Reducing the buffalo in Yellowstone
 

I just read in this mornings paper that the Dept of Interior is planning on reducing the American Bison herd in yellow stone by 600 to 900 animals. They are deciding if they want to do it by hunting or by roundup and then taking the animals to slaughter. The reason for herd reduction is to prevent the buffalo from migrating out of the park. I remember several years back reading about ranchers complaining about the buffalo coming out of the park and grazing with their cattle and giving the cattle diseases, I suppose that is the reason behind it. It would probably be a good idea to contact your congressmen and senators and tell them the reduction should be a cull hunt by sportsmen. It would be a pretty great opportunity to hunt buffalo in Yellowstone.

Good Luck with that! I dont think it would go over to well with the tree huggers. They would rather let the wolves chew them up and if they cant deplete the population the way they did with the elk, there will be a roundup and sale to slaughterhouse.

It will more than likely come down to which one the Parks and Wildlife will be able to make the most money from. Sale of tags or sale of the meat. At today's prices for Bison, it will more than likely come down to slaughter.

so raise the cost of the tag . or even better raffle em off. there are lots of fool hunters that would pay much ,much more to hunt em then they could ever get to slaughter em.

Wouldn't be the first time they've thinned that herd by issuing licenses.

I would love that opportunity. Yellowstone is an amazing place.
-Jake

Yellowstone is an amazing place, but I wouldn't call shooting a Yellowstone Bison "hunting", gathering groceries, sure, but not hunting.

I've taken a few in various places. It's pretty much just gathering groceries anywhere to be honest. Find the herd, pick out the animal you want, shoot, chase away the others, then the hard part begins. I actually kinda felt a little bad for the stupid critters. No smarter than cows and if you have ever worked with cattle, you will know there isn't a much dumber animal on the planet.

with the exception of humans.

yeah sign me up for one of those tags !

Bison have gotten screwed since the white man hit North America.

They weren't treated much better by the plains Indians who would run
herds off of cliffs to kill them.

lol.how could that be true,everyone knows the NOBLE indians left nothing for waste, that is a white man trait.
at least that is what the PC police would have us believe.:D

truth is they kept what they could carry and the rest went to the varmints

One of my best friends is a full blooded Cheyenne. I think he's one of the most honest persons I know. We talk a lot about the old days. Indians pass on everything through the generations. What you read, and what the truth is may not be even close. They let nothing go to waste.

Had I lived back in those days, and I wish I had. I know who's side I would have been on. I would have hunted the buffalo hunters.

[QUOTE=Muley Hunter;4238112]One of my best friends is a full blooded Cheyenne. I think he's one of the most honest persons I know. We talk a lot about the old days. Indians pass on everything through the generations. What you read, and what the truth is may not be even close. They let nothing go to waste..........

Native Americans are remarkable people. Most people that have heard the term "indian giver" have no clue what it really means. I go to and enjoy many pow wows each year and their creative ability is something to see.

that is bs. but it's ok. go right on believing it. I have no doubt your friend believes it to.


they may have used every part of the animal. I would agree with that. just not every animal , they killed.
you can argue that, but we both know it is true.

Not true. There is a buffalo jump by Joes, CO and when they scientists took a look at it they found that many of the carcasses had no butchering marks on the bones and many of the skeletons had not been disarticulated. Similar things have been found at other buffalo jumps in the plains areas.

Half of my family line is Arapaho and I'm as pro-Native American as anyone I know but I'm never going to claim they were perfect in all they did. The natives weren't as bad as the whites but to say they wasted nothing is simply not correct. When they had a couple hundred dead bison in one place and no refrigeration/freezers available they couldn't process all the carcasses before they began to spoil.

and that is all I am saying.the white man was wasteful. no argument here. I just tire of folks trying to claim the natives were not.
who was worst? that's like telling GOD," his sin was worst then mine."

