MISSOULA, Mont. -- The Forest Service has approved construction of a bison capture facility near West Yellowstone and given the state authority to operate it through January.
The agency agreed with state officials that capturing bison and testing them for the cattle disease brucellosis will reduce the need to kill animals that wander out of Yellowstone National Park in search of winter forage. Brucellosis causes cows to abort their calves.Many bison have been exposed to brucellosis, and Montana fears its brucellosis-free status for livestock will be threatened if infected animals are allowed to roam in areas where cattle graze.
"We want to help the state minimize the number of disease-exposed bison that have to be killed," Regional Forester Dale Bosworth said. "The capture facility will help meet that objective."
Animal-rights activists contend that few animals are infected and the risk of the disease being transferred from game to stock in the wild is virtually nonexistent.
But Gov. Marc Racicot maintained that the state has little choice.
"If we cannot trap these disease-exposed animals, or they cannot be determined to be 'low risk,' then we are put in a position of having to remove the animals by lethal means," Racicot said.
The Forest Service permit is valid through Jan. 31. After that, bald eagles begin nesting in the area north of West Yellowstone and operations have to be reassessed for their possible impact.
The Forest Service said it received more than 500 comments from across the country on the capture facility, describing them as "filled with strong feelings, conveying a sense of anguish and frustration over the loss of any bison."
Scores of area residents, who refused to let bison be killed on their land in the past, signed a petition last month opposing the facility.
"That's just about everybody out here," petition organizer Dave Ritchey said. "We object to them putting it here next to our subdivision."
And resident Dee Rothschiller fears that once the facility is up, "it's hard to believe they'll take it down. I'm afraid it's never going to leave."
About 1,100 park bison were shot or shipped to slaughter under the interim plan in the winter of 1996. An Oct. 22 aerial survey found 2,239 bison in the park.