Vol 3, # 32

   Monday, March 22, 1999

YELLOWSTONE
WEATHER
Highs 40s, Lows 20s
Partly Cloudy
 

Yellowstone Net Home Page

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK (YNET) -- We receive many letters from readers of our online newspaper and email newsletter.  Following are just a few of those many letters:

I thank you for a very excellent newsletter about Yellowstone. I  have been there about 3 times, the last time in 1971 just before  I went to Southeast Asia for a year.

I hope I will be able to afford a trip to Yellowstone with my 17 and 20 year old daughters in the next year or two. I have been telling my  oldest to apply for a job in Yellowstone and I think she sent in   applications to one or two places.

I love Yellowstone but, to me, the most beautiful place in the whole  world is the Tetons as seen through the big window in the Church  of The Transfiguration. Even the most skeptical person must admit   there is a God or a higher power when they have those mountains so majestically in front of them. -- John J.

I have been actively writing in an effort to stop or suggest a solution to stopping the slaughter of bison when they leave the park since reading about the winter of 96/97. I have written all my Minnesota's Congressman and Senators and all of Montana's Congressman and Senators. Also numerous publications and newspapers and TV news shows.  The reason that I am writing you is that I was recently made aware of a plan to re-introduce buffalo into The Tall Grass Prairie Preserve in Kansas. I was encouraged to submit my idea to the planning committee of TGPP and have done so. I have suggested that bison that migrate out of Yellowstone be used in this re-introduction plan. If such a plan/transfer could be implemented we could save them from the senseless politically charged mayhem year after year. I offer this because I am aware of efforts to allow Native Americans to transfer said buffalo to their reservation. This plan does not seem to be a whole hearted solution yet. Were as the transfer from Yellowstone to TGPP might be easier to do because it is a inter-governmental solution rather than a governmental to private sector solution?

God has given mankind a challenge in his creation of the buffalo.  If he had made them more in the order of a "sporting" animal such as Elk, Deer and many others, the State of Montana would be issuing Hunting Licenses for the elusive bison and pounding down the door to protect them to save revenue. But the reality is that the buffalo are easy prey. In the last one hundred plus years we almost lost them because of that fact. In that fact lies the challenge. Can we protect and save easy prey? Yes, we can by expanding the boundaries of Yellowstone to include needed low country for migrating bison. But until that happens the above might work in the lives of a few bison. -- Matt M.

We welcome your comments about why Yellowstone should be protected and preserved for future generations.  Click here to email us.

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CONTRIBUTING WRITERS AND COLUMNISTS

Ralph Maughan
Kim Steinbacher
Kevin Sanders
Steve Brashear
Clint Wilkes
Tim Gourley
Hon. Bob Gammage
Ruth Colter-Frick
Lee Whittlesey
Tom Mazzarisi
Russ Finley
David Monteith
Denise Elmer
Dr. Bob Bara

WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont.(YNET) -- The blockade near Horse Butte which had been manned for weeks by Buffalo Nations volunteers was torn down by the Montana Department of Livestock last Thursday.  Six members of the bison advocacy group were arrested, and the DOL is now working to build a bison corral at Horse Butte.  Although the DOL insists that they will only kill brucellosis infected bison, testing has revealed that 15 of the 17 bison killed so far this winter were not infected with brucellosis.

The number of bison killed this winter has been low, thanks to a relatively mild winter.  State and federal agencies continue to struggle with a long-term solution.  The Montana Department of Livestock in particular seems unwilling to compromise on the bison issue, although they are completely ignoring the much larger elk population which is also infected with brucellosis.

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Two wolves, believed to have strayed from Yellowstone National Park, have been killing cattle in Montana's Big Hole Valley in recent weeks.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have declared that the wolves will be put to death.  Ranchers in the Big Hole Valley have the right to put to death any wolf seen attacking livestock.

Wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone and central Idaho in 1995.

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After years of negotiations, California's Headwaters Forest, home of numerous stands of Redwoods as old as 2000 years old, was spared from timber-cutting earlier this month.  The state of California and the federal government spent some $480 million to purchase three Redwoods groves to be set aside as public preserves.  In addition, some 330 square miles of Redwoods forests that Pacific Lumber still owns were put under timber-cutting restrictions for the next 50 years.

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