Belgrade hunter bags bison

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

GARDINER - It wasn't your average day in the field for a family of hunters from Belgrade.

It started early, before the electric colors of dawn had fled the snowy slopes of Electric Peak, in nearby Yellowstone National Park.

It wouldn't end for many long hours, and it put the family in the middle of a long-simmering dispute.

George "Buddy" Clement, 17, accompanied by his older brother, his mother and his father, George Sr., made the first kill in Montana's new bison hunt Tuesday morning.

He shot the big bull in the head and his father said later that it died immediately, though, as often happens with head shots, the animal's nerves and reflexes remained active for a while.

"The animal dropped like a stone, but it was kicking a little bit," George Clement said. "It was as clean a kill as I've seen in my life and I've hunted for 42 years."

It had been grazing with four other bulls in the Eagle Creek area, nearly a mile from the closest road, but in the middle of a lot of controversy.

After it fell, the other bison in the herd stuck close to the carcass.

"When they smell blood, they get a little squirrely," said Mark Anderson, a warden sergeant for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Cattle sometimes act the same way.

The family tossed stones at the standing bison, anxious to begin field-dressing Buddy's kill. Once they moved a safe distance, Buddy shot his animal a couple more times, his father said, just to make sure it was dead.

Those shots were superfluous, said George Clement. He and his wife are both hunter education instructors.

"That first shot was an absolute killing shot," he said.

The protest group Buffalo Field Campaign portrayed the incident as inhumane, maintaining Buddy Clement had shot the animal either four or five times and that it took it 45 minutes to die.

"I hate to call anybody a liar, but they're just trying to blow things out of proportion," George Clement said Tuesday afternoon.

The animal had a large bullet hole in its head, about three inches below and slightly behind the eye. Buddy used a 30.06 rifle, with 165-grain bullets, and said he shot from 30 yards away.

The family field-dressed the giant beast, surrounded by two dozen reporters, a couple members of Buffalo Field Campaign, and some elk hunters drawn by the big crowd.

"It's just a hunt," George told the reporters, as cameras whirred and cell phones chirped. "Where were you guys during the antelope hunt?"

At one point, the other four bison returned to the carcass and everybody retreated to a hillside. They sniffed the body, then the hunters chased them off with thrown stones and shouts.

The family bent to the long task of gutting, butchering and hauling the animal to the nearest road. By mid-afternoon, they still had a lot of work to do.

But even before that, the politics of bison hunting had kicked in.

Buffalo Field Campaign issued a press release by 12:40 p.m.

"Montana has been trying to sell this as a fair-chase, humane hunt," BFC said. "It is neither."

An hour later, a national animal rights group called the Animal Welfare Institute issued a release calling the hunt "blatant cruelty."

Throwing rocks at the living bison is not illegal, said FWP spokeswoman Mel Frost. Rather, the hunter had a responsibility to tend to the animal on the ground. Bison carcasses can rot if not field dressed quickly.

Other FWP officials said the hunt was conducted fairly and humanely.

BFC cofounder Mike Mease maintained a bison hunt cannot be fair because the animals have evolved to face down danger rather than flee, making them vulnerable.

A total of fifty bison tags have been issued for this winter, the first bison hunt in 15 years.

A second bison was killed later in the day, on private land north of West Yellowstone, according to Frost. She said that animal died with one shot.

Scott McMillion is at scottm@dailychronicle.com

Reader Comments