan by Wyoming’s Northern Arapaho tribe to buy some buffalo and build a herd on the Wind River reservation they share with the Eastern Shoshone tribe.
The Northern Arapaho Tribe has applied for a $175,000 grant from the Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust Fund in pursuit of a bison restoration program on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
“The tribe wants about 47 miles of fencing so they can enclose bison on about 32,000 acres in the northeast corner of the reservation,“ said Bob Budd, executive director of the trust fund.
The grant proposal is one of 59 applications pending before the trust fund board this month.
Ken Trosper, director of the tribe’s traditional resources department, said the tribe wants to establish a genetically pure, disease-free bison herd of 300 head on the Arapaho Ranch, bounded on the east by Boysen Reservoir and Wind River Canyon.
The proposed range for the bison project has been evaluated by Bureau of Indian Affairs range scientists, who say the 32,000 acres can provide forage for 450 cattle, Trosper said.
The project rests on both cultural and health goals for the tribe, he said—both to renew the Northern Arapaho’s cultural ties to bison, as well as for the health benefits associated with bison meat.» Casper Star-Tribune: Tribe seeks bison fence
Wyoming is home to a great many buffalo already, as one might imagine. There are small herds at at least two state parks—both of which my wife Chris and I visited on our 2005 vacation trip to the Cowboy State—plus a private herd near Cheyenne (I’d be surprised if there weren’t others scattered around the state, as they are here and in Alaska ... and I remember one in the Sierra foothills of California), and the wild, free-ranging Yellowstone herd.
Yellowstone’s buffalo, like most surviving specimens but unlike the South Dakota herd that will be the source of the Arapaho tribe’s initial collection, are not genetically pure. They also are a cause of concern among cattle ranchers around the park because of brucellosis.
[Montana] State Department of Livestock crews spent much of Tuesday hazing about 500 bison into Yellowstone National Park.
It was the largest hazing operation so far this year.
The bison had wandered out of the park’s western border. About 65 of them were on airport property at West Yellowstone, and another 35 were in a nearby parking lot, said Rob Tierney of the Livestock Department.
Others were scattered on private land and elsewhere.
The hazing of wandering bison is allowed under a state-federal management plan aimed at reducing the potential spread of brucellosis from bison to cattle in Montana. Many of the park’s bison have brucellosis, as do some elk in the region, and the disease can cause cows to abort.» AP: Crews haze bison into Yellowstone
Hazing—which is just another word for “chasing”—would seem preferable to shooting, which I remember having seen news footage of, many years ago, but…
Opponents of hazing have said bison deserve more tolerance when they leave the park.
I’m sure they do—but cattle ranchers kind of deserve not to lose calves to brucellosis.
But I’m carnivorous, so of course I’d side with the people who provide the meat I like to eat. And the Yellowstone buffalo, being scenery rather than livestock, don’t tend to find their way onto my plate.
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