FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, January 24, 1997
CONTACT:
Mike Markarian, (301) 585-2591, MikeM@fund.org
Cleveland Amory, (212) 246-2096
This week, The Fund for Animals released graphic video footage of wild bison from Yellowstone National Park being baited, captured, and shipped to a slaughterhouse. The 15-minute video exposes the herding of bison, bleeding and wounded animals crowded together, the loading of bison onto trucks, the killing and hanging of the animals at a slaughterhouse, and the disposal of their heads and hides. The video begins with compelling footage of a bison kicking for two minutes after being shot in the head, and then being hung upside down and kicking again while his throat is slit.
"This video proves what we've been saying all along," says Mike Markarian, Director of Campaigns for The Fund for Animals. "The ranching industry has bullied Yellowstone officials into committing heinous acts of cruelty against the very wildlife they are supposed to protect."
Montana ranchers fear that bison who leave Yellowstone National Park will spread a disease called brucellosis to cattle. However, there has never been a documented case of brucellosis being transmitted from wild bison to domestic cattle. For example, tissue samples taken from bison killed outside Yellowstone during the winter of 1991-92 revealed that of the 218 bison sampled, the Brucella abortus bacteria could be cultured from only 27 bison. Nineteen of these were bull bison who cannot transmit the bacteria; of the eight females, the bacteria was cultured from the reproductive tract of only one, non-reproductive, yearling female. Consequently, none of the sampled bison were capable of transmitting the bacteria at the time of their deaths.
Over the past decade, more than 2,000 Yellowstone bison have been killed by sport hunters and by state and federal agents. This month alone, more than 600 bison have been killed in the capture and slaughter plan, and Yellowstone's own bison biologist predicts a population crash.
Adds author Cleveland Amory, founder and president of The Fund for Animals, "The Park Service has really put the yellow in Yellowstone. When they're not villains, they're cowards."
The Fund for Animals is a national animal protection society founded in 1967 and headquartered in New York City, and has been working to protect Yellowstone bison since 1985. The Fund has Beta and VHS copies of the bison slaughter footage and still photographs available for the media.