Bison 2

The bison pack 2 explored the main street area of Gardiner Montana on Thursday, May 25th around 9am. We walked down Highway 89 and Park Street then returned to the Absaroka Lodge. While walking we learned a lot about the town through our interactions with locals and just observing our surroundings.

Physical Setting

The area that we explored would be considered bustling for the area. We were somewhat surprised that even at 9am a lot of tourists were out exploring the shops around town. A lot of the shops sold ice cream and coffee along with many different souvenir items. The buildings themselves looked like they had been there for a while, but had been updated on the insides especially. Despite the area being a little larger than we had expected, we realized how secluded the town is when we saw a sign that pointed to the closest Wal-Mart, which is 83 miles away from town.

Interaction

While exploring the main drag of shops along the other side of the river, we decided to go in to a local saddle shop, called Kellem’s. There we talked to the owner, whose husband happened to be the owner of Absaroka Lodge where we’re staying here. She was very friendly and eagerly asked us where we were from, after which we asked her where she was originally from. She told us that she was from Brazil and had come to the U.S. originally as an interpreter with a group. While in Gardiner, she met the owner of the Absaroka Lodge, they fell in love and were married a year later, which quite frankly was adorable. She said she has enjoyed living in Montana for roughly the past 20 years, although she said she didn’t really appreciate the winters. After leaving her store, we browsed through a few more shops before entering the Wagon Wheel Trading post. While we were there, the owner Dianna, told us about how her and her husband had moved to Gardiner 17 years earlier to start a church. She was very open with us and kept telling us about how Gardiner had a small town kind of feel and was extremely welcoming. She went on to tell us about how her and her husband were only going to keep the store open for another season, before they sold everything and traveled around the country in their RV full time because her husband was in congestive heart failure.

Our pack explored Cooke City on Saturday, May 27th at approximately 1pm. Cooke City is a small town in the mountains that is made up of one major road. The section of town that our pack explored was along the main road.

Physical Setting:

The town is completely centralized around the main road that runs through the town. Hotels, cabins, souvenir stores, and restaurants can be seen on either side of the road. The huge number of lodging choices along with restaurants helped to show our pack the influence that tourists and visitors have on the town. The souvenir stores also had very large storefronts in comparison to some of the other businesses in town, which emphasized the impact of tourists on town.

While walking through town, our group came upon the Cooke City General Store. This store is labeled very proudly as a registered historic building in town and is clearly very well loved. Despite the fact that the town obviously draws in a lot of tourists, the history of the town is proudly shown through the Cooke City General Store.

Interactions

While in town, we didn’t encounter many locals sadly. While in the Cooke City General Store, we stroke up a quick conversation with the man working behind the counter. We noticed that he had a thick accent so we decided to ask him where he was from. He simply said that he was from Minnesota and that he came to Cooke City because of the snowmobiling and was offered a job doing roadwork so he decided to stay. When we asked him if a lot of people came to Cooke City from other places, he said yes and that only 3 or 4 people stayed in Cooke City for life. After our encounter with the man in the general store, we didn’t encounter any other locals in the town other than those working in the souvenir shops trying to sell things to us.

Bison have historically roamed across the West since the early 1800s with overall population numbers reaching as high as 65 million at one point. Due to the appeal of poaching and hunting bison, when 1890 rolled around, fewer than 1,000 bison were said to be alive. In the year 1902, a mere 23 bison were thought to be living in the park. The massive decline in the bison population led to an effort to preserve the bison species. While a mere 23 bison were living freely in Yellowstone, a small herd of 21 bison was raised and managed as if they were cattle in an attempt to revitalize the bison population. Although these bison were not allowed to interact and roam with the wild bison, over time, both bison herds helped to revive the overall bison population. Come 1954, three distinct herds could be identified in the park with a total of 1,477 bison living in the park. The manipulated management of the bison population eventually stopped in 1968, allowing the population to adjust naturally to the environment. In 1982. Montana instituted a public hunt that allowed people to kill bison that were not inside the boundaries of Yellowstone. This public hunt was halted in 1989 due to the controversy surrounding it. In 1995 it was established that bison at Montana’s northern border of the park would be captured to then be either slaughtered or shot, but at the western border bison would be tested for brucellosis and would only be slaughtered if they tested positive. By the winter of 1996, approximately 3,500 bison were known to be in the park, but by 1997, only 1,200-1,500 bison were believed to be in the park. Come August of 2016, the bison population had raised itself to approximately 5,500. The bison population continues to fluctuate both naturally and unnaturally throughout the years as humans have began to cull part of the herds due to the average 10-17% herd population increase that happens every year.

