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- NATION, Page 47American NotesHUNTINGThey Still Shoot Bison
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- Though there are no documented cases of wild bison infecting
- cattle with brucellosis (which causes cows to abort their
- calves), Montana in 1985 decided to fight the disease by
- letting hunters kill bison that wandered out of Yellowstone
- National Park. The tactic aroused a national outcry. In the
- worst slaughter, two winters ago, hunters killed 569 of the
- park's 2,700 bison.
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- This year Governor Stan Stephens hopes to defuse some of the
- public anger when the shooting resumes. Under his new plan,
- hunters will be permitted to shoot only straying male bison.
- Federal park rangers and state game wardens will kill the
- females, and the meat will be distributed to needy people.
- Bison calves will be captured and neutered, then sold at public
- auction. The proceeds will pay for the butchering of their
- mothers.
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- Calling the plan "bizarre," Don Bachman of the Greater
- Yellowstone Coalition predicts that the complaints will be just
- as loud this year. The hunt's organizers, he says, "have really
- stepped in the buffalo chip."
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