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Yellowstone reports low bison hunting and cull numbers

By Helena Dore Chronicle Staff Writer 12 hrs ago



Bison management operations in Yellowstone National Park are wrapping up, and staff report that 41 bison have been culled from the population this winter season.

The numbers fall short of the target set by federal, state and tribal agencies who manage Yellowstone bison under the Interagency Bison Management Plan. Officials previously agreed to cull 600 to 900 animals from the population this winter.

This winter season, four Yellowstone bison have been killed in state and tribal-regulated hunts outside of the park, according to April 4 numbers released by the park.

Two of the bison were shot by state-licensed hunters — one near Gardiner and one near West Yellowstone. Hunters from the Nez Perce Tribe and the Confederated Tribes of the Yakama Nation killed the other two animals north of the park.


Bison hunting seasons and regulations vary from tribe to tribe, and more kills could be reported ahead of the spring Interagency Bison Management Plan meeting, which is scheduled for April 13.

This winter, 27 bison have been captured and consigned to slaughter and 10 bison have been captured for quarantine, according to the report.

Annual bison operations conclude around the end of March, pending conditions, park staff wrote in an email. On Thursday, no bison were in the vicinity of the Stephens Creek area outside of Gardiner, which is where the animals are trapped in Yellowstone.

Buffalo Field Campaign, a group that advocates for ending the annual slaughter of Yellowstone bison, wrote in March that unstable weather patterns and low snowpack impacted the animals’ movements out of the park around West Yellowstone.

Similar conditions near Gardiner meant the usual environmental pressures that drive bison out of Yellowstone’s high country and into Montana weren’t materializing, and more animals were staying in the park, according to the group.

The group released another update on Thursday that said hunters had killed six bison on Horse Butte, west of the park. Their report was not reflected in the numbers from Monday released by the park.

The National Park Service, the state of Montana and a host of federal, tribal and state agencies manage the park’s bison under the Interagency Bison Management Plan, first established in 2000.

The goal of the plan is to conserve Yellowstone’s bison population while protecting Montana’s livestock industry from disease risks.


There are some bison tolerance zones outside of the park’s borders, but the animals aren’t allowed to roam freely into Montana beyond those zones because of the threat that the disease brucellosis could pose to the state’s livestock industry.

Brucellosis spreads when animals come into contact with the birth tissues of infected animals. It can cause cattle to abort or produce weak young, and it is highly regulated by the federal government.


Biologists estimate that up to 60% of Yellowstone bison have been exposed to brucellosis, but there has never been a recorded transmission of the disease from bison to cattle in the wild. Elk have exposed cattle to brucellosis outside of the park.

Bison reproduce quickly, so in order to keep numbers steady in the park, managers use three tactics for controlling the population.

Some bison are killed by state and tribal hunters each winter as they move out of the park’s high country and into Montana’s lower elevations to find food.

Others are rounded up near the border of the park during the annual migration and consigned to slaughter. Meat and hides are distributed to tribes that participate in the program.

Select bison that are trapped can be enrolled in the Bison Conservation Transfer Program, which is designed to divert more disease-free animals from slaughter by transporting them to tribal lands.

Animals in the program quarantine in facilities in and around the park, and those that continue to test negative for brucellosis get transferred to the Fort Peck Reservation. After a final round of assurance testing, the InterTribal Buffalo Council distributes them to tribes around the country.


Last December, 56 park bison were transferred to the Yakama Nation’s lands in Washington and the Modoc Nation’s lands in Oklahoma as part of the program.

This January, 28 Yellowstone bison made it through the first steps of quarantine and were shipped to facilities at Fort Peck for the assurance testing phase.

Yellowstone National Park is working on updating its bison management plan, which functions under the umbrella of the Interagency Bison Management Plan.

Staff have said that they hope to de-emphasize slaughter as a means of controlling the population, and they want to bolster the transfer program.

During an informational meeting about the management plan update in early February, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said the park’s bison population was sitting at around 5,500 animals — some of the highest numbers recorded since 1872.

That was after a mild 2020-2021 winter season, where no bison were trapped, and none were sent to slaughter. Quarantine capacity was maxed out at the time, but it has since increased due to an expansion of facilities around the park.

Sholly said at the February meeting that bison are migrating out of the park much later than they used to, and officials will have to calculate that fact into their future planning.

“Climate change is playing a role — and we’re seeing that on the ground — in bison migrations. We’re seeing much later migrations than we’re used to, and that has an impact on the types of techniques that we use to control the population,” he said.

I got this email yesterday. If I remember correctly, this is the second year they have sent it.

BISON APPLICANTS -- A NOTE ABOUT CONDITIONS
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department wants to make you aware of recent circumstances associated with hunting wild bison in Hunt Area 2.

Over the 2017-2021 hunting seasons, very few wild bison moved onto the National Elk Refuge during the hunting season and, therefore, were mostly unavailable to hunters. As a result, hunter success was as low as 28% in 2018 and 64% in 2021 for Type 4, cow or calf wild bison. It is possible this same situation could occur in 2022 with a similar impact on wild bison hunter opportunity and success.

Applicants who are uncomfortable with this situation have until April 15 to withdraw their application. If an applicant chooses to remain in the draw and receives a license, they assume an inherent risk when applying for a license to be used in the future. License fees are generally nonrefundable once a license has been issued. Refunds shall be denied in any circumstance where the licensee hunted on the license.

Please consider this information when determining if you would like to remain in the drawing for a 2022 wild bison license and refer to Wyoming Game and Fish Department regulations, Chapter 44, Section 26 for more information. For questions, please call (307) 777-4600.

The reports seems to blame "Climate Change" as the cause of some Bison activity or lack of activity.

It would help if the specific "climate change" activity were listed in a cause and effect manner.
The climate is always changing in different ways in different places around the globe, but not in the same manner everywhere.

Solution is simple, allow restricted hunting in the park, but probably not politically viable. Here we let the natives kill a few elk when numbers demand it.

Grizz