Why Can’t Bison Roam on Public Lands?
I had a chance to sit down and interview Glenn Hockett, the Volunteer President of Gallatin Wildlife Association in Bozeman Montana, about wild bison and what their future may hold. The Gallatin Wildlife Association, like NWF, has been working for decades on behalf of wild bison restoration. Right now is a very important moment for wild bison, as Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks are considering year-round bison occupancy of public lands both west and north of Yellowstone Park.
What is the major conflict with bison in the Yellowstone ecosystem? It’s the social intolerance of the public lands livestock industry. They want native bison confined like domestic livestock to small areas. There is tension over public land use and they have created an illusion that bison cannot be respected and conserved as free-ranging wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Area. They have an irrational amount of fear-based political power, which has led to vast “no tolerance zones” for bison, severing their access to critical habitat outside the park. Adjoining nationally important public lands, including Wildlife Management Areas, National Wildlife Refuges, and National forests are off limits to native bison because a drop-dead line has been drawn in the sand. . . .
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