Group's effort to halt Yellowstone bison hunt denied by federal judge

A preliminary injunction to halt this winter’s hunting of Yellowstone National Park bison in Montana has been denied by a Billings federal judge. U.S. District Court Judge Susan Watters issued an order on Monday denying the request by Neighbors Against Bison Slaughter and Gardiner-area resident Bonnie Lynn. Jared Pettinato, an attorney representing the group and Lynn, said he was disappointed with the ruling and his clients were considering whether to appeal or proceed with the lawsuit. The suit alleges that agencies of the federal government — including the National Park Service, Department of Agriculture and Forest Service — should not let the hunt continue in a quarter-mile-square slice of land at the mouth of Beattie Gulch. The Forest Service property is just north of the park boundary near Gardiner and provides one of the first places that hunters are allowed to kill bison when they leave the park. No hunting is allowed inside the park. The lawsuit argued that rather than address the situation, “the Federal agencies have foisted the dangerous and concentrated impacts of bison hunting onto a small group of private property owners, neighbors, and visitors.” Most of the hunting is conducted by Native American tribal members. In the winter of 2016-17 four tribes killed 375 bison. Since then the number of tribes exercising their treaty right to hunt has increased to six tribes. In the past two winters those tribes have killed another 375 bison. Watters cited the importance of bison hunting to the tribes in her order, noting that they still see the hunts as “an important cultural and spiritual use of land which subsists their people.”...MORE

You can read the decision here.