“ racist terms”
Coca Cola and Delta will boycott the hunt...you mean ID is required?
All AZ businesses should be banned by Presidential executive order...

Thanks Mark for the tip! Looking forward to throwing my name in the hat.

-WH

My only concerns are that the participant and support personnel must walk and carry the 2000 pound animal carcass from the park, and may receive some of the meat.
Let me see: The Park has over 1.2 million acres, The carry out could be numerous miles.
The dates allocated are done during mild or perhaps hot weather,the carry would be very difficult and meat could sour before reaching a cooling facility. No pack horses will be allowed.
Next item: What fees would be collected from shooters and helpers?
I would enjoy participating.

Lot's of restrictions for a animal they Need to get rid of.

More government BS for a simple job.

For information purposes...

https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn...n-reduction-faqs.htm

Management of North Rim Bison

Beginning September 2021, Grand Canyon National Park will begin a pilot lethal removal program of bison on the North Rim.

Why is Grand Canyon National Park authorizing the removal of bison on the North Rim?

On September 1, 2017, the NPS issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) to reduce the number of bison on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park (GCNP) from around 600 bison to less than 200 bison using lethal removal with skilled volunteers and non-lethal capture and live removal. This action is necessary due to the rapid growth of the bison population and the transition from the herd using state and U.S. Forest Service lands into almost exclusively residing within Grand Canyon. Impacts from grazing and trampling on water, vegetation, soils, and archaeological sites, as well as on visitor experience and wilderness character also necessitate action.

What authorities does the National Park Service have to authorize a lethal removal?

The National Park Service has authority to manage wildlife populations and habitats on lands under its jurisdiction under the NPS Organic Act and other authorities (54 USC 100101). The Secretary of the Interior maintains discretion to “provide for the destruction of such animals and plant life as may be detrimental to the use of any System unit (54 USC 100752).” Senate Bill 47 signed in Public Law in 2019 specifically authorizes the National Park Service to use qualified volunteers to reduce the size of a wildlife population (Public Law No.116-9).

What is the difference between lethal removal and a hunt?

Lethal removal is a fundamentally different activity than hunting. Key differences include: (a) During lethal removal, the animals are destroyed primarily for management purposes; in hunting the animal is destroyed for recreational purposes. (b) Lethal removal is conducted under controlled circumstances under the direction and supervision of the National Park Service; hunting is performed at the hunter’s discretion and with elements of “fair chase” present. (c) Lethal removal does not allow the person who killed the animal to keep the entire animal; hunting does. (d) Conclusion: Simply put, lethal removal serves a public purpose, while hunting serves both public and private purposes.

Were Traditionally Associated Tribes consulted during the public scoping process? Do Tribes support lethal removal?

The Park has been in ongoing consultation with tribes traditionally associated with the Grand Canyon since the earliest stages of environmental analysis. Many tribes have requested the opportunity to partner on the management of bison at Grand Canyon National Park, including conducting joint lethal removal operations of bison to reduce herd sizes. Bison are an important cultural and traditional use resource to many tribes, and tribal partners have requested access to bison meat, hides and animal parts for traditional purposes.

When and how will tribal members participate in lethal removal activities?

Grand Canyon National Park is developing an agreement with the eleven traditionally associated tribes to conduct joint lethal removal operations of bison within the Park. We anticipate these joint removal operations will begin in the fall of 2022. Bison removed through these operations will be transferred to participating tribes for distribution to tribal members for traditional purposes. Individual tribal members from associated tribes can also participate in State of Arizona’s general removal volunteer program.

Can members of tribes not traditionally associated with the Grand Canyon participate in lethal removal activities?

Members of tribes not traditionally associated with the Grand Canyon can participate in lethal removal activities through the State of Arizona’s volunteer program, or potentially through partnership with one of the eleven traditionally associated tribes. Grand Canyon National Park has also partnered with the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC) to provide captured live bison to ITBC member tribes. In 2020, 57 live bison were transported to four federally-recognized tribes though this partnership.

How do I apply to be a skilled volunteer?

Volunteers must apply through Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD). AZGFD will run the lottery May 3-4, 2021 on azbisonstewards.com and will send applicants to the park for provisional selection. Final selection will be contingent on meeting the volunteer qualification criteria. Additional skilled volunteer FAQs can be found on this website.

