Rangers kill the baby bison some stupid tourists moved into their car at Yellowstone

boing
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They neglected to mention that they were the tourist.

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Do they at least sell them for meat or something?

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Except the first story mentions that alreadyā€¦ :slight_smile:

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Baby Bison arenā€™t much known for striking off on their own to find their own fame and fortune by themselves. If the herd rejected it, what do you suggest? Make it someoneā€™s pet? Make it suffer the rest of its life in a zoo?

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So the people get a ticket, and the bison calf gets the death penalty?

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Do you really think you know more about wildlife management than the park service?

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DOH! There totes needs to be an egg-on-my-face emoji! :smiley:

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Thatā€™s quite normal. Are you new to the internet?

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Not again!

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Wait, Rob Ford is dead?

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32

Shall we start a thread?

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When I read the original story I wondered how in heck the rangers managed to re-integrate it with the herd. Well, this answers that questionā€¦

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Does anyone know why bison are so touchy about species-traitor calves?

Itā€™s hard to imagine that a whiff of idiot-tourist is enough to drown out the scent of a bison enough to prevent identification; and Iā€™m not seeing the survival advantage to rejecting otherwise undamaged young that have a bit of some unfamiliar scent on them. Are they just not that bright? Are the Yellowstone psy-ops wolves actually masters of disguise who can infiltrate the herd with ruthless efficiency?

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There was that time we killed them all. But I donā€™t think itā€™s that, becase we killed them all. /s

I submit that the tourists that did this were from an equatorial region.


cause it ainā€™t cold in May.

So these poor dunderheads were probably freezing their nuts off themselves when they woke and donned some layers of cotton, which did nothing, and thought the trucks heating system was a true miracle for the relief it provided on their way to see the Yellowstones theyā€™d heard were around somewhere.

Then they see this cute calf, so soon after their own near death encounter with theā€¦cold, of Yellowstone in May.

I can relate, not to being that clueless around wildlife, but to the cold sensitivity. I first visted Canada (after being much south of there all my life) in the sunny month of June long ago, in Ontario, and was shocked, shocked I tell you, that my cotton hoodie was insufficient for the wee hours of early morn.

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Rob Ford was from Toronto, not Buffalo.

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I feel I can speak for Rob Ford because heā€™s dead and I use his picture as an avatar, so I have some authority on such matters.

While Rob was not from Buffalo he could certainly relate with buffalo, and indeed Buffalonians.

Furthermore it is well known that he liked to get wildly drunk and visit china shops, much to the dismay of salesclerks selling china and crystal stemware everywhere.

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38

Far as I know, itā€™s all donated to Native Americans after slaughter. Several tribes also have treaties that allow them to hunt in the area, so some of the bison killed are killed directly by them, rather than by the government.

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39

Well, I hope that this is not going to be controversial, but there is a big issue with infectious diseases and bison, especially the Yellowstone herd. There are issues with transmission of disease between bison and elk, as well as cattle and sheep. And the near extinction of the animals in North America has led to the surviving herds lacking genetic diversity, which makes them more susceptible to disease. So the project of bringing back the bison is not a simple one. I love bison, and it would be great if I had a big herd of them. We have done a lot with growing native grasses, and suppressing introduced ones. But bison is much too big of a project for me, at least with the current available stock. I have also seen what happens when disease runs through a bison herd, which is something that happened on a neighborā€™s property. it is absolutely heartbreaking, and there is serious debate about how long it will be until those pastures are safe again. After the bison started dying, cattle and horses started dying as well.
It is sort of like the situation with chestnut trees. The answer to bringing back the chestnut is not to just plant a million seedlings. All that would happen is that they would grow for a little while, then just serve as vehicles for producing lots more of the blight fungus. Then they die.
Nature is complicated, restoring depleted species is not something to be undertaken without careful research. Even then, there are likely to be unexpected cascading effects.

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Iā€™d like to leave that decision up to the professionals, not those who need professionals.

WHO THE FUCK RAISED SUCH IDIOTS

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Brucellosis is a distraction. The area elk carry brucellosis (and unlike bison, actually transmit it to cattle) and yet ranchers are perfectly fine with them being on their land because they can use them to make money off hunters.

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