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- <text id=89TT0502>
- <title>
- Feb. 20, 1989: American Notes:Montana
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 20, 1989 Betrayal:Marine Spy Scandal
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 41
- American Notes
- MONTANA
- Shades of Buffalo Bill
- </hdr><body>
- <p> It brings back images of the great buffalo massacres of the
- 19th century. Since last October, Montana hunters have gunned
- down a record number of bison that have been roaming outside
- the bounds of fire-ravaged Yellowstone National Park, foraging
- on neighboring ranch and forest land. The state legislature
- made bison a big-game animal again in 1985, after game wardens
- had had to shoot 88 stray bison and hunters complained that the
- privilege should have been theirs.
- </p>
- <p> Ranchers claim that the bison, in addition to damaging
- fences and depleting food needed by cattle, can infect their
- herds with brucellosis, a disease that causes cows to abort
- their calves -- though there are no documented cases of such
- bison-to-cattle infections. More than 200 bison have been
- bagged so far this season. Government biologists say the toll
- will not deplete the park's bison population of 2,700, but
- animal-rights groups want federal authorities to provide feeding
- spots for the animals inside the park. "The object is to put a
- head on somebody's wall," says Ted Crail of the Animal
- Protection Institute in Sacramento. "That is no way to treat the
- animal that is symbolic of all our failures in the animal
- field."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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