Arizona Game and Fish organizes a separate hunt in the North Kaibab National Forest. Interested parties may work directly with the state to sign up.

What qualifications must a volunteer meet to participate in the lethal removal operations?

Skilled Volunteers must meet the following criteria:

Provide a pictured proof of identity (driver’s license, passport)

Be a United States citizen

Be 18 years of age or older

Provide proof of successful completion of a firearms safety course (hunter safety course or similar)

Be willing to haul bison carcasses out of wilderness on foot without motorized assistance

Utilize park-approved, non-lead ammunition and firearms (see Firearm FAQs)

Agree to a firearm safety inspection by park staff prior to fieldwork

Actively participate in all training and safety briefings and follow Team Lead instructions.

Have strong verbal communication skills.

Sign up as an unpaid NPS volunteer (NPS VIP Program) for five days and participate in the full period

Sign a volunteer applicant affidavit of criminal history and lack revocable wildlife violation histories

Be able to pass, apply for, and purchase background checks that verify the lack of criminal and wildlife violation histories.

Self-certify a high level of physical fitness.

Provide own equipment, lodging, food, rifle (rifles must be at least .30 caliber with a bottlenecked cartridge), and non-lead ammunition (non-lead bullet that is at least 165 grains and is of a non-frangible design), and field dressing supplies.

Have a firearm safety certification and pass a firearms proficiency test (3 of 5 shots in a 4 inch circle at 100 yards)

Failure to successfully pass or agree to any of the listed requirements will eliminate an individual from further participation as a volunteer.

Additional skilled volunteer FAQs can be found on this website.

How much meat will I be able to keep? Will I be able to keep the head or hide?

Grand Canyon National Park will transfer bison carcasses to Arizona Game and Fish Department at the end of each volunteer/ operation period. Arizona Game and Fish Department may distribute what they choose to skilled volunteers on the last day of their service. Skilled volunteers may share with Support Volunteers. Carcass distribution will not exceed one bison per volunteer team. Any parts not desired by volunteers will be transferred to the Tribal governments of GCNP’s 11 traditionally associated tribes.

What is the cost to apply?

As this is not a hunt, the only cost to selected volunteers is the $65 fee associated with requesting a background check from Arizona Department of Public Safety.

What kind of time commitment will be required of volunteers?

There will be 4 lethal removal operations during the pilot year 2021. Each period will last 5 days. Volunteers will be expected to attend training on the first day and will be expected to participate in a full week of work. Operational Periods are as follows: Sept 20-24, Sept 27-Oct1, Oct 18-22, Oct 25-29. Volunteers will not be able to select which operational period they are interested in participating in.

Have you looked at more humane options (like birth control) to control the bison population?

The purpose of corralling and lethal removal bison is to quickly reduce the population of the herd to <200 to protect park resources and values from the impacts of the rapidly growing herd. Fertility control can take a long time and requires expensive, frequently repeated applications to achieve significant population reductions. Therefore, fertility control measures alone would not quickly reduce the current bison population to <200 in the 3- to 5-year period that the other three methods in combination will (live capture and lethal removal along with legal hunting in Arizona when bison migrate out of the park).

I heard that these bison are actually cattelo or beefalo? Why are you treating them like wildlife?

The source of the bison currently residing within Grand Canyon is well known, and their history does include interbreeding with cattle over 100 years ago. While the current generation of bison still retain a small portion of cattle genes (<1%), these genes do not impact the physical features or wild behavior of these animals. The State of Arizona recognizes and designates bison within Arizona as wildlife under state law. Cattelo and beefalo are recognized as having 75% cattle genetics, a number far higher than the cattle genetics in the bison herd at Grand Canyon.

Do bison living in Grand Canyon have brucellosis?

No. None of the bison at Grand Canyon have tested positive for brucellosis.

I am opposed to the live capture and or lethal removal activities. How do I express my opposition?

During the EA public scoping process, individuals and organizations had the opportunity to provide formal comment to Grand Canyon National Park. Once the EA and FONSI were completed and signed the opportunity to provide formal comment is no longer available.

