https://www.fws.gov/press-rele...ns-yellowstone-bison



PRESS RELEASE

Service Completes Initial Review of Endangered Species Act Petitions for Yellowstone Bison

The Service will conduct a status review of the potential Distinct Population Segment

Jun 3, 2022
Media Contacts
Joe Szuszwalak

DENVER — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has completed a 90-day finding of three petitions to designate and list a Yellowstone bison Distinct Population Segment (DPS) of the Plains bison (Bison bison bison) in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in portions of Wyoming and Montana as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service finds that the petitions present substantial, credible information indicating that a listing action may be warranted and will initiate a comprehensive status review of the potential DPS to determine if ESA protections are warranted.


The Plains bison is a subspecies of the American bison (Bison bison) historically found from central Canada to northern Mexico, nearly from coast-to-coast. Primarily abundant on the Great Plains, this species was eliminated from many areas of the country by the early 1800s. Following conservation efforts by landowners, Tribes, state, federal, and other partners, today, there are more than 400,000 Plains bison.

Under the ESA, a DPS is a population of a vertebrate species or subspecies. All three petitions requested that a Yellowstone bison DPS of the Plains bison be designated in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Based on the information provided by petitioners, the Service finds that this may be a listable entity and will further evaluate the validity of the DPS as part of the status assessment.   

The Service finds the petitioners present substantial information that listing the Yellowstone bison DPS as threatened or endangered under the ESA may be warranted. The petitioners presented credible information to indicate potential threats to the DPS from reductions of its range due to loss of migration routes, lack of tolerance for bison outside Yellowstone National Park, and habitat loss. Petitioners also provided information suggesting that regulatory mechanisms (in the form of management actions intended to address disease, provided for in the Interagency Bison Management Plan), overutilization, disease, and loss of genetic diversity may pose further threats. The Service will fully evaluate potential threats as part of the status assessment. 

Substantial 90-day findings require only that the petitioner provide information that the proposed action may be warranted. The next step is to conduct an in-depth status review and analysis using the best available science and information to arrive at a 12-month finding on whether listing is warranted. If listing the potential DPS is found to be warranted, the Service would then conduct a separate rulemaking process with public notice and comment.  

The public can play an essential role in the status review by submitting relevant information to inform the status review through www.regulations.gov, Docket Number: FWS–R6–ES–2022–0028. This information period will open upon publication in the Federal Register on June 6, 2022.

The 90-day finding and petition review form associated with this announcement are now available for review. Additional questions and answers regarding this announcement are also available.

Visit the Service online to learn more about American bison and the ESA petition process.

A TOTAL WASTE OF WILDLIFE DOLLARS!!!

The millions of buffalo that populated the great open plains of the American west 200 years ago have been replaced with milllions of people and the open plains have been replaced with ranches, farms, ranchettes, towns, and cities.

There is no stopping the growth of the human population here, and for every additional human, there is that much less room for wild animals.

All wild animals need space to live in, and the larger the animal, the greater amount of space they need. Buffalo are at or near the top of the list of wild animals that need the most open space.

The 2.2 million acres of Yellowstone National Park has perhaps the most open space left for wild animals in the American west. But even that is not enough open land for the wildlife there.

I have lived less than 100 miles from Yellowstone for almost 50 years, and long before I moved here, thousands of elk and buffalo migrate out of the Park every year because there is not enough food for them there in the winter.

In the '90s the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US Park Service spent millions of wildlife dollars to plant Canadian wolves in Yellowstone NP for the sole purpose to reduce the number of elk and buffalo that lived it the Park. Those wolves did their job and reduced the number of buffalo in Yellowstone, drastically reduced the number of elk and moose, and have also reduced the number of bighorn sheep in the Park.

The wolves then spread away from the Park into other parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho where they continued to feed on the deer, elk, and bighorn sheep there, AND they have preyed on domestic animals there causing millions of dollars of losses to ranchers.

And now after over 25 years of wolves in Yellowstone, Park officials still say that there are too many buffalo in the Park.

So if the 2.2 million acres of Yellwostone NP isn't enough room for the buffalo that they have there now, where will all of the additional buffalo live if the buffalo are declared to be endangered?

Yeh what Buffy said

These guys are trying to give them a place(not popular I know).

https://www.americanprairie.org/wildlife-restoration