Yellowstone bison: To shoot or not to shoot?

Mike Mease calls himself a "bison shepherd." And on the sagebrush-covered flats of Horse Butte, he and others from the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) are bracing for their biggest confrontation of the year.

Armed with video cameras and walky-talkies to coordinate strategy across hundreds of square miles, this ragtag group of environmentalists is on a mission: Usher Yellowstone bison out of harm's way when the rangy animals leave the national park and cross into Montana.

"We don't know how many bison will be slaughtered in the next few weeks, but all indications are that it could be a lot," says Mr. Mease in his stocking-cap beret. "We've already lost too many animals."

This winter, nearly 270 bison have been captured in Montana and sent to slaughter. Any day, hundreds more are expected to leave the park's snowy confines, searching for spring grass and a quiet place to birth their calves.

Waiting at Horse Butte is the Montana Department of Livestock, watching for the wild behemoths - the last major reservoir of buffalo known to carry brucellosis, a disease that causes nearby cows and buffalo to abort their fetuses.

Concern over possible transmission and its economic repercussions has only grown in recent months. Wyoming lost its "disease free" status for cattle when cows there were infected, allegedly after contact with contaminated wild elk. Nationwide, the livestock industry is still reeling from the nation's first verified case of "mad cow" disease in December. And in Montana, where there are more domestic cows than people, the loss of disease-free status could send the industry reeling.

Agricultural experts say the cost of an outbreak - quarantines, testing, and lost markets - would reach the tens of millions. "We have not had a case of brucellosis transmission here because agencies have been vigilant," says state Livestock Department spokeswoman Karen Cooper. "Part of that is lethal control."

For the Buffalo Field Campaign, the 2,700 Yellowstone bison killed here since the late 1980s are a rallying cry. Environmentalists suggest the threat is overblown, saying there's never been a documented case of brucellosis passed from bison to cattle in the wild. And Yellowstone's buffalo population is its own success story, with roughly 4,000 descended from a few dozen that survived a 19th century annihilation that erased tens of millions from the Great Plains.

Not all bison wandering into Montana are shot. Instead, Ms. Cooper says, "We're trying to be tolerant where we can." If park officials can't herd wandering bison back into the park, they steer them into pens for testing and, if results are positive, send them to slaughter. In the last three years, state and federal agencies have spent millions guiding buffalo back into the park - a tactic Mease calls a pricey attempt to stop migration.

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