Individuals or groups who wish to express their opposition/concern may do so as part of the rights protected and guaranteed by the First Amendment. Those wishing to exercise their First Amendment rights should review the park website for information about permits.

Did Southwest Indians ever had buffs down there?
I assume, there were no buffs there

they just run them off a cliff and cleaned up the mess.

that's how they should do it now.

A lot of restrictions indeed. Several years ago a buddy + I got chosen to bow hunt alligators in Aransas as during a flood the waters had crested the levees + put somewhere TP+W didn't want them. One restriction was we could not kill any rattlesnakes if encountered as they were considered endangered. I thought at the time, they damned sure are if I see one.

I read somewhere that Spanish conquistadors saw a small herd of bison in northern AZ in the 1500s, but they were probably roaming there from those mostly in Utah.

For a modern historical perspective, here's an article I wrote in 1988. It was prior to the release of the bison to roam as they wished throughout the area, including the park.

SHUFFLE OFF FOR BUFFALO

Copyright by Tony Mandile

Charles Jones roamed much of the West and Midwest during the late 1800s and the early 1900s. His earned the nickname "Buffalo" because of his skill at hunting the American bison during the time the big animals roamed the plains by the millions.

Although Jones isn't exactly a household name, his legacy to Arizona is still quite evident today. At the turn of the century, he decided to introduce elk and buffalo into Arizona, choosing the North Kaibab Plateau as the site for his experiment.

Jones planned to sell the hunting rights for both species. He also intended to crossbreed the bison with domestic cattle, winding up with a hybrid animal called either a cattalo or beefalo. Supposedly, these critters would provide the same benefits of beef cattle but would be much hardier, capable of living through weather and on land unsuited to domestic stock. Though the elk transplant never materialized, Jones did bring buffalo to Arizona.

Jones and his friend, lion hunter Jim Owens, had captured a herd of buffalo in the Texas panhandle in the 1880s and moved them to Kansas. Later, part of the herd wound up in Monterey, California. Jones transferred 35 from there by way of Lund, Utah to the North Kaibab in 1905. He brought another 87 from the Kansas herd to Arizona a year later.

Jones eventually became disenchanted with raising buffalo and rounded up as many as possible in 1909. He drove the buffs into Utah and sold them. Unknowingly, however, he left some strays behind. These became the property of the Grand Canyon Cattle Company, owned by none other than Jimmie Owens.

By 1927, when the state purchased the herd for $10,000, the stray buffs had increased to 98 animals. The herds inhabiting Houserock Valley and the Raymond Ranch, established in 1945, are the descendants of those.

According to the historians, the American bison might have existed in Arizona during prehistoric times. In contrast, estimates of their numbers living in the rest of the country during the 19th century often mention billions. In reality a truer estimate would be in the millions. When Lewis and Clark explored westward, they told of masses of buffalo, sometimes numbering more than 20,000 within sight of their wagons. The explorers also related how the huge herds darkened the Great Plains and seemingly made the land look like it was constantly moving. Other accounts tell of the concern the settlers had for their own safety as they occasionally used up several days moving their wagons through a single herd.

Before the white man began his move West, the buffalo's only enemy was the American Indian. For them, the big mammal meant survival. The meat from one could feed an entire village for days. The hides became clothing and shelter. Because the buffalo provided these basic necessities of life and were so numerous, the tribes depended on them. They followed a particular herd for months at a time and developed ways to harvest the beasts with the primitive weapons available to them.

Stampeding a herd to its death was a favorite technique. Indians on horseback drove the animals off a steep cliff or into dead-end canyons where they systematically dispatched them with spears or arrows. Some Indian hunters covered themselves with a buffalo hide and stalked into the herd or waited patiently for one to come to their imitation call of a calf in distress. Yet, while the Indians used the buffalo to survive, the white man was responsible for its downfall.

Expeditions, made up of hunters from eastern America and Europe, came out west with the express idea of slaughter in mind. To them, the final tally of dead bison on the ground was a sign of their success.

When train travel across the Great Plains later became a reality, the slaughter continued. While crews laid the tracks for the iron horses, hired buffalo hunters kept them supplied with meat. Usually, they removed only the choice parts and left the rest to rot or as food for scavengers.

