YELLOWSTONE CAPTURES AGAIN!
On Friday, the National Park Service at Yellowstone National Park captured more buffalo, 193 animals. They will send all of these buffalo to slaughter without even testing them for the disease that drives the aggressive management - brucellosis.

Under the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) the Park Service has the option NOT to kill. They are making the choice to slaughter buffalo. They must hear from you today! Do not let them ignore you as they are trying to do.

Please call Yellowstone National Park 307-344-2012 OR 307-344-2002 today, and urge them to abandon plans to slaughter our wild buffalo. Urge them instead to release them and return the buffalo to the Park. Call on the Park Service to take action for wild buffalo by helping to safeguard winter habitat outside of Park boundaries. Remind them that they are charged with protecting wildlife, not slaughtering animals to appease cattle businesses. For more information please read our press release pasted below.

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QUARANTINE COMMENTS ARE DUE TODAY!
One hundred wild baby buffalo are trapped in the Corwin Springs quarantine facility, where they will spend their days like livestock and eventually half will be slaughtered. Please help prevent this from becoming the future of more wild baby buffalo. Send your comments in today! For more information and contact info please visit:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/actionalerts.html#bisonquarantine

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PRESS RELEASE ABOUT YELLOWSTONE CAPTURE:
YELLOWSTONE BUFFALO SLAUGHTER NEARS 800
Park Officials Ignore Mandate & Public Opinion, Cater to Livestock Interests

For Immediate Release, February 13, 2006
Contact Stephany Seay (406) 726-5555

GARDINER, MONTANA. On Friday, February 10, the National Park Service (NPS) captured 193 buffalo inside Yellowstone National Park and plans to slaughter them all, bringing the number captured in the last month to 865 and the number killed to 779. 86 calves were sent to the Corwin Springs quarantine facility earlier this year. As in January, Montana has refused to transport the buffalo to slaughterhouses, prompting involvement from the US Department of Homeland Security.

"Yellowstone officials are blatantly ignoring the will of the American people by slaughtering, rather than protecting, wild bison," said Stephany Seay of the wild bison advocacy group Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC). "Destroying nearly 800 of the country's last native wild buffalo to appease one small cattle ranch should be a punishable crime."

Some of the bison captured by the Park Service migrated onto or near the Royal Teton Ranch, owned by the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT). The ranch is located within North America's largest wildlife migration corridor directly adjacent to Yellowstone's northern boundary. In 1999 U.S. taxpayers spent $13 million on conservation easements to allow wild bison to access these lands. The government never finalized the deal.

Fear that bison may transmit brucellosis to the CUT cattle is the purported reason for the slaughter. There has never been a documented case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis to domestic livestock. Bulls, calves, and non-pregnant cow bison pose no risk of transmitting brucellosis. None of the adult bison slaughtered this year were first tested for brucella antibodies.

Wild bison are a nomadic species native to North America and once numbered 45 million. Today there are less than 4,500 wild bison in America, all members of the Yellowstone herd.

Under the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP), wild bison are largely confined to Yellowstone National Park, which lacks adequate winter range. The Plan was set up to protect and maintain a wild, free-roaming population of Yellowstone bison while maintaining Montana's brucellosis-free status. However, even decades prior to the Plan's inception there has never been a documented case of wild bison transmitting brucellosis back to cattle. Under the Plan bison are prevented from carrying out their natural migration, which alters their behavior and erodes their wildness. BFC opposes the Plan and advocates for more sensible, livestock-based risk management, including fencing and vaccination of domestic cattle in Montana.

"It suddenly seems that bison are safer in Montana than they are in Yellowstone National Park," said Mike Mease of the BFC "In surprising contrast to the Park Service, Governor Schweitzer has recently shown some tolerance for bison." Mease was referring to Schweitzer's orders last week that the Montana Department of Livestock release nine bison captured near West Yellowstone. "Yellowstone officials ought to be ashamed," said Mease. "An agency mandated to protect wildlife has no business slaughtering the buffalo," he said.

Buffalo Field Campaign is the only group working in the field, everyday, to stop the slaughter of the wild Yellowstone buffalo. Volunteers defend the buffalo on their native habitat and advocate for their protection. BFC video footage and photos are available upon request and may be viewed at http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org .

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Media Coordinator
Buffalo Field Campaign
PO Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
(406) 646-0070

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

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BFC is the only group working in the field every day
to defend the last wild herd of buffalo in America.

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