Tag Archives: Interagency Bison Management Plan

Park County and Montana stockmen may legally challenge the agreement reached by the eight Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) participants opening the Gardiner Basin to winter grazing by Yellowstone National Park bison.

A controversial plan to expand the winter grazing for Yellowstone National Park bison far north of the Park's northern boundary has the support of all eight Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) participants, as the last holdout announced he would sign off on the plan tonight.

As Yellowstone National Park bison continue to wander outside the Park boundaries in search of food, the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) partners are now holding hazed bison in the USDA's Brogan Bison Facility while a new management strategy is being discussed.

With some clear disagreements emerging over the management of Yellowstone National Park bison during winter months when they head out of the Park, citizen input is being sought on the issue. The first meeting of Yellowstone Bison “Citizens Working Group” is slated for Tuesday, Feb. 22, at 7:15 p.m. in the large community room at the Bozeman Public Library. The meeting will be facilitated by Virginia Tribe, and it is open to all interested citizens.

Oh, irony of ironies: Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has effectively stopped the slaughter of Yellowstone National Park bison penned at the Stephens Creek facility over concerns that the bison may transmit brucellosis to cattle on their way to slaughter. Really.

Saying that the slaughter of 500 Yellowstone National Park bison would not harm the long-term survival of the species, U.S. District Court Judge Charles Lovell signed a ruling allowing the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) to begin putting them down.

A heavy snowpack is causing Yellowstone National Park bison to move outside the northern boundary of the Park: today around 300 were hazed back to the Park's Stephens Creek facility, where those testing positive for brucellosis are expected to be slaughtered.

The Stephens Creek capture facility is now empty, after a group of 62 bison temporarily held there was released Thursday afternoon and moved south further into Yellowstone National Park.

One of the 25 Yellowstone National Park bison allowed out of the Park and into Gallatin National Forest has been killed by Montana Department of Livestock officials after refusing to leave private property after two days of hazing.

A plan floated by the Interagency Bison Management Plan to vaccinate Yellowstone National Park bison against brucellosis via air guns and “bio-bullets” is meeting with resistance from the National Park Service and other players in the debate, who say the plan would be largely ineffectual and potentially create “super-strains” of the disease more resistant to traditional vaccines.