I agree, the native Americans got the short end of the stick during the expansion of this country and the term Indian giver should have been white man giver because it was the whites who broke their word and took back what they agreed was for the Indians . I appreciate the skills they developed in supplying food and protection for their tribes. However, that doesn't mean I believe the myths about not wasting anything or that they were the first conservationists. They did what they did to survive and there is no shame in that, but not all the stories you hear about them are true, just like any other race of people.

It's more complicated than they didn't take all the animals that went over the cliffs. They had strong beliefs, and they had their reasons. It was also a crude way for conservation. If the white man had never showed up. The bison herds would still be strong now.

Here's a good article on it if you want to take the time to read it all.

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/...ys/buffalo.htm

Not just the bison. There would still be wolves and grizzlies on the prairies, bison/elk/cougar in New England, streams full of cutthroat trout in the Rockies and major salmon runs on both coasts. But those days are past.

That's true, but I think the bison suffered the most.

Not so sure Flags, the Indian population would have increased substantially by this time and the need for more resources would have been an influence. All we can do now is speculate what could have been, but we don't know it for sure.

I for one would have loved to see the plains covered with bison while wolves and grizzlies prowled along the edges of the great herds. What a sight that must have been.

sure that is easy to say. they would also still probably be wearing breachcloths and living in teepees.
not saying that is wrong or worst then what they now do. just pointing out that to say, they buffalo would still be enjoying the pops they did then iS the same as saying the indians would have never advanced as a civilization. WHY WOULD YOU BELIEVE SUCH A THING?
do you think they have no ambition?

are you an indian hater?
just kidding around of coarse. also thought I WOULD GET THE RACE CARD THING OUT OF THE WAY BEFORE IT STARTED TO GET FLUNG AROUND.



SURE THAT IS A GOOD ARTICLE. DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT NATIVES WERE WASTEFUL ALSO.

exactly right. great post.

agreed, it would have been awesome

My best friend is an Indian. Not sure why you brought that up? If i'm biased at all it's against certain white men.

btw My friend lives in a teepee when the weather isn't too harsh. True.

Flags I would have loved to see those herds move all day and night as well, no argument, just discussion. Many things could have happened such as a disease tearing through such a big population of animals and greatly reduced the population, as the prey goes, so goes the predators. we can speculate and romanticize about what could have been, but we will never know.

I think the Indians themselves would have keep the population down. They were always at war with each other.

They started to band together to fight the white man. Otherwise, I doubt anything would have changed.

I believe you. just don't really care.I myself have been known to stay in a tent on occasion , when hunting or fishing
I have a friend who is a taxidermist, doesn't mean I know everything about how a taxidermist lives or how he disposes of carcasses.

Actually, you don't know much about anything.

Just my observation, and something else you don't care about.

and something else you don't care about.[/QUOTE]


your opinion? lol. you're correct,finally something we agree on.


I do however know , I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG!

I disagree. The bison isn't extinct. Seen a passenger pigeon lately? Those things existed in the tens of billions and they are all gone and only exist in museums as taxidermied specimens.

Bison would have been gone if some people didn't step in. There were 20-30 million at one time. In 1890 there was about 1000. Now we have about 1/2 million and most of those aren't pure bison.

Very few on free range.

I see references to disease transmission from bison to cattle so often in articles that it sounds like a party line that's repeated from rote memory without thought.

Sure bison are a reservoir for Brucellosis, but why single them out? Are elk or deer that stray outside the Yellowstone subject to similar culls? Their populations carry the disease too.

That's my point. Someone took action to save the bison. Nobody took action to help the Passenger Pigeon. They are all gone and that is a travesty as far as I am concerned.

Cull ??
 

I thought they got wolves, at unhuntable Yellowstone, to cull animals.

Wolves don't do much preying on 2000# Bison unless they are already dying of old age or something. They do a number on moose and elk when the snow gets deep though.

The Indians lived here basically the same way for thousands of years. The major change in their way of life started with the coming of the white men from Europe. They didn't even have horses until white men came here.