More than 450,000 acres of land purchased by a billionaire-funded conservation organization

 The American Prairie (AP) is attempting to form the largest nature park in the U.S. by buying up massive amounts of land in Montana. The group states that its mission is to create "a refuge for people and wildlife preserved forever as part of America's heritage."

AP has successfully purchased over 450,000 acres since 2004 but aims to acquire 3.2 million for its American Prairie Reserve project. When completed, the park will be roughly the size of Connecticut and 25% larger than Yellowstone.

The Montana acreage primarily consists of land once used for farming and grazing. The region's economy heavily depends on its $4.72 billion agricultural industry, and ranchers are concerned that the group will buy up too much privately-owned land and sabotage production.

With the help of billionaire donors, AP has raised tens of millions of dollars since its inception. Its donors include well-known financiers and retail moguls.

...Geddes stated AP selected the area because of its decreasing population, saying that "perhaps there's greater potential for less conflict over conservation in this part of the world."

United Property Owners of Montana (UPOM) is made up of local ranchers who are against the plan set in motion by AP. UPOM's policy director, Chuck Denowh, explained that the donors helping purchase the land are concerned only about having a tax-deductible charitable donation and not the consequences on agricultural production.

Denowh expressed concern about where the donations are coming from and that "for the future of food security of this country, we need to take a close look at that."

AP originally made headlines over its bison grazing plan in Montana. Recently, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) decided to grant AP its request to have bison roam on 60,000 acres previously reserved for cattle grazing...MORE

So you think you are not a target?

...AP selected the area because of its decreasing population, saying that "perhaps there's greater potential for less conflict over conservation in this part of the world."

Fewer people means less blow back on the politicians who support this.

Also note this admits there is a confict between people and conservation. Yet when the feds acquire lands, they claim to do so to allow public access to the area, when in fact they do just the opposite.  They exclude people. all in the name of conservation.

Yellowstone visitor gored in second bison attack in a month, park says

 A Colorado man visiting Yellowstone National Park was gored by a bison at Old Faithful this week in the second attack of its kind in the past month, park officials said.

The 34-year-old from Colorado Springs, whose name the National Park Service has not released, was walking with his family on a boardwalk near Giant Geyser on Monday when a bull bison charged the group, according to a news release.

When the woman approached the bison at the boardwalk west of the Old Faithful geyser, the animal charged her.

“Consequently, the bison gored the woman and tossed her 10 feet into the air,” the Park Service said at the time...MORE                                       

Ranchers Push Back On American Prairie Reserve In Montana

Tensions are high over the fate of more than 3 million acres of public and private land in northeast Montana. Two groups have very different views on the future of this vast area. Alison Fox is head of an effort to turn it into the largest nature reserve in the nation. She’s the CEO of American Prairie Reserve, known as APR, a project backed by Silicon Valley funders who have spent millions of dollars buying up private land with the intent of creating an American Serengeti. This requires removing the livestock that have grazed the area for more than a century and replacing it with species like elk, antelope, prairie dogs, pronghorn and bison — animals that once roamed the land. Montana’s temperate grasslands are just the place for a reserve because of its biodiversity, Fox says. Grasslands are also impeccable carbon sinks, she says, because of their ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Her goal for the APR is to restore and preserve the land’s ecosystem for years to come. “We will ensure that the species that were once home there can make their homes again,” she says. “We have a conservation herd of bison, and that's been one of the important species restoration efforts that we've led.” But for longtime rancher and landowner Deanna Robbins, a third generation Montanan and a member of the United Property Owners of Montana, the reserve is non-negotiable. “We don't just occupy this land, and I think that's what a lot of people don't understand,” she says. “Our life's work is growing food, and this is a hungry world.” Robbins feels the APR's vision of an American Serengeti is an assault on her business, culture and those living and working within the bounds of the planned reserve. She’s now leading an effort called “Save the Cowboy” to halt the project. Through water developments in the region, the area’s grasslands are perfect for cattle ranching and hunting because the grass is high in protein and minerals, she says. “It's good for growing production livestock,” she says, “and it's been considered the highest purpose of the land for over 100 years.”...MORE

Wild bison will be released into the UK for the first time in thousands of years in hopes to revive wildlife

About 10,000 years after the Steppe Bison went extinct, UK's most important wildlife species are now also racing toward extinction. Ancient Steppe bison once roamed the land which would later become England. Their presence significantly provided other animals and plants the healthy ecosystem they needed to thrive. Now, the UK is looking to the Steppe bison's closest relative to bring back the area's ancient woodlands -- the European bison. The $1.4 million "Wilder Blean" project, funded by the People's Postcode Lottery Dream fund, aims to release a small herd of European bison into the West Blean woods, near Canterbury in East Kent, during the spring of 2022. The bison will come from the Netherlands or Poland, where previous releases have proved successful, and the initial release will include one male and three females, according to the Guardian. Natural breeding is expected to increase the size of the herd. Describing European bison as "ecosystem engineers," the Kent Wildlife Trust, one of the conservation organizations leading the project, said the species can "change woodlands in a way that no other animal can."...MORE

Will there eventually be a call for a buffalo commons in the U.K.? 

Surging bison populations in Yellowstone National Park have come with 'a major ecological cost,' researchers say, causing rivers to run dry and the park's tree cover to decline

A surging bison population in Yellowstone National Park is doing serious and steady damage to the park's biological diversity. A team of researchers from Oregon State University, Corvallis studied the animal's effects on the park's landscape, focusing primarily on the Lamar Valley, an area on the park's eastern edge. The team analyzed data spanning more than 100 years, including population figures for a range of species as well as historic documents and photos detailing the evolution of specific parts of the valley. The team concluded that the steady increase in bison numbers in the park had come 'at a major ecological cost,' according to a report in Eurekalert. 'Even to a casual observer there are clear indicators of highly altered ecological conditions across the Lamar Valley, including a high density of bison trails, wallows and scat,' study co-author Bob Beschta said. 'High bison numbers have been an effective agent for accelerating the biological and physical modification of the valley's seeps, wetlands, floodplains, riparian areas and channels, trends that had begun decades earlier by elk.' There are currently over 4,000 bison in Yellowstone, an all-time high for the park, the consequence of congress demanding park officials stop seasonal culling of the animal in 1968, a time when the bison population had been limited to around 100. Large bison populations have had a range of damaging effects on the environment, including heavy grazing and trampling that kills off woody vegetation--something that's intensified by the park's similarly surging elk populations, which nibble on young tree leaves and strip them of their bark. The valley has seen a 99 percent reduction in aspen tree cover, dropping from 7.5 hectares in 1954 to just one-tenth of a hectare in 2015. The heavy trampling has also steadily caused riverside, or riparian, vegetation to die off as the heavy hoof falls widen the shallow streams and rivulets across the valley floor and either disperse them or dry them out entirely...MORE

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.

Judge keeps bison-hunting season open

A federal judge yesterday declined to impose an emergency stop to bison hunting near Yellowstone National Park. On the eve of Montana's bison-hunting season starting today, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell rejected a temporary restraining order request by Montana resident Bonnie Lynn and her group called Neighbors Against Bison Slaughter. Since actual hunting isn't imminent, Howell declared the "plaintiffs fail to demonstrate the exigency" required for a temporary restraining order. In another blow to Lynn, Howell also granted the government's request to move the case from the District of Columbia to Montana. "The citizens concerned about the hunt's intensity are citizens of Montana," Howell noted. "Many of the citizens who will be denied the chance to hunt if plaintiffs succeed are from Montana as well." Howell, who was appointed by President Obama, added that "the plaintiffs' choice to have this important local dispute be resolved hundreds of miles from its center risks undermining the important interests animating the Supreme Court's view that local controversies are best resolved locally." Lynn runs a real estate business in Bozeman, Mont., and owns property near Beattie Gulch, a slice of the Custer Gallatin National Forest close to Yellowstone's northwestern border. While bison hunting is prohibited within Yellowstone's 2.2 million acres, it's permitted just outside park boundaries in Beattie Gulch, which bison pass through in their wintertime search for forage. "That concentrated hunting risks killing local residents, their guests, and visitors, who live and stay only yards away," Lynn's lawsuit filed last month stated. "Sooner or later, the government-sanctioned, bison hunt is going to kill someone." The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and several other tribes have sided with the federal government, citing treaty-protected hunting rights. "Their members travel hundreds of miles each year for the opportunity to exercise their treaty rights and harvest a bison as their ancestors did," the tribes stated in a legal brief, adding that the hunt provides "an opportunity to re-establish cultural and spiritual connections to a majestic animal."...MORE

Grand Canyon to make second run at corralling bison herd

In the two years since the Grand Canyon approved a plan to reduce the number of bison roaming in the national park, the herd has only grown in size. No one is sure exactly how many of the massive animals call far northern Arizona home because they’re hard to count amid the Ponderosa pine trees, but it’s in the hundreds. Left unchecked, the herd could reach 1,500 in several years, severely damaging the landscape and water resources, the park says. The reduction plan has been hampered by weather and disagreements over how to kill some of the bison if shipping them off isn’t enough. The Grand Canyon tried to round up some animals last year, but wintry weather set in and the bison headed farther north on a plateau. The park is taking a second run at capturing this month. ‘‘We’re getting a little late start,’’ said Jan Balsom, a senior adviser at the park. The Grand Canyon bison are descendants of those introduced to northern Arizona in the early 1900s as part of a ranching operation to crossbreed them with cattle. The state of Arizona now owns them and has an annual draw for tags on the neighboring Kaibab National Forest. The National Park Service released a plan in September 2017 that called for a mix of corralling the animals near the highway that leads to the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, and for skilled volunteers to shoot a certain number of bison inside and outside the park. It has made no significant progress on guidelines for lethal options. The Park Service fenced off watering holes on the North Rim to try to force bison into the national forest, where they legally can be hunted. But it didn’t keep the bison out. The 25 hunters who drew tags in a state hunt earlier this year came up nearly empty-handed, bagging just two animals. The Arizona Game and Fish Commission recently amended the spring hunts for 2020 and 2021 to give hunters more time overall to kill bison. Meanwhile, the animals’ population is growing...MORE

Bison ignite debate over future movement, expansion in Montana

Debates are intensifying at the Montana Legislature over the state’s management of North America’s largest land mammal: the American bison. Some argue bison are a critical cultural, spiritual and historical resource. Others say bison pose a threat to the health and well-being of cattle. Now legislators are considering a number of bills that will decide where bison are allowed to graze, and which government entity gets to make that decision. In 2019, bison are confined to certain areas in the state. Some ranchers feel strongly about keeping bison in those areas because they’re carriers of brucellosis, a disease the affects bison, cattle, elk and humans. It can lead to high rates of abortion in cattle, bison and elk. Nationwide, brucellosis cost cattle ranchers billions of dollars in the last century, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Montana achieved brucellosis-free status in 2002. Researchers have not been able to document a transmission of brucellosis from bison to cattle in the wild, although it is possible. According to the Department of Agriculture, more than 50 percent of bison in Yellowstone have tested positive for the disease. A private organization’s application for a bison grazing permit in central Montana has led to anxiety and fear of possible damages. Lawmakers are asking the federal government to deny the request...MORE

Bison are back, and that benefits many other species on the Great Plains

Driving north of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, an extraordinary landscape comes into view. Trees disappear and an immense landscape of grass emerges, undulating in the wind like a great, green ocean. This is the Flint Hills. For over a century it has been cattle country, a place where cows grow fat on nutritious grasses. More recently, a piece of this landscape was transformed in 1992 when the nonprofit Nature Conservancy bought the Barnard Ranch. It created a nature reserve there, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, which now covers almost 40,000 acres. A central element of the group's conservation strategy was reintroducing the American bison (Bison bison), which had been eradicated from the land in the mid-1800s. Releasing the first bison in 1993 was a step toward restoring part of an ecosystem that once stretched from Texas to Minnesota. Today some 500,000 bison have been restored in over 6,000 locations, including public lands, private ranches and Native American lands. As they return, researchers like me are gaining insights into their substantial ecological and conservation value...MORE

Bison bars were supposed to restore Native communities and grass-based ranches. Then came Epic Provisions.

Marilyn Noble

Tanka, a Native-owned business, invented the commercial bison bar. But Epic took credit, built an empire on a foundation of misleading claims, promised ranchers investment that never materialized, and left an industry struggling in its wake. 

To hear the processed food industry tell it, the bison bar—the trendy, protein-dense snack now ubiquitous at high-end grocery stores across the country—has a clear, undisputed origin story. It was invented in 2011 by Katie Forrest and Taylor Collins, vegan endurance athletes who turned to meat to power their punishing training regimen. They got hooked on grass-fed bison, started making unusual bars from meat, dried fruit, and seeds out of their home kitchen, and quickly incorporated their obsession into a business. As co-founders of their new company, Epic Provisions, Forrest and Collins were smart and idealistic and naïve in all the right ways. Demand grew so quickly it’s almost as if they stumbled onto their defining moment: an acquisition by General Mills, to the tune of $100 million, that would launch countless imitators and have major implications for the American bison market.
The temptation to elide history in this way is understandable. The consumer packaged goods industry needs this story to make sense of itself. Perhaps more than any other product, bison bars illuminate the state of American processed food, and Epic exists at the intersection of several trends that food manufacturers are convinced are the key to their survival. There’s “snackification,” a fixation with convenience rooted in the suspicion that we’re all too busy to eat sit-down meals. There’s “wellness,” which includes a new category of functional superfoods marketed as though they have medication-grade power to give us stronger and better bodies. And there’s “clean label,” the increased insistence that packaged foods contain just a few familiar ingredients you might find in your pantry.
Perhaps most importantly, there’s the narrative that big food companies cannot save themselves, the idea that they must bring on outside help if they are to survive. By acquiring natural and organic food startups—helmed by mostly young, mostly college-educated, mostly white co-founders—multinational food conglomerates can buy their way to success and offset the flagging sales of aging marqee brands. The food industry is too old, too set in its ways, to change. But maybe it can be a benevolent master to the next generation of food companies, who are trying to offer America something new and truly different—or so the story goes.
That newness is what’s emphasized again and again, as food media tells Epic’s story. The takeaway is that Taylor and Forrest invented something no one else had ever thought of, and that General Mills never would have tried in a million years. “At the time, no protein bar of this kind existed,” wrote Inc.’s Tom Foster in a breathless profile published last month. “Forrest and Collins had hit on a powerful formula for new food brands. It was a novel product concept that fused two hot categories, protein bars and meat snacks like jerky. There was their mission for a larger purpose—sustainable sourcing—and, of course, the couple’s own compelling story. It all added up to exactly the kind of authenticity that legacy companies only wish they could create on their own.”
But there’s a problem with the insistence, central to Epic’s own marketing and repeated endlessly in the press, that Forrest and Collins invented something that didn’t exist before: It isn’t true.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Bison gores California woman at Yellowstone National Park

A California woman was gored by a bison in Yellowstone National Park on Wednesday, park officials said. Kim Hancock, 59, of Santa Rosa, was in a crowd of people walking along a boardwalk at Fountain Paint Pot in the Lower Geyser Basin when the attack occurred, according to a statement from Yellowstone. People in the crowd got increasingly close to the animal, according to park officials, saying “at one point, people were closer than 15 feet from the bison.” The statement noted that people should keep a distance of roughly 75 feet at least from certain animals including bison and elk, and stay even further away from bears and wolves. “When it crossed the boardwalk, the bison became agitated and charged the crowd, goring Hancock,” park officials said, adding that the animal left the vicinity right after. Hancock was wounded in her hip and brought to a Montana hospital “in good condition,” officials said. An investigation is underway. The incident comes on the heels of two elk attacks earlier this month, Yellowstone officials previously said. Two women were attacked by elk in separate incidents, one on Sunday and another on Tuesday, near the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, according to officials who also said it wasn’t clear whether the same animal was involved in both encounters...MORE

National Park Service Approves Quarantine And Transfer Of Bison To Tribes

Hundreds of bison that leave Yellowstone National Park each year are rounded up and killed to keep them from spreading brucellosis. But tribes have long wanted the disease-free bison to go to reservations. Now, the National Park Service has signed an environmental assessment that will quarantine animals for six to 12 months before releasing them into tribal care. Mark Azure with the Fort Belknap Tribe said a surveillance program to give bison to tribes has been a long time coming. The Fort Peck Reservation even built a half million-dollar quarantine facility, but still the transfer of bison wasn’t allowed. “But the tribes stood firm,” said Azure. “Now it sounds like those animals at those two facilities down there around the park, before the end of this year, will make their way up to Fort Peck.” Almost 60 bison are ready to go. Azure said tribes around the U.S. and Canada are celebrating...MORE

Montana ranchers oppose creation of the largest nature reserve in US

Traci Eatherton

Montana cattlemen are playing defense against the American Prairie Reserve, a nonprofit with a mission "to create the largest nature reserve in the continental United States." "When complete, it will protect nearly 3.5 million acres of prairie ecosystem (for comparison, Grand Teton National Park is 310,000 acres)," the group boasts in a press release. Already covering almost 400,000 acres, APR is in northeastern Montana, near Malta, and adjacent to public lands. The organization wants to establish a free-ranging bison herd in central Montana by purchasing over a half million acres of land and controlling over 3 million acres of public land. A proposal to modify 18 public grazing allotments in eastern Montana to allow APR bison has been under review with the Bureau of Land Management, and recently got a month extension for public comments. While the extension comes as a relief to cattle producers in the area, the extent of the potential problems is nothing short of frustrating according to Jackie Jensen, who's family has been ranching in the area for 35 years. "These people have absolutely no goals of maintaining fences," Jensen said. The elk hunting in the area is prime, and bringing in any fencing opens the question of how will that impact the elk population. "We are trying to rally up the hunters, but until an actual fence is built, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation won't get involved," Jensen said. Another topic of concern is APR's plans to eventually get the bison classified as wildlife, Jensen said. "In the state of Montana, private citizens cannot own wildlife. All buffalo will become wildlife," Jensen said, sharing the history of the elk, and the once private-owned elk farms that were forced to sell or put their animals down, once elk were classified as wildlife. "We really need the commercial buffalo people to come out against this," she said. While future problems with the plan are on producers' minds, the way APR and BLM have gone about the process has also been frustrating, Jensen said...MORE

Bison tosses 72-year-old woman off trail in Yellowstone

The following was sent out by Yellowstone National Park’s Office of Strategic Communications:

• On the afternoon of May 1, 72-year-old Virginia Junk of Boise, Idaho, was butted in the thigh, pushed, and tossed off a trail by a bison in the Old Faithful area.
• Junk did not see the animal as she walked around a bend in the trail and wasn't able to move away before the animal dropped its head and pushed her off the trail.
• Rangers responded to the incident and treated Junk’s minor injuries.
• Junk was transported by ambulance to Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, Idaho.
• No citations were issued.
• This is the first incident of a bison injuring a visitor in 2018. There was one incident in 2017 and five in 2015...MORE

More than 550 Yellowstone bison culled

More than 550 bison have been killed through hunting and ship-to-slaughter so far this winter and bison managers seem assured to reach the cull goal for the year. Yellowstone National Park biologist Rick Wallen said Friday afternoon that 328 bison have been shipped to slaughter so far. According to a report from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, hunters have killed another 234, bringing the overall total near the lower end of bison managers’ removal target of between 600 and 900 animals. “This is the kind of year where we can actually make some progress at the objectives that were set forth,” Wallen said. Hunting and slaughter take place each year as part of a multi-agency agreement that calls for a bison population of about 3,000. More than 1,200 bison were killed last year, the largest number in a decade. Prior to this year’s cull, park biologists estimated there were about 4,800 bison in the park. Removing 600 would keep the population near stable, while 900 would result in a more significant decrease. Hunters licensed through six tribal nations and the state of Montana take aim at bison each year. The largest share of those have been taken by the Nez Perce Tribe, which has harvested nearly 80 bison...more

2 arrested at Yellowstone Park's bison corral

Yellowstone National Park officials say rangers arrested two people who were trying to chain themselves to a corral where wild bison are held. Park spokeswoman Vicki Regula says rangers arrested the two people Tuesday afternoon. She declined to identify them or say whether they were being detained or charged. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported the people arrested are affiliated with an advocacy group called Wild Buffalo Defense and seek to draw attention to the slaughter of bison. The corrals are where bison are held when they are captured leaving the park. Some are shipped to slaughter to reduce the herd's size and over concerns of disease spread. Bison escaped from the corrals in January and February after intruders cut through fences. AP

Yellowstone bison escape again after corrals ‘sabotaged’

For the second time this year, someone has tried to set bison free from corrals at the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park. Park officials said in a news release Thursday afternoon that fences at the Stephens Creek Capture Facility were “intentionally compromised” sometime between 9 p.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Thursday, allowing 73 of 96 captured bison to escape. Park spokeswoman Morgan Warthin said 58 bison reentered the corral through the illegal opening, which has been repaired. A total of 81 bison were in captivity Thursday afternoon. The park has begun a criminal investigation into the incident. It’s the second illegal release of bison from the facility in a little more than a month, following the January release of 52 bull bison that were being held for a potential brucellosis quarantine program. A separate criminal investigation into that incident is still ongoing...more

Environmentalists trying to block hazing, quarantine of Yellowstone bison

An environmental law firm has sued to block the capture and hazing of bison on the north side of Yellowstone National Park, arguing that the animals need to be allowed to travel north toward the Paradise Valley. The Cottonwood Environmental Law Center is asking a federal judge to prevent the various state and federal agencies that manage bison from enforcing a bison tolerance boundary at Yankee Jim Canyon and to block the quarantine of any bison. The suit argues that the addition of new tribal bison hunters in concert with potential hazing operations creates a public safety problem. John Meyer, an attorney and the director of Cottonwood, said the lawsuit is about allowing bison to migrate past the northern tolerance boundary, which is set at the mouth of Yankee Jim Canyon. He thinks that could alleviate safety concerns at a congested bison hunting area near the park border, where dozens of hunters wait for bison to cross onto Forest Service land. “It’s a very dangerous situation,” Meyer said. “We think that situation can be remedied by allowing bison to go farther north.” Yellowstone’s bison population was estimated at 4,800 animals last year. A management plan calls for a population of about 3,000, and managers try to reduce the population each year through hunting and culls inside the park. Managers are trying to remove at least 600 bison this winter. Hunters have taken roughly 140, according to an estimate from FWP. Yellowstone officials have trapped 96 bison in the Stephens Creek Capture facility — some of which will be slaughtered and some of which will be held for a potential brucellosis quarantine program...more

U.S. ordered to reconsider denial of Yellowstone bison protections

A judge has ruled that U.S. wildlife managers erred in denying Endangered Species Act protection to bison at Yellowstone National Park and must reconsider extending such safeguards to America’s largest pure-bred herd of wild buffalo. The decision was welcomed on Thursday by wildlife advocates who petitioned the Obama administration in 2014 to protect bison in and around Yellowstone, where animals wandering outside park boundaries are culled for slaughter by the hundreds each year. The seasonal culling is supported by ranchers in the region, particularly in Montana, concerned about exposure of livestock to disease, competition for grass and property damage from straying bison. “This is a victory for bison,” Ken Cole, director of the Buffalo Field Campaign, told Reuters by telephone. Officials for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said they were reviewing the ruling, issued on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in the District of Columbia. The Fish and Wildlife Service concluded in 2015 that conservation groups had failed to present sufficient evidence that the Yellowstone buffalo band was imperiled. Cooper ruled that the Interior Department agency had erroneously failed to consider or otherwise ignored evidence indicating Yellowstone bison may be threatened or endangered. The ruling hinged on a scientific dispute over whether there are two genetically distinct populations of bison at Yellowstone, known respectively as a central herd and a northern herd. Conservationists cited research suggesting the government’s overall target at the park of 3,000 bison was too low to prevent extinction of one or both of them. Government biologists dismissed that research. But Cooper said the Fish and Wildlife Service was required by law to explain why it found the research irrelevant, and he ordered a new agency review of whether Yellowstone bison merit protections...more

The court's opinion is embedded below:


https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2016cv1909-27