Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell: Buffalo forced from natural habitat?

Please click on and sign Stop the slaughter of Yellowstone’s wild free roaming buffalo

From Buffalo Field Campaign

BACKGROUND

The day has come:  there is new leadership in America.  Promising change and a new direction, President Barack Obama has the power to help the last wild population of American buffalo in numerous ways.  The time is now to call on him, and we’ve made it easy for you to do so.  Please take a moment to send the following letter to President Obama urging him to take action to protect the buffalo.  It is urgent that he hear from as many folks as possible so he knows how important this issue is to so many.

MESSAGE TEXT

Finding great resonance in your message of change, I write with urgency to ask that your Administration take immediate, visionary action to stop the government slaughter of America’s last wild population of buffalo and permanently protect this irreplaceable species and its habitat.

Celebrated the world over, buffalo are a symbol of America’s unyielding wildness, tenacious strength, and generous abundance.  Buffalo once roamed the North American continent in the tens of millions, providing food, shelter, clothing and spiritual sustenance to First Nations.  The wild buffalo living in and around Yellowstone National Park are the only buffalo to have continuously occupied their native habitat and the last buffalo to follow their migratory instincts as their ancestors did for thousands of years.

It is this wild nomadic instinct to roam that threatens their existence.

Wild American buffalo are ecologically extinct.  In their absence, the land has suffered.  By all measures the American buffalo should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, and restored on their native habitat.

Yellowstone National Park lacks adequate winter range and spring calving grounds–key habitats necessary for the buffalo’s survival.  The immediate habitat buffalo seek and require exists within Montana, a state that does not allow them to roam freely.

Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell: Buffalo forced from natural habitat?

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When buffalo migrate to habitat in Montana, they are harassed, captured and slaughtered under a multi-million dollar American taxpayer funded scheme.  Since the Interagency Bison Management Plan was signed in 2000, over 3,000 wild American buffalo have been senselessly slaughtered and hundreds of others have been wounded or starved to death from being chased off of critical habitat.  The annual slaughter is carried out under the pretense that buffalo might pass brucellosis to cattle, something that’s never occurred in the wild.  The real reasons for the slaughter are prejudice, intolerance, and greed, and it is long past time for a common sense solution.

The failures of the Bison Management Plan were recognized by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last April, who reported “the agencies lack accountability among themselves and to the public, and it is difficult for the public to obtain information.”  House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall and Rep Maurice Hinchey have criticized the Plan as “plagued by deficiencies” and “severely limited” in it’s ability to protect bison.  Clearly, it is time for a new plan.

There is much you can do, President Obama:* Direct the US Fish & Wildlife Service and all federal land managers to review threats to wild buffalo remaining in America and take pro-active initiatives to conserve habitat needed for buffalo’s long-term survival.* Direct the National Park Service to withdraw from the Interagency Bison Management Plan and redirect taxpayer money to conserve buffalo habitat and migration corridors* Direct the Secretary of Agriculture to close the few public lands grazing allotments on National Forest lands near buffalo migration routes* Issue an Executive Order requiring all federal agencies to Initiate humane, scientific and ecological approaches that respect buffalo as native wildlife* Initiate a dialogue with interested Tribes on how to gain their participation in buffalo management, as they are the people who know the buffalo most intimately* Make funding available to state and tribal colleges for research and development of an effective vaccine for cattle.

Almost driven to extinction during the 19th century, no other species embodies America’s rich and wild past, and it’s potential for the future, like the buffalo.  The American buffalo represents our national, native heritage and they need immediate protection.  For the health and integrity of the land, for First Nations buffalo cultures, for current and future generations to behold these awesome, prehistoric wonders, and for the buffalo themselves, please help restore this living American icon to the lands that are their birthright.

Thank you, President Obama.

For the Buffalo,

Additional Actions …

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why is it that every living thing that man touches
has to wrestle itself out of man’s greedy clutches
buffalo, too have fallen into this mess
why man killed them to begin with
is anybody’s guess
now in the sites of man’s ignorant rifles
when will man decide it is time for his bloodlust
to be stifled
21st century modern man
time to climb out of the
killing garbage can

Karen Lyons Kalmenson