This is a laudatory story on the operation and intent of bison quarantine facility a few miles north of Yellowstone Park at Corwin Springs, Montana.
Preserving park bison gene pool a tough job. By Scott McMillion. Bozeman Chronicle.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He has been a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and also its President. For many years he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
One way to preserve the park bison gene pool is to stop slaughtering them by the thousand. And “quarantine as conservation” is a farce. Is McMillion a shill for the livestock industry?
I felt that the article was very one sided. Scott McMillion seemed overly excited to have been part of the quarantine gang. There were no quotes from individuals or groups opposing the quarantine. If the Buffalo Field Campaign wasn’t given input on the story, then at least ask someone.
Just because some people or groups are concerned with eradication of brucellosis doesn’t mean that bison restoration is dependent on “brucellosis free” bison. If the livestock industry were not given so much power by our government, then bison could restore themselves. Every year they try by migrating north and west, but are chased back into the Park or slaughtered.
If bison ever make it out of quarantine, they will be no more wild than the livestock that APHIS and MFWP purport to protect.