Montana sued for letting Yellowstone bison roam

A Park County livestock owners group filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to stop Yellowstone National Park bison from roaming freely into parts of Montana. The Park County Stockgrowers Association filed the suit in state District Court. It challenges a recent decision by state and federal agencies to allow hundreds of bison into the Gardiner Basin - a 75,000-acre area where the animals had been prohibited for decades over disease concerns. The lawsuit says a thorough environmental study should have been done before that ban was lifted for the first time this spring. Many bison carry brucellosis, which causes pregnant animals, including cattle, to prematurely abort. Over the last two decades, thousands of bison leaving the park during their winter migration have been shot or shipped to slaughter to prevent disease transmissions. But this year, state and federal officials said prior restrictions on bison were no longer needed because few livestock remain in the Gardiner basin and federal rules on brucellosis have recently been eased...more