When it comes to bison their large population is dealt with every winter due to the fact that there are too many in the limited area of Yellowstone. If the bison population was allowed to grow with nothing affecting it, overgrazing and possibly mass starvation would be a problem when it comes to other animal species. The bison population increases ten times faster than the human population grows worldwide. Population control is also necessary because predation by bears and wolves does not have a large enough effect on the bison population, this is due to the fact that they are difficult to attack since they protect themselves as a group. For the winter of 2016-2017 it was decided that 900 to 1,300 animals needed to be removed through either hunting outside of the park or capture and transport to the Stephens Creek facility.

Currently bison are treated differently than other wildlife in the state of Montana. Legislation has been made that prohibits moving live bison to other conservation areas, which in turn results in few options for population control. Other wildlife on the other hand are allowed to move in and out of the park freely. The reasoning behind the legislation is the possible transmission of Brucellosis to cattle, and the concerns when it comes to the safety of humans as well as property damage that may be caused. What is interesting though is the fact that elk carry brucellosis, but have not been treated the same as bison. Due to the fact that bison are treated differently population control has to be dealt with every winter.

Each year the bison population within Yellowstone undergoes a culling process. The bison are slaughtered or hunted each year in order to lower the total number of bison in the park by roughly 1000 animals, which is nearly a fifth of the total bison roaming the park. A large number of advocates of this process claim that the culling process is necessary in order to make sure that the bison within the park do not spread brucellosis, a disease which theoretically causes domestic cattle to abort their babies once it is shared with them. However, this argument does not seem to hold much truth, since as of 2011 there has not been a single reported case of bison transmitting the disease to cattle. However, many biologist still believe that culls are necessary to practically and sustainably manage the growing number of bison within the park. Since the bison do not migrate over such long distances as they once did, culling is used to thin the herd and prevent unnecessary destruction of park natural resources, such as various native grasses that are important to the livelihood of all of the parks animals. The current population of bison already eats 70-90% of the parks grasses annually, making culling seem as if it is almost an absolute necessity to preserve the longevity of the park. The main reason bison are unable to roam as they once did is because of the large amount of ranches that are located outside of the park, making natural migration virtually impossible. However, bison have still been known to roam further outside of the boundaries during the winter onto ranches in search of food, which causes even more public outcry over current herd numbers and the need for culling. So, as it currently stands, culling is a “necessary evil” and there is no way to keep the balance of biodiversity without it, until scientists and citizens living around the park can decide what amount of bison are acceptable for the public longevity of the park and the private longevity of the ranchers.

In order to get involved please join in the discussion of this issue by sharing our blog and commenting about your thoughts on the issue. You can also use our hashtag #YaHerdThat to spread the word on social media! If you would like to learn more, please visit the resources listed below and follow us along as we go on this journey!

Additional Resources:

http://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/bison/
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/bisonmgnt.htm
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/16/524242247/slaughter-of-yellowstone-bison-at-the-center-of-culture-war

https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/bison.htm

http://yellowstone.net/history/the-history-of-bison-in-yellowstone-national-park

Why Can’t Bison Roam on Public Lands?

Meet the Herd!

My name is Rachel Pata and I am a rising senior liberal studies major with a concentration in Elementary Education here at Longwood University. My goal is to one day teach abroad in either a military school or an international school. What I look forward to most is being able to head out West and learn about things that I can teach my future students. I am also extremely excited to see the wildlife in Yellowstone and to interact with the locals in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. I can’t wait to see what all Yellowstone has to offer!

My name is Erin Maloney and I am an Integrated Environmental Science Major with a Social Sciences Concentration. I am a rising senior at Longwood and am looking forward to the variety of experiences and perspectives that this course will provide while on location at Yellowstone National Park. I know that this course will offer a once in a lifetime experience, and I cannot wait to embark on this adventure.

My name is Danielle Zipfel and I’m an Integrated Environmental Science Major here at Longwood University. I am a rising senior and look forward to getting a chance to look at the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in a different way that I am used to. I decided to take this class due to the great things that I have heard from previous students as well as Dr. Kinman. I cannot wait to experience all that Yellowstone has to offer!