JUDGE'S RULING ALLOWS PARK TO SHOOT DISEASED BISON.

Byline: Bob Anez Associated Press 

A federal judge refused Thursday to halt the federal-state plan for managing Yellowstone National Park bison this winter.

The plan mandates killing bison exposed to brucellosis, capturing and slaughtering some bison as they leave the park, shooting bison that wander onto private land, and letting other bison graze unimpeded on public lands outside the park.

Ruling in a lawsuit filed by five conservation groups against the federal government, U.S. District Judge Charles C. Lovell of Helena said the plan is in the best public interest.

The capture-and-slaughter program aids the National Park Service in controlling the growing park bison herd and eradicating diseased animals, he said.

He disagreed that the bison control policy violates the Park Service's legal obligation to conserve wildlife and scenery in the park and said a federal law against poaching in Yellowstone does not apply to the Park Service.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed Sept. 17 by the Sierra Club, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Jackson Hole Alliance for Responsible Planning and the American Buffalo Foundation.

The Sierra Club said Lovell's decision will be appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

``This case is about whether Yellowstone National Park is a refuge for wildlife or a slaughter place,'' said Jim Angell, an attorney for the Sierra Club.

The suit sought to stop a temporary bison management plan agreed to earlier this year by the federal government and Montana officials. The plan is an attempt to deal with the problem of a growing bison herd and the animals' tendency to wander from the park in search of winter forage.

The bison are believed to carry brucellosis, and the livestock industry fears the disease will spread from wandering bison to cattle. Brucellosis causes cows to abort their calves.

The plan requires killing all bison exposed to brucellosis and all pregnant bison captured near West Yellowstone from Nov. 1 through April 30.

Bison about to leave the park near Gardiner will be captured and sent to slaughter. Bison leaving the park near Jardine will be allowed to roam on national forest land, where no cattle graze. If the bison move onto adjacent private land, they are shot.

Lovell said the conservation groups failed to show that continuing to capture and kill bison, sometimes within the park, will cause them the kind of harm that would require an injunction.

``The court is not convinced that action taken on one or the other side of an invisible line, per se, leads to any injury, much less irreparable injury,'' Lovell wrote. ``It certainly makes no difference to the bison that are removed.''

He also said those filing the lawsuit did not prove they are entitled to ``unmanaged wildlife.''

Although federal law mandates that Park Service actions follow the goal of conserving the scenery and wildlife in Yellowstone, the agency faces a dilemma of how best to preserve the fast-growing and infected bison herd, Lovell said.

The Park Service has discretion in making decisions to carry out the goals defined in the law and the agency has exercised that discretion in this case, he found.

The judge found no fault with the agency's conclusion that the bison management plan had such a minor impact on the environment that an extensive environmental study was not required. He said wildlife officials hope the management plan will mean fewer bison killed than under the old system in which the state shot all bison as soon as they left the park.

``Clearly, the NPS (National Park Service) has a rational interest in cooperating with Montana both to reduce the total annual number of Yellowstone bison destroyed and also to reduce the herd's population of brucellosis-exposed bison,'' Lovell said.

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Photo

Photo: A bison walks near the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park, where a new herd management plan will be implemented.

Associated Press