Dear Buffalo Friends,

As the buffalo fall migration begins, your tax dollars have been hard at work this week with Department of Livestock (DOL) agents out scouring the landscape for “rougue” buffalo. Of course, any that they find they will attempt to chase back into Yellowstone National Park. As luck would have it, the buffalo are good at making themselves invisible and avoiding the wrath of the DOL. They are quite good at using the dense willows and forests of their native habitat to their advantage, enabling them to exist in relative peace for a while. The agents have either continued to come up empty-handed, or have just outright been foiled again by the wily giants.

We find the DOL’s behavior quite interesting since Montana’s canned hunt starts November 15. Imagine the outrage from the hunting community if livestock agents were out harassing elk or deer just before the start of hunting season. If the people who want buffalo safe and alive behaved the way the DOL are (moving buffalo out of the ‘hunt’ area), we’d be cited for hunt sabotage. The DOL’s behavior plainly underscores the state and federal government’s prejudice against wild buffalo. They want to lock the buffalo inside Yellowstone, denying them of their natural instincts and right to survival and freedom, except, of course, during the months (Nov-Feb) they can be shot by gunners at the Park’s boundary. For that time, the buffalo are “welcome” on a handful of acres within Montana’s borders.