Livestock-Industry

Featured image: 533 river otters were killed by Wildlife Services in 2015. The federal agency killed a half million more coyotes, bears, wolves, foxes, and other animals than the previous year. By Center for Biological Diversity The highly secretive arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture known as Wildlife Services killed more than 3.2 million animals during fiscal year 2015, according to new data released by the agency. The total number of wolves, coyotes, bears, mountain lions, beavers, foxes, eagles and other animals killed largely at the behest of the livestock industry and other agribusinesses represents a half-million-animal increase over the 2.7 million animals the agency killed in 2014. ...

Featured image: School children in Montana pose with wolves that Wildlife Services killed with aerial gunning by Predator Defense Five conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services’ killing of gray wolves in Idaho. The agency killed at least 72 wolves in Idaho last year, using methods including foothold traps, wire snares that strangle wolves, and aerial gunning from helicopters. The agency has used aerial gunning in central Idaho’s “Lolo zone” for several years in a row — using planes or helicopters to run wolves to exhaustion before shooting them from the air, often leaving them wounded to die slow, painful deaths. The agency’s environmental analysis from 2011 is woefully outdated due to changing circumstances, including new recreational hunting and trapping that kills hundreds of wolves in Idaho each year, and significant changes in scientific understanding of wolves and ecosystem functions. ...

By Survival International Of the several different sub-groups of Ayoreo, the most isolated are the Totobiegosode (‘people from the place of the wild pigs’). Since 1969 many have been forced out of the forest, but some still avoid all contact with outsiders. Their first sustained contact with white people came in the 1940s and 1950s, when Mennonite farmers established colonies on their land. The Ayoreo resisted this invasion, and there were killings on both sides. ...

By Buffalo Field Campaign Government hazers descended upon our soon-to-be national mammal this Monday, marking the season’s first forced removal operation west of Yellowstone National Park. Agents with the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) and Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) disturbed and chased forty-four buffalo with about twelve newborns from lands west of the South Fork of the Madison, in the Denny Creek area, a place buffalo love. Unfortunately, this is one of the last strongholds for the few seasonal private and public lands ranchers in the Hebgen Basin. However, no cattle occupy these lands until mid to late June. They are gone by October. Because of the short-term presence of cattle, these lands were excluded from the Governor’s year-round buffalo habitat designation. Ranchers like to use the excuse of brucellosis, but the real reason buffalo are chased out of this area is because the ranchers don’t want to share grass with the native buffalo. ...

Featured image: Buffalo head south, away from Yellowstone’s dangerous trap. Photo by Stephany Seay, Buffalo Field Campaign. By Buffalo Field Campaign https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mBh_qDDPPoc It gives us great pleasure to share some incredibly positive news with you. Two days after the heartbreaking media tour of Yellowstone’s Stephens Creek capture facility, where one hundred and fifty wild buffalo were “processed” and shipped to slaughter or otherwise condemned, the bulk of the trap was empty and Yellowstone was hungry to capture more bison. Haunted by what we had witnessed there, our hearts sank as large groups of buffalo approached the trap. As expected, Yellowstone park wranglers — those who work at the trap — attempted to capture these buffalo families. First they went after a group of seventy-two buffalo, then another group of thirty. But in a beautiful twist of fate, the buffalo sensed the danger and were determined to save themselves from slaughter. Watch this video to see what happens. ...

By Buffalo Field Campaign Last week’s report and photos about what we, and the buffalo, experienced during the two-day media tour of Yellowstone’s bison trap could barely scratch the surface of the horrible things we witnessed. This brief video footage will bring you much closer. On March 8th and 9th, Yellowstone National Park organized a media tour of their Stephens Creek bison trap, where 150 wild buffalo were being held captive for slaughter and potentially quarantine. All of what you see taking place here is paid for with your federal tax dollars. Some of the footage was shot by BFC’s Mike Mease and some was captured by the Park Service’s GoPro cameras. One hundred fifty of America’s last wild buffalo were run through the gauntlet of Yellowstone’s Stephens Creek capture facility; 93 buffalo were shipped to slaughter by the InterTribal Buffalo Council and the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, both of which are signatories to the Interagency Bison Management Plan. Another 57 buffalo — all orphaned calves and yearlings — are still being held in the trap. ...

By Wildlands Defense Two months have gone by in a blur since the Bundy Militant Seizure of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The Refuge was taken under the cover of cowboy hats. Public lands ranchers have always been at the front of western land grab efforts, as Bernard DeVoto described. Malheur brought unsavory players engaged in a medusa-headed effort to seize control of public lands into full public view. Proliferating militias, “constitutional sheriffs," and various crackpot lecturers were suddenly out in public view, all on board with the land privatization agenda. ...

By Buffalo Field Campaign SPECIAL ALERT: Phone Calls Needed Today to Stop Imminent Buffalo Slaughter Yellowstone National Park is holding approximately 150 of America’s last wild buffalo captive in their Stephens Creek bison trap. The Park Service intends to ship these gentle giants to slaughter facilities beginning this week! Why does Yellowstone slaughter America’s last wild buffalo? Because Montana’s livestock industry pressures them to. There is no justification for it, no matter what the Park Service tells you. Wild bison are not overpopulated, and the so-called brucellosis threat is a livestock industry excuse to kill wild buffalo and prevent them from reinhabiting their native landscape. ...

By Deep Green Resistance Wild Bison are an icon of what has been destroyed by civilization, and this species is now on the brink in the wild. Almost all bison left today are cross-breeds held in confinement. There are only a few wild, free ranging bison herds left on the planet, and their numbers are small. Every year, the Park Service — at the behest of ranchers — round up, quarantine, harass, and kill many of the wild bison who live in and around Yellowstone National Park. We stand with grassroots land defenders such as the Buffalo Field Campaign in calling for an immediate end to this atrocious treatment of wild bison. Instead of quarantine, these creatures need room to roam. Instead of harassment, they need our assistance in growing once again to their historical numbers. ...

By Stephany Seay / Buffalo Field Campaign Featured image: A young bull buffalo walks the hills in the Gardiner Basin. Photo by Stephany Seay Based on what we witness in the field everyday, the killing taking place near Gardiner could more accurately be described as a slaughter than a hunt. The tribal game wardens we have spoken with agree, and they recognize that Montana’s livestock interests have organized the circumstances to shift blame away from themselves to the tribes. There is obviously something terribly wrong when every last buffalo to migrate through Beattie Gulch ends up dead, or when hunters feel so desperate to kill every buffalo they see. Whether or not tribal hunters view their hunts as supporting the larger management scheme, the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) government agencies and affiliated tribal entities certainly do. There is no moral or scientific justification to the idea, perpetuated by the management agencies, of “surplus buffalo” and safeguards allowing buffalo safe passage between Yellowstone and Montana are sorely needed. ...