Judge tosses TRO request over helicopter bison hazing

A federal court judge in Helena has denied a request for a temporary restraining order that would have prohibited the state of Montana from using helicopters to haze bison back into Yellowstone National Park because the tactic allegedly scares grizzly bears. In his order issued Monday, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Charles Lovell wrote that plaintiff Alliance for the Wild Rockies failed to name the state of Montana in the lawsuit filed earlier this year against the U.S. Forest Service. Lovell adds that the motion for the restraining order “is itself without merit” because the state possesses sufficient legal authority under its police powers to address brucellosis-infested bison. Lovell, who has long overseen the legal debate over Yellowstone’s bison, added that the state has its own reasons for hazing them. “Plaintiff is absolutely wrong to argue that there is only an economic consideration vis-à-vis the balancing of the interests of the parties,” Lovell wrote in his five-page order. “There is a tremendously significant issue as to the health and welfare of the citizens of the state of Montana and another important issue as to the preservation of the Yellowsone bison herd. “One underlying purpose of the helicopter hazing is to spare Yellowstone bison from lethal removal by the state of Montana.”...more