[VIDEO] Bison Capture 06/08/07

Well over forty moms and babies were rounded up and herded into the capture facility just north of West Yellowtone, Montana. The word is that the bulls won't (we'll see) be sent to slaughter after all and the yearlings (immature bison that were born last year) will be sent to quarantine.

Yesterday the bison that were captured before noon sat in horse trailers, tightly confined for some six hours, in a situation that bison have been known to react to very badly in the past, i.e. goring one another. They are, after all, wild animals in tight confines.

After six hours, finally, the transport began and they were shipped to the Stephens Creek Capture Facility inside Yellowstone National Park, just outside Gardiner, Montana, instead of shipping them deep inside the park as they originally stated they would. They arrived after dark, when neither the BFC nor the park service would have an easy time examining them for injury. After a couple of days of getting the calves re-accustomed to their mothers in the new setting, they will be "set loose" in an area that actually has cattle, though the area they were removed from has none.

Are we setting them up for further hazing? Will they seek lower elevations again, in this setting, as they are released in a region they are not used to and one that is far sparser in the vegetation they like so much? In a couple of weeks, after more possible hazing, will they be called unmanageable - and killed?

Do these magnificent forces of nature ever wonder why they crawled back from extinction? Was it for this?

The Buffalo Field Campaign will continue to document this.

[VIDEO] Bison Capture 06/08/07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkDaAcqUPbE

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