Monday, December 29, 2014

Alaska court rules bison can roam freely on Kodiak Island

The buffalo can roam freely again on Kodiak Island. The state Board of Game had previously decided that free-ranging bison were considered "feral" when the animals strayed from state or federal lands. Then in 2007 the board authorized a hunt of escaped bison on Kodiak. But the late rancher Charles Dorman, who raised bison that were prone to roam on Kodiak Island, sued to stop the hunt. Dorman originally lost, but the state Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling against him Friday, the Alaska Dispatch News reported. The court said the board was wrong when it deemed the bison feral. Bison ranching on Kodiak is a relatively recent development in the centuries-long history of livestock rearing on the island. Russians brought the first cattle to Kodiak in the late 1700s, but ranchers lost dozens each year to the island's hungry, gargantuan bears. Then in the 1990s, the ranchers turned to bison as an alternative, according to Larry Van Daele, a regional supervisor for the state Department of Fish and Game...more


There were commie cows in Alaska?  Wonder if my buddy Ric Davidge knew this?  Actually, if the Ruskies brought them in the late 1700s, they must have been czarist cows, wrangled by Catherine The Great's cowboys.  That's much better than a herd of marxist mavericks.

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