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Bison roam where they aren’t wanted. Is year-round hunting the answer?

Ignoring fences and rivers, the unruly ungulates roam from Ute reservation onto Tavaputs rangelands used for livestock
(Utah Division of Wildlife Resources) Bison inhabit Utah’s Book Cliffs, but they have been increasingly roaming onto rangelands on the West Tavaputs Plateau, where they are causing problems for ranchers.


By Brian Maffly
| Feb. 4, 2023, 7:00 a.m.



The American bison may be the iconic big game species of the American West, but they don’t belong on Utah’s West Tavaputs Plateau.

Brought back from near extinction last century and officially designated the national mammal, they now occupy special management areas in Utah, such as the Henry Mountains, Antelope Island and the Book Cliffs. But one thing about buffalo, they roam.

In recent years, bison have increasingly wandered off the Ute Indian Tribe’s reservation lands on the East Tavaputs Plateau, crossing the Green River onto private and public lands used for livestock grazing.



This poses a big problem for ranchers and landowners, according to Rep. Christine Watkins, R-Price.

“These bison are not supposed to be there. They belong on the other side of mountains to the east. When they see the buffalo eating their grazing lands, they don’t like that,” Watkins told House colleagues last week. She predicted the big animals will eventually reach U.S. Highway 6 in Emery County, where they could create significant traffic hazards.



Her remedy is HB222, which would allow year-round hunting of bison outside designated management areas.

“Buffalo are smart,” she said. “If they are there and one of their kind is killed, they know that is not a place they want to be and they won’t go back.”

Utah ranchers and growers have even bigger issues with elk and mule deer that sometimes invade pastures and orchards in winter, damaging fruit trees and helping themselves to hay.

Watkins’s bill, however, got a frosty reception Monday in the House Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee, where all of her colleagues voted to hold it after hearing from Utah’s top wildlife official.

The Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) already has expanded bison hunts on the Tavaputs and is working with landowners to remove or exclude problem animals, according to Director Justin Shirley.



“The tools that we’re currently using fix and address the problem,” Shirley told the committee. “Bison come across the Green River and have for various reasons for a long time. The tribe also has tried to fence some corridors down on their boundary to keep the bison from crossing the river.”

DWR biologists have affixed GPS collars to many bison to track their movements in this area. They believe between 50 and 80 currently occupy the West Tavaputs.

“Right now, there’s been so much snow, we believe they’re down in low-country areas,” Shirley said. “Hunters aren’t really able to access them. They’re not up on top.”

Other than for coyotes, which are classified as a nuisance animal, year-round hunting is not allowed for any wildlife species in Utah. Most big game hunts fall somewhere between August and January depending on the species and the hunting unit.

Don Peay, Utah’s leading advocate for big game hunting, also has a beef with year-round hunting.



“This is like taking a bulldozer and a jackhammer to something that needs a scalpel,” he told lawmakers. Peay believes the problem is confined to just 6,000 acres out of half a million on the West Tavaputs.

“There’s been a ton of mitigation already on the 6,000 acres, namely the largest private landowner in the state has built a buffalo-proof fence at a million-dollar cost,” Peay said. “You can drive your truck at 80 mph and they won’t go through it. This landowner loves the bison.”

The Utah Department of Agriculture and Food did not take a position on HB222, but it insists more needs to be done to protect ranchers.

A decade ago, a DWR committee worked with landowners to draft a bison plan that called for no bison inhabiting the lands west of the Green River, according to Troy Forrest, who runs the department’s Grazing Improvement Program.

“Since that time, even with all the mitigation we’ve done, which included the tribe flying and pushing bison back over [the river], those bison have found the top of the mountain,” he told the committee, “and they’ve intermingled with cattle over the last 5 years in increasing numbers each year.”



While one West Tavaputs property owner has switched positions and now welcomes bison on their land, the presence of bison poses numerous challenges for ranchers, according to Forrest.

“Amongst those are disease transmission, brucellosis, in particular, the loss of forage and the loss of the ability to use their range as they would like and, of course, the lack of respect that bison have for regular fences,” he said. These ranchers rely on a rotational grazing system that requires intact fences.

“They’ve won awards on that ranch for their stewardship. And with bison there, that makes it inordinately more difficult because they don’t have much respect for a regular cow fence. It’s not much of an impediment to them,” Forrest said. “They hit it, they just go straight through it.”

In response to these conflicts, DWR began issuing tags in 2020 to Utah residents for $413, or $2,200 for nonresidents to hunt bison in this area. Unrestricted numbers of these tags are sold over the counter and entitle purchasers to harvest a bison outside Utah’s bison units between Aug. 1 and Jan. 31. For the 2020-21 season, 250 permit holders harvested 135 bison, according to Shirley. Last year, only 10 bison were taken under this program; seven were taken this year.

“We think we have [a] solution to this problem. Yes, there’s still some bison that find their way up to the top of the Tavaputs, but we have also done removals and we have some sentiment change as to whether bison should be there,” Shirley said. “This is country that we will likely always have bison in as long as the tribe has bison, and they will cross onto this [the west] side of the river.”

Bison roam.

It’s in that song for a reason.


More nitwittery from the DOW I see.

This problem will likely continue and that over the counter program is an absolute brutal hunt from what I have heard.

Regardless of what they do, the herd(s) are growing. The Henry mountain program has been successful, they just need to work out the book cliffs issue.

Hunting free range bison is about as good as it gets.

