From the National Park Service
Why don’t you allow native predators to control bison numbers?
- Yellowstone National Park supports an abundant and diverse association of large predators, including black bears, coyotes, grizzly bears, mountain lions, and wolves. These predators occasionally kill bison, but primarily feed on elk even though winter abundance in Yellowstone has decreased about 75% since wolves were restored in 1995. As a result, predation has had a minor influence on bison population dynamics.
- Bison are massive and often defend against wolves as a group, which makes them more difficult to attack than smaller elk that often run when attacked. As a result, wolves in Yellowstone National Park prefer elk and only tend to kill significant numbers of bison during winters with deep and prolonged snow pack that make malnourished animals more abundant and susceptible. Thus, it is unlikely predators will begin to regulate bison numbers to much lower densities in the near future.
- What is the current bison population?
- Why are bison being removed from the population?
- How will the bison be removed from the population?
- Why are bison being shipped to meat processing facilities?
- Why can’t you harvest bison through hunting instead of shipping them to meat processing facilities?
- Why don’t you just keep all the bison within Yellowstone National Park?
- Are the bison leaving Yellowstone National Park because it is overgrazed?
- Why don’t you just let the bison roam freely outside Yellowstone National Park?
- Why don’t you allow native predators to control bison numbers?
- Why can’t you ship bison to other areas or quarantine facilities rather than meat processing facilities?
- What happens to all the meat, hides, horns, etc. from bison shipped to meat processing facilities?
- Why are bison managed differently from other wildlife and not allowed to move freely into Montana and disperse to new areas?
- Are removals of bison and shipments to meat processing facilities precedent setting for national parks?
- What are the economic costs of bison removals from Yellowstone National Park?
- Has the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) been successful at accomplishing its goals?
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