Public Comment

No Birth Control for America's Last Wild Buffalo!

By Sandy Sanders
Friday January 13, 2012 - 07:43:00 PM

Papers across the country are revealing horrific plans by the USDA-Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service to sterilize members of America's last wild buffalo population, the beloved herds of Yellowstone country. 

Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) promotes the livestock industry. Now this federal livestock overseer intends to conduct population control experiments upon America's last wild free roaming buffalo. 

APHIS intends to use a chemical birth control vaccine and conduct invasive hysterectomies on wild buffalo stolen from Yellowstone. Wild bison are ecologically extinct throughout their native habitat. Already, fifty-three young wild buffalo have been stolen from their habitat and from the public for APHIS' experiments, due to a back room deal made between Yellowstone National Park and APHIS. APHIS plans to capture and remove up to 108 buffalo, many of which will be killed at the end of their experiment. APHIS has already made its decision to move forward without conducting an Environmental Impact Statement and public review. APHIS states that they will be conducting an environmental analysis, which under federal law they are required to do, but they have already sequestered wild buffalo with full intention on carrying out their nefarious plans regardless of public opinion or justification for the harmful study.  

APHIS's intentions hold no benefit for wild American buffalo. The goal and purpose of this federal agency is to serve the livestock industry, and not wild buffalo. 

In truth, the wild bison of Yellowstone are the *last* wild population left in America. They number fewer than 3,700 individuals and are badly mismanaged under a state-federal plan that aims to serve the interests of Montana's cattle producers. 

Wild bison need habitat to recover their population, not birth control by a taxpayer funded agency acting on behalf of the livestock industry.