Years ago I shot a bull bison on the Deseret Land and Livestock Company Ranch in Northeastern Utah near the border with Wyoming with my 54 Cal. Black powder rifle. The DLLC Ranch had sold nearly all of their herd to Ted Turner for one of his ranches in Montana. They had a few remaining incorrigibles left on the ranch that kept breaking through fences and escaping. I was invited to come up and take one. It was February, below zero, with 2 feet of snow. Many mule deer were stacked up near the sides of homes and structures, outside of the ranch, trying to find warmth, with many of them obviously dying from starvation. So sad to see. But, back to the hunt. The remaining bison were found near about 500 elk, many of them big bulls, that were wintering on the DLLC Ranch. Great country. Great hunt. But bison definitely have a mind of their own and no fence, for the most part, is going to hold them.

My daughter is a geneticist at the USDA's National Animal Disease Center working in part on the brucellosis issue. It would help to remove this disease from the bison/cattle equation.

quote:

But bison definitely have a mind of their own and no fence, for the most part, is going to hold them.

I have seen fencing that will hold a bison.

It was a heck of a lot stronger then any normal cattle fence.

quote:

I have seen fencing that will hold a bison.

It was a heck of a lot stronger then any normal cattle fence.

I have seen fencing that held rhino… mostly.

Looked like some of the big prisons.

Folks farm bison around here. If they get loose, they are out money, so the farmer generally keeps them in.

I think, technically, if you find a nongame farm animal on your land causing damage, you can kill it… so this is essentially wanting to give free reign to the landowners to kill trespassing animals that are game animals…

There are bison farms around my area too. They are behind standard cattle barb wire fencing.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
My daughter is a geneticist at the USDA's National Animal Disease Center working in part on the brucellosis issue.
It would help to remove this disease from the bison/cattle equation.

Do I remember it right, that brucellosis came from cows and is not a native bison disease?

There are bison at a little park in Evanston that seem to stay put with a relatively minor fence. Maybe well-fed?

quote:

There are bison at a little park in Evanston that seem to stay put with a relatively minor fence. Maybe well-fed?

Must be! The Deseret Land & Livestock Company is almost nextdoor!

Bison owner near me has a nice little herd. I built him a bale fork for his tractor a few years ago. He said they never bother fences unless there are too many bison per acre. I don't recall how many acres the ratio was, but he had around 600 acres and 60 bison without a problem. Mind you that's Iowa grazing, so it's really good food for them.

we have otc tags over here ...

Bison can be managed like cattle other than they need more room and be handled slowly by calm cowboys I day worked on the X,s ranch at Ft. Davis, Tx as a kid. they had over 500 head as I recall, horses were buffalo trained in other words you couldn't get a horse very close to them and that was a good thing for horse and cowboy. the pens were built of cross ties and the fences were 5 strand barb wire..They had very few problems because the boss and crew knew how to handle cattle and Bison, they were vaccinated for whatever need such as bangs, black leg etc..

Govt agencies tend to be educated idiots or worse. they make warm and fuzzy decisions on wildlife and politics are their bible! common since is not the rule..the program spreads Brucellosis like wild fire and spreds to cattle ranches and bankrupts the rancher..

Have been around Turner's properties in Mt a good amount. Knew the fence contractor he used when converting from cattle to bison. He used 5 strand high tensile with 3 of those strands hot. Super expensive. I have my doubts that many of the tribes are willing or able to contain the bison this way.

I booked hunts on the ranch where DAnces with wolves was filmed, several AR members hunted there, they had 800 buffalo under 5 strand barb wire and very few problems. Unfortunately, they were an elderly couple and had to sell out. Don't know what happened to those buffalo.

Didn't Turner buy that one too?

quote:

Govt agencies tend to be educated idiots or worse. they make warm and fuzzy decisions on wildlife and politics are their bible! common since is not the rule..the program spreads Brucellosis like wild fire and spreds to cattle ranches and bankrupts the rancher..

At one time the federal agencies like the state agencies were once populated.
By outdoorsmen

Now they are populated by many enviro wackos and anti's.

Who's main concern is saving the world.

quote:

Originally posted by Hasher:
Bison roam.

It’s in that song for a reason.


More nitwittery from the DOW I see.

Sounds like "slow elk" to me

quote:

Originally posted by TomP:

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
My daughter is a geneticist at the USDA's National Animal Disease Center working in part on the brucellosis issue.
It would help to remove this disease from the bison/cattle equation.

Do I remember it right, that brucellosis came from cows and is not a native bison disease?

There are bison at a little park in Evanston that seem to stay put with a relatively minor fence. Maybe well-fed?

You are correct. Bison were naïve to brucellosis prior to introduction of European cattle — same for tuberculosis.

These 2 diseases were actually responsible for the vast reduction in numbers that took place prior to Buffalo Hunter era.

Some counties in Texas are Bangs free, such as brewster county and some surrounding counties, why can't it be controlled nation wide?

Another question is lots of false info out there about bangs in that the number of sluffed calves in a herd and some only show 2 to 7% Im told..I do know for a fact you can take a clean cow and run her hard then test her and she will come up hot, give her a few days on feed and rest and she won't test hot??? I witnessed that in Hillsboro Texas..Politics I was told,

My point is we owe it to that grand animal to investigate the situation fairly, too many unanswered questions.

I think perhaps J.lane Ester a Texas vet, on this thread would be best informed to address these questions, as my assessments are dated..