Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

WEST YELLOWSTONE, MT - Buffalo Field Campaign volunteers occupied Forest Service road 610 early this morning, blocking access to a bison capture facility site on the Horse Butte Peninsula. One activist sat in a platform suspended from a tripod while another attached herself to a locking device which was buried in the road. A third perched in a tree and videotaped as law enforcement personnel worked to remove the protesters and dismantle the blockade.

The Horse Butte Peninsula is located on the Gallatin National Forest immediately to the west of Yellowstone National Park. In addition to the Yellowstone buffalo, the peninsula provides critical winter habitat for the Yellowstone buffalo, bald eagle, gray wolf, trumpeter swan, peregrine falcon, grizzly bear, wolverine, lynx, and boreal owl.

There are no cows on Horse Butte until June. All of these cows winter in Idaho, and are currently vaccinated against brucellosis. The summer grazing on Horse Butte amounts to 172 cow/calf pairs being present from June 15th through October. Although this grazing allotment brings in less than $800 to the U.S. Treasury, the state and federal governments have committed more than $ 40 million over the next 15 years to haze, capture, and slaughter buffalo.

"Powerful livestock interests are robbing our treasury with one hand while they slaughter America's last wild herd of buffalo with the other," stated BFC spokesperson Dan Brister. "Today's actions demonstrate our commitment to bring the unnecessary slaughter to a stop."

The blockade was constructed a day after DOL agents began clearing the snow-covered road, alerting the bison advocates of their intentions to construct the trap. The facility is designed to capture and test buffalo who migrate to the peninsula. During the winter of 1998-99, the Horse Butte trap was used to capture more than a hundred buffalo. The DOL slaughtered 94 buffalo that winter.

DOL agents arrived at the scene shortly after 8 am and focused attention on Jayna Jensen who was locked into the road. After removing her sleeping bag the livestock agents took her food and water and poured her warm tea on the ground inches from her face. Facing hypothermia in the subfreezing temperatures, she released from the lockdown on her own after three and a half hours. The agents then focused their attention on the man in the tripod, attempting to knock him from his perch 30 feet above the ground by repeatedly poking him with a long stick.

Law enforcement officers from the Department of Livestock, Montana Highway Patrol, the Gallatin County Sheriff's Department, and the US Forest Service worked together later in the day, with an electric company cherry picker, to pluck first the videographer and then the man occupying the tripod. Both were arrested and sent to the Gallatin County Detention Center in Bozeman.

Of the 65,000 public comments submitted on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for long-term bison management, the majority were not in support of government policies of trapping migrating buffalo. "The Buffalo Field Campaign will continue to stand up for the 65,000 unheard voices in protecting our country's national treasure of buffalo," stated Mike Mease.

Buffalo Field Campaign volunteers defend the buffalo on their traditional winter habitat and advocate for their protection. BFC is the only group working in the field every day to stop the slaughter of Yellowstone's wild buffalo.

Video footage available upon request

* Legal actions because of field activists 24 hour stand off...

The Buffalo Field Campaign, Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers, and the Ecology Center have resumed legal proceedings they began last year when the State of Montana violated its Special Use Permit issued by the Hebgen Lake Ranger District. Then, the plaintiffs asserted that the State violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by using helicopters to haze buffalo in an area expressly closed to helicopters. At that time, the groups filed a Notice of Intent to sue for violations of the Endangered Species Act by violating protected air space around eagle nests on Horse Butte with helicopter hazing.

This year, the Operating Plan that the Forest Service signed on November 27th, 2000 violates the Biological Assessment that accompanied the Horse Butte Capture Facility Environmental Assessment. The Operating Plan directs how the Montana Department of Livestock conducts all phases of operation of the Horse Butte capture facility. The Biological Assessment (contained in the Hose Butte EA) expressly states that the Montana DOL will conduct eagle "pre-monitoring" 14 days before construction of the Horse Butte capture facility if the facility is constructed before February 15th. The Operating Plan signed by the Hebgen Lake District Ranger states that the Montana DOL doesn't have to do any pre-monitoring if the facility is constructed before February 1st. This contradiction is in violation of the Biological Assessment, and therefore the ESA.

The groups will file a Temporary Restraining Order asking that the DOL ceases its operations at the Horse Butte capture facility, pursuant to the violations. They then will follow up with a Complaint asking that the State's Special Use Permit be withdrawn, and due to the ESA violations that the Forest Service re-enter into formal consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The USFWS must concur, via a Biological Opinion, on any federal agencies actions that may effect a threatened or endangered species (i.e. the bald eagle).

In this situation, the groups feel that the ESA violations and the changed conditions (productive eagle nesting and hatching) at the Horse Butte eagle nests, and other violations warrant these actions. The legal actions most likely will be filed in US District Court in Helena MT. in the immediate future.

Media Contacts: Dan Brister, Pete Leusch, Summer Nelson, phone: 406-646-0070.