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Yellowstone National Park Bison Unhappy With Photo Shoot Tosses Pennsylvania Boy

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Yellowstone National Park