Once completed, the railroads provided a new sport. Shooting the animals from a slow-moving train turned into the entertainment of choice for westward-bound passengers. Naturally, given the weapons of the day and inexperience of those shooting the large creatures, many buffalo died a lingering death after being wounded.

Finally, in the 1870s, a new boom helped put the American bison closer to extinction. With the advent of a revolutionary tanning process, the trade in buffalo hides expanded. The leather was far more durable than cowhide, and the grand buffalo population made it fairly easy to obtain. Both the white man and Indian quickly entered the hide-trading market. While the Indians continued to use the entire buffalo, the white hunters usually removed the hide and left the rest. Most were shipped off to Europe for tanning.

In 1884, congress finally passed legislation protecting the buffalo from further damage. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. The slaughter had taken its toll earlier. Already in 1883, few bison remained on the Great Plains. Some historians say the population in the U.S. had dropped below 800. Since than, the buffalo number has increased to about 30,000 in North America. Thanks to Charlie Jones, about 200 now live in Arizona.

The first state-authorized buffalo hunt occurred in 1927 at Houserock. The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD), the new custodians for the animals, handed out 17 special permits and took the lucky hunters onto the buffalo range to kill an animal. Every year until 1961, the department allowed the state's sportsmen to cull the excess animals in this way.

Although most fully grown bison average between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds, some can weigh 2,500 pounds or more. Consequently, killing one in the field was merely the beginning of the hard work to follow. The animal had to be skinned, quartered and transported back to the ranch headquarters. Considering the weight and bulk of the buffalo, this sometimes was difficult. In 1962, no doubt to ease some of the post-kill chore, the AGFD drastically changed the hunting method. The result was a hunt more appropriately called a "shoot."

Each hunter who drew a permit also received a date and time for the "shoot." The department then rounded up the excess animals for culling and placed them in a large corral. Here, the "hunters" waited in three-man relays to shoot in the order their permits specified.

The first hunter took his choice of three animals that were moved into the shooting pen. The second killed one of the remaining two buffalo, and the last hunter wound up with the third. A top shooter from the game department served as a back-up if a hunter only wounded his target.

For the price of the permit, the AGFD provided the skinning and processing and gave the hunter the head, hide and one quarter of the meat. He also had the option of buying the rest of the meat for the same price per quarter as the permit fee. If he passed, anyone willing to pay the price could buy the meat.

In 1973, the corral shoot became the focus of much controversy when the movie "Bless The Beasts And The Children" showed in America's theaters. The AGFD had allowed the filming to take place during one of the hunts. Unfortunately, the filmmakers had shrouded their intentions in a bit of mystery. The final editing made the hunt appear like an inhumane slaughter and raised the hackles of people across the nation.

In reality, though truly not a hunt, the procedure was efficient. Dispatching a wounded buffalo was easy, permit holders had a 100 percent success and the harvesting of surplus animals was exact. Because of the criticism, however, the department reacted by returning to the earlier method.

Another change came about in 1981. The price of a permit went up, and hunters kept the entire animal. The "Catch 22" was each hunter was responsible for taking care of his trophy; no longer did the department provide skinning and processing.

A year later, the first REAL buffalo hunt occurred at Houserock Valley. A permit holder no longer would have a game department employee holding his hand in the field. The entire process of killing a buff and getting it out of the field became the hunter's responsibility.

Because fences surround Houserock Ranch to keep the buffalo from roaming across northern Arizona, the hunt sounds quite easy. In fact, it can be very difficult. The ranch encompasses about 60,000 acres, including some rugged hills, deep canyons and large stand of trees. To make matters worst, the Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984 changed a large chunk of the ranch into part of a national wilderness area --- closing it to vehicle use. Thus, a hunter within the wilderness boundaries must either ride a horse or walk. Of course, when he kills a buffalo he must get it out the same way.

At Raymond Ranch, the first hunt occurred in 1950. Because of its size --- about 14,700 acres --- all hunts remain like the original one at Houserock; an AGFD employee goes afield with the hunter to help him harvest a buff.

Beginning with the 1989 season, nonresident hunters may take part in the state buffalo hunt for the first time. The new regulation limits the number of nonresident permits to 10 percent of the total available in any calendar year. It also stipulates no more than 50 percent or two tags for a hunt number will go to out-of-staters.

Fortunately for residents, the nonresident fee might discourage some applicants. The price for an adult bull or any buffalo is $3,750. One specifically for a cow will cost $2,250, and a calf permit will be $1,200. In comparison, a resident pays $750, $450 and $240 respectively.

The odds of drawing a tag are not as bad as some people believe. Although the permits usually average about 50 a year, first-choice applicants have about a one-in-six chance of being drawn. Compared to some of the elk and sheep hunts, those are pretty decent odds.

Arizona's buffalo population averages about 200, about equally divided between the two ranches. The number of permits normally reflect how many animals must be harvested so the herd remains within the limits their habitat can support.

In 1987, the department authorized 41 permits --- 26 at Raymond Ranch and 15 at Houserock. First choice applications numbered 217. Last year, about 300 hunters vied for the 61 permits available for the October season.

Although the buffalo population and present day hunting pales compared to what they were a century ago, we should be thankful the magnificent animal still survives. We should also be thankful to Charlie "Buffalo" Jones. Without his folly, the bison, in all probability, never would have set foot in Arizona.

----- 30 -----

Thought some of you might enjoy these words by my friend, the late Bill Quimby from a conversation in 2010 on another web site in a reply to my article above, which is pinned on that site.


Tony:

Were you aware that AZGFD maintained a herd of bison at Fort Huachuca for a while?

Here's what I wrote in my book, "Sixty Years A Hunter," about that herd and the way the hunts used to be held on House Rock:


I drew an Arizona bison tag the first year I applied. By then, I had graduated from the University of Arizona and was working as the advertising manager for Levy's, Tucson's largest department store at the time. My boss was the sales promotion manager, a man named Ulysses Charles Drayer, a short, gruff man and my mentor. I had been a student in the marketing course he taught at the University of Arizona and he'd hired me to assist him under the university's work/study program. I'd attended classes with Charlie's son, Gary, who was more interested in learning about hunting than in following his father's footsteps in business. When I drew my tag to hunt a bison on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon I invited Gary to accompany me.

Coincidentally, the turkey season was scheduled to open on the same weekend as my hunt. In those days turkey hunters could buy their tags at sporting goods stores, which Gary and I did.

I was only only twenty-two or twenty-three years old, and no one had told me how Arizona's bison hunt was conducted before we arrived at the corrals in House Rock Valley on the date and time specified in the letter that arrived with my tag. I expected to have to spend a day or two, just trying to find a herd. What I hadn't known was that this was a shoot and not a hunt. Game and Fish Department employees rounded up the buffalo they wanted removed from House Rock Valley and drove them into a corral. Two tag holders at a time were positioned in the middle of a large enclosure and a chute was opened, releasing two bison into the arena. The first shooter (selected by a coin toss) chose an animal and shot it. The second shooter got to shoot the remaining animal. The dead bison were hauled to a skinning shed and two more shooters were brought in. I was horrified, but I was young and wanted to collect a bison. I now wish I'd refused to take part in what was happening.

The game department required tag holders to attend a pre-hunt indoctrination lecture on site where we were told that we would ruin too much meat if we shot our bison behind the shoulder. Instead we should aim for a two-inch spot below the ear and behind the base of the horn. If we hit that spot we would break the animal's neck and drop it instantly, a Game and Fish Department employee claimed.

“Bless the Beasts and Children,” Glendon Swarthout's book* about Arizona's bison shoot, had been released a few months earlier. It told about a group of juvenile misfits who ran away from a summer camp and attempted to stop the “hunt.” I'm ashamed to say that at the time I sided with the Game and Fish Department and the state's major sportsmen's groups in believing this was the most efficient and humane way to manage the herd. Besides, bison could be seen and enjoyed by the public in Arizona only because hunters paid to keep them around. I was young and foolish enough to believe that if the “experts” at Game and Fish said the best way to “hunt” bison was to shoot them in a pen then they must know what they were talking about. What they meant, however, was that it was easier for them to manage the “harvest.”

Because of the furor the book raised, and despite the fact that House Rock Valley is a long way from anywhere, Life Magazine and at least one other national publication and every large newspaper in Arizona sent reporters and camera crews there to cover the shoot that year. When it was my turn in the arena I walked out slowly. I didn't want to screw up with thirty or forty people watching and photographing me.

I'd retired my lever-action .303 Savage and now was carrying a J.C. Higgins .270 Winchester with a 4X scope. I'd bought it and two boxes of ammunition on sale at Sears for $80. Since then, I'd had written and designed a brochure and an advertising campaign for a Tucson gunsmith named Harry Lawson, swapping my work for his. Harry did some minor metal work on the FN Mauser action and restocked my Sears rifle with what he called his “Cochise Thumbhole” stock using a highly figured blank of curly maple. My bison would be my “custom” rifle's first victim.

When the chute was opened two bison dashed out and ran around the perimeter of the arena. They stopped suddenly when they reached a spot where several other bison had died that morning. I was the first shooter, so I shot the one with the largest horns when it dropped its head to smell the blood in the sand. A cloud of dirt erupted where I'd aimed below and behind the horn as instructed, but the bison only shook its head and didn't go down. I could hear the gallery say “Ooooooooh” while I worked the bolt, brought another round into the chamber, and quickly shot again. More than half of the people watching from outside the corral applauded when my bison collapsed without kicking. Gary photographed me with my “trophy” before a truck drove into the corral, winched up the animal, and drove it to a shed where Game and Fish employees gutted, skinned, and quartered it. I was allowed to keep only the head and hide and one quarter of the meat. The remainder was sold to raise funds earmarked for maintaining the herd.

I was not proud of what I'd done that morning, and I'm still not.

"Bless the Beasts and the Children -- the book, film, and song -- did what hunters should have done years before Gary and I drove to House Rock Valley. It put pressure on the Arizona Game and Fish Department and Commission to make our buffalo hunting a true hunt. Hunters who draw tags on House Rock Valley now go out by themselves and search for bison that are roaming vast unfenced areas. They may draw only one bison tag in their lifetimes. If their hunts are unsuccessful (as some are) they cannot apply again.

Gary and I left House Rock Valley the afternoon I shot my bison, drove to Jacob Lake, and then on to a place called “Turkey Springs.” Neither of us had been on the fabled Kaibab Plateau before that day but we'd found the springs on a topographical map and figured that any place with a name like that had to be a good spot for hunting turkeys. We were about six hundred yards from the springs when we parked our car and loaded our shotguns. We'd walked only a few yards when we saw the heads of a hen turkey and her nearly grown poults moving rapidly through the grass in front of us. Gary and I shot at about the same time, and then ran to where our birds were flopping.

As I would learn over the next half century, turkey hunting is seldom that easy.

Arizona's bison were brought here by a remarkable man named Charles Jesse “Buffalo" Jones, a flamboyant former buffalo hunter, showman, and wild animal capture expert. Jones rode in the Great Land Rush, and was appointed the first game warden at Yellowstone National Park by President Theodore Roosevelt. He also roped a lion, rhino and various antelope in Africa, and captured several young muskoxen in Canada, but he was best known as one of the saviors of the North American bison. Arizona's herds are descended from animals he bought from private owners in Texas and Canada and shipped to a railhead in southern Utah, where he and two cowboys on horseback drove them overland from the railhead at Lund, Utah, to his ranch in House Rock Valley on the North Rim of Grand Canyon. His attempt to cross bison and domestic cattle to create a hardier meat animal was a failure, however.

Some of his animals wound up at Fort Huachuca, a U.S. Army post on the Mexican border about ninety miles southeast of Tucson. The post was closed when the bison were released there, and when it was reactivated the army asked the game department to remove them. Some were rounded up and shipped to the agency's two bison ranches, and a few were shipped to Mexico in a wildlife trade, but all the others were shot by hunters chosen by a lottery -- all but one bison, that is.

That animal, a big bull, escaped and wandered around the San Rafael valley and into Sonora, Mexico, for a couple of years until nearly everyone had forgotten about it. When it reappeared, ranchers again began complaining about the beast destroying their fences. Alex Jacome and I were among those who went looking for it when the Arizona Game and Fish Commission declared it to be an unprotected animal, but it wasn't a hunter who found it. The bull walked into the courtyard at the Little Outfit Guest Ranch, fell into the swimming pool, and couldn't get out. The Game and Fish Department was called and the waterlogged animal was rescued and shipped to the commission's Raymond Ranch near Flagstaff.



Bill Quimby

I'm sorry to hear of Bill's passing. We haven't talked in a few years but I didn't know he was gone. RIP Bill

Interesting story. I agree the Corral shot would not be my cup of tea. I might throw my hat in on this one. Might be fun to chase bison around on the north rim of the grand canyon. Has anyone done is volunteer bison removal before?

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
I'm sorry to hear of Bill's passing. We haven't talked in a few years but I didn't know he was gone. RIP Bill

Bill died in June, 2018. He was 81.

quote:

Originally posted by steel:
Interesting story. I agree the Corral shot would not be my cup of tea. I might throw my hat in on this one. Might be fun to chase bison around on the north rim of the grand canyon. Has anyone done is volunteer bison removal before?

Not sure it will much different than the early hunts, given the following from the FAQ page:

Have you looked at more humane options (like birth control) to control the bison population?

The purpose of corralling and lethal removal bison is to quickly reduce the population of the herd to <200 to protect park resources and values from the impacts of the rapidly growing herd. Fertility control can take a long time and requires expensive, frequently repeated applications to achieve significant population reductions. Therefore, fertility control measures alone would not quickly reduce the current bison population to <200 in the 3- to 5-year period that the other three methods in combination will (live capture and lethal removal along with legal hunting in Arizona when bison migrate out of the park).

Maybe I will try calling arizons fish and game and getting some more information

quote:

Originally posted by steel:
Maybe I will try calling arizons fish and game and getting some more information

Good idea. No doubt if I wasn't fully retired, I would be thoroughly researching this to write about it.

Here ya go -- (602) 942-3000.

Just off the subject for a little moment. Several years ago Bill + I were discussing online "the great American novel" + the lack thereof anymore. So I sent him a copy of Ken Kesey's "Sometimes A Great Notion". I consider it to be one of the great American novels. Good reading for anyone concerned as he did a lot more than "One flew over the cuckoo's nest."

quote:

Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
I'm sorry to hear of Bill's passing. We haven't talked in a few years but I didn't know he was gone. RIP Bill

Bill died in June, 2018. He was 81.

Bill was an incredible gentleman; I conversed with him several times.

I've done cull shooting at Metro Parks in the Detroit Metro area, Africa (gemsbok) and Hawaii (pigs and sheep on Niihau) . We were quite effective. However, I can't physically deal with dragging 'buff carcasses out canyons and such. Wish them well and hope the tree huggers don't shut them down.

Forgot to mention cull shooting in Austrailia wihh donekeys, pigs, horses, camels, and lesser varieties of kangaroos with Bob Penfold.

I decided to put my hat in the pot. Slim chance I get it. They really don't answer phone calls over there but I was able to email them and they said it is not a hunt but you will not shoot them in a corral. Many means will be used to locate the bison but it will not be fair chase. That was the response I got, it sounded kind of vague. But it would be nice if someone on here does get drawn can share there experience.

quote:

Originally posted by steel:
I decided to put my hat in the pot. Slim chance I get it. They really don't answer phone calls over there but I was able to email them and they said it is not a hunt but you will not shoot them in a corral. Many means will be used to locate the bison but it will not be fair chase. That was the response I got, it sounded kind of vague. But it would be nice if someone on here does get drawn can share there experience.

I also threw my hat in the ring.
12 out of 45000 are NOT great odds but hey, it was free (for now).

Zeke

It's already started...

Thousands Sign Petition to Stop Grand Canyon Bison Hunt Lottery After 45,000 Volunteer.

quote:

Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:
It's already started...

Thousands Sign Petition to Stop Grand Canyon Bison Hunt Lottery After 45,000 Volunteer.

A friend of mine put in for it.

I told him the hunt/shoot most likely will not go off.

We well see.

Emails went out this morning, none of our group drew

quote:

Originally posted by whisk(e)y hunter:
Emails went out this morning, none of our group drew

Same here.
I was NOT successfully chosen as one of the cullers. I was just sure I was going to draw because the odds were so darn good. LMAO

Zeke

Haha! We actually had a decent group throw in in the off chance that one of us would get chosen. Would be interested to hear if anyone from AR was selected.