Animal rights groups takes aim at legislation creating bison hunt

By WALT WILLIAMS, Chronicle Staff Writer

HELENA - Jim Posewitz remembers it as a public relations nightmare.

Posewitz, now the executive director of the Helena-based Orion the Hunter's Institute, was working for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks when the agency was recruiting hunters to gun down bison that left Yellowstone National Park in the late 1980s.

Reporters often accompanied the hunters. They wrote stories and took pictures that were seen by people far away from Montana whose only familiarity with the animals came from the 19th-century slaughters they knew from history books.

In their minds, an icon of the American West was once again under attack.

The bison hunts became fodder for animal-rights groups.

"Hunting took a beating in the national media," Posewitz recalled. "A lot of money was raised by groups that were opposed to hunting."

The public outcry was so great that the Montana Legislature banned the practice in 1991. The following year, former Gov. Stan Stephens sponsored a symposium meant to restore faith in hunting in general.

"We felt we had to do something after that beating we had given the hunters," Posewitz said.

Now the Legislature is on the verge of bringing back the bison hunt, although supposedly in a different form.

Instead of game wardens alerting hunters when bison wander out of the park, a new bill will allow FWP will establish bison seasons, said Jim Kropp, the agency's law enforcement chief.

Hunters will not be escorted to the animals, as they were previously, but instead must do all the work on their own.

"We are trying to create a circumstance where bison are managed like other big game animals in Montana," he said.

Already word is spreading among animal-rights groups. The Humane Society of the United States recently posted an alert on its Web site asking Montanans to reject the proposal.

"Opening a hunting season on Yellowstone bison will seriously damage Montana's image, as well as that of hunters and hunting, in the eyes of the general public," the organization warns.

Sen. Gary Perry, R-Manhattan, is leading the effort to bring back bison hunting. It is an issue he said he has followed for several years.

His Senate Bill 395 instructs FWP to establish a special wild buffalo or bison hunting license for the public.

The agency has had little say in the issue since the Legislature gave the Montana Department of Livestock control of hazing bison back into Yellowstone a few years after the hunting ban. That authority will remain with the DOL under Perry's bill.

Perry points out that Yellowstone's herd is estimated at 4,000 animals, which is 1,000 more than state and federal agencies say the park can sustain.

Park officials and the state need to prevent situations like the one that happened in the winter of 1996-1997, when 1,100 bison were shot and slaughtered and more starved to death, he said.

Perry's SB 395 also was drafted to address the issue of brucellosis, a disease that causes cattle to abort their offspring.

The DOL reports that Montana has been brucellosis-free since 1985. But the disease has been detected in Yellowstone bison.

While there is evidence it can jump from bison to cattle, there are no known cases of that happening in the wild.

Still, the disease is the primary reason bison are not allowed to range freely in the state.

While the bill says hunting is a tool state officials can use to control the disease, neither FWP or the DOL sees it has having much effect on that front.

"This legislation is not really a population-management issue, but more of a sport-hunting issue," DOL spokeswoman Karen Cooper said.

"Many of the people in New York or New Jersey really don't understand the bison problem we have here," Perry said, referring the media coverage that plagued the state in the past.

Bison hunting has continued since the ban, but on privately owned ranches with privately owned herds.

CNN's founder, Ted Turner, allows bison hunting on his Flying D Ranch outside Bozeman, but you don't see CNN reporting that, Perry said.

Other lawmakers aren't convinced. When SB 395 was debated on the Senate floor, Democrats such as Sen. Jon Tester of Big Sandy and Sen. Mike Wheat of Bozeman said they recalled the black eye animal-rights groups gave to Montana last time.

They say they don't want it to happen again, especially in a state where the economy is so reliant on tourists.

But Perry argued that hunting could ultimately allow for free-ranging bison in Montana. That, he said, will draw tourists.

The bill passed the Senate by a 35-15 vote with the support of Democrats including Sen. Emily Stonington of Bozeman.

Bison supporters such as the Buffalo Field Campaign remain opposed to the bill, even if they share Perry's vision of free-ranging bison.

"This is just another tool for the Department of Livestock to kill Montana bison, only this time they are drafting Montana hunters to do the killing," said Josh Osher, legal coordinator for the Buffalo Field Campaign.

Yellowstone bison are too docile for hunting, he said. They have little fear of humans, so there isn't much sport involved.

All the state will have in the end is the kind of slaughters that took place before, Osher said.

"For them to claim it's a fair chase hunt is a bunch of smoke and mirrors," he said.

The Montana Wildlife Federation, the state's largest hunting organization, refuses to take a position on the bill. The membership is divided on the issue, a spokesman said.

Posewitz, who also is the author of "Beyond Fair Chase," a book concerning hunting ethics, believes an "ethical fair-chase relationship" can exist between hunters and bison.

But its going to take time. And its going to mean moving beyond seeing bison as a disease-ridden enemy that must be "liquidated" every time they cross the border into Montana.

"If we could put a hunter in the field with something other than a liquidation requirement, I think we can put together an ethical hunt," he said.

SB 395 will next be heard by the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee. No hearing date has been set.

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