Bison slaughter in full swing

[Friday, February 22, 2008]  It’s mid-winter, time for Yellowstone park officials to round up bison that have wandered close to the park boundaries in search of food, and send them off for slaughter. The park reports that so far, 290 bison have been collected and shipped. The round-up is part of a state and federal project, the Interagency Bison Management Plan, to limit the contact between livestock and wild bison, which are presumed to be carrying the brucellosis disease that can cause fetal abortion in domestic cattle. The killing of potentially infected bison attempting to migrate out of the park in winter has a long history, going back to the early 1970’s. It has always been highly controversial, and reached a height of national media coverage in the early 1990’s.