Hazing Stops for Now

US Person informed you of the annual hazing of bison and their calves from Horse Butte just outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park {4.27.10}. A federal judge has dismissed ranchers' request to drive the buffalo out of the calving and feeding grounds, but two more cases brought by ranchers remain to be heard. The rationalization offered by government agencies for the cruel harassment policy is that it protects livestock from brucellosis. The brucellosis threat is a cowboy myth since there has never been a documented transmission of the disease from buffalo to cattle in the wild. There are no cattle grazing on Horse Butte. If the ranchers and their government agents were interested in solving the potential conflict, rather than just killing buffalo, they would support expanding the contours of Yellowstone Park to include buffer areas like Horse Butte that are regularly used by the Yellowstone heard.