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After several weeks of spring/summer weather, we woke this morning with a blanket of snow on the ground. A small group of buffalo is on the move for green grass outside the invisible Park boundaries and the Department of Livestock (DOL) is in town to harass them.

Our patrols noted three DOL trucks arriving from Helena yesterday afternoon with horse trailers and all-terrain-vehicles (ATVs) in tow. Within minutes of their arrival, the agents unloaded their ATVs and went to work at hazing a group of buffalo with cracker-gun rounds back into Yellowstone National Park (YNP).

As I write, there is another hazing operation underway. Three DOL agents on horseback chased a lone buffalo into the Park near Duck Creek, violating the Park's grizzly bear closure in the process. Once inside the park, they continued to fire cracker gun rounds at the buffalo and ten others that were grazing within Park boundaries. They are currently more than a mile and a half inside the park and continue to chase the 11 buffalo.

In another incident, DOL agents spent five hours this morning chasing a lone bull buffalo into Yellowstone. The bull was grazing on private land nearly ten miles from the park's boundary near Highway 20. There are several buffalo on the Horse Butte peninsula that we've been watching especially closely today. If the DOL attempts to haze buffalo from Horse Butte, it could help with a case we are building against their actions.

As you may recall, we videotaped as the DOL violated the Horse Butte bald eagle closure with their helicopter and horses during the militaristic hazing operation of April 20. These actions were in clear violation of not only the Forest Service's Special Use Permit (SUP), which allows the DOL to conduct operations on Forest Service land, but the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as well.

Because of the evidentiary value of our video footage and the eye-witness accounts of our volunteers, we are currently working to protect the bald eagles and buffalo on Horse Butte. On Tuesday, May 9, the Buffalo Field Campaign, along with Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers and the Ecology Center, Inc. filed an application for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) in US District Court in Helena. The order to suspend illegal buffalo hazing operations by the DOL would be pursuant to the above ESA violations.

If granted, this order will restrain the DOL, the US Forest Service, and the National Park Service from violating the terms of their own laws and agreements and disrupting threatened bald eagles and their nests in a habitat Closure Zone on the Horse Butte peninsula, west of Yellowstone National Park. Horse Butte provides excellent calving habitat for the Yellowstone buffalo, as the peninsula has south facing slopes that green up early in the spring. The area provides excellent eagle nesting sites and access to perches and feeding areas. The restraining order will prevent any further DOL actions that will harm nesting bald eagles on the butte and give the buffalo a chance to migrate naturally back into Yellowstone.

The Forest Service has four cattle grazing allotments on Horse Butte--the purported reason for the DOL's efforts to haze buffalo. These allotments brought in $750.60 to the US Treasury in 1997. Last winter, the DOL, alone spent $225,854 in this contested area, amounting to a cost of at least $1,536 to "protect" each of the cow-calf pairs that lease federal lands in the area between June and October. This does not include the monies from Congressional allocations, Forest Service, Park Service or state and federal law enforcement! (Contact if you would like a breakdown of the figures at mailto:[log in to unmask]) Ultimately, grazing allotments adjacent to Yellowstone National Park should be devoted to wildlife habitat. Over 40,000 petitioners recently requested this from the Forest Service, Secretary of the Interior Babbitt and President Clinton. Montana needs to accept that wild bison, not dead bison carcasses on cattle grazing allotments, are preferred on the Montana landscape.

The buffalo have been returning to the park on their own, and many of have given birth during the past week. Just this morning, one of our patrols observed a newborn calf and its mother beside the Madison River.

Despite today's frosty weather, we are gearing up for the summer campaign, when we shift our focus to outreach and education. Look for us at our table in Yellowstone National Park, where we'll be every day between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

We are currently at work on our latest newsletter. It will contain in-depth background information on the Yellowstone herd and our work for their protection. If you would like to receive a copy and are not already on our mailing list, send us your address and we'll send you one hot off the press. It will be available by the first of June.

Thank you for helping us protect America's last wild, free-roaming buffalo. Our patrols will be out in the field documenting the DOL's every move until the last buffalo returns to Yellowstone. We couldn't do it without your support.

Donations are needed and tax-deductible - Please send them to the only group with the buffalo 365 days of the year Buffalo Field Campaign POB 957 West Yellowstone, MT 59758 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For Information about a Tribal Letter for the Buffalo from Winona LaDuke; Honor the Earth - Please go to http://www.wildrockies.org/Buffalo/politk99/triballet.html _____________________________________________________

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Rex L. Bavousett
Photographer
University of Iowa
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Our new name: University Communications & Outreach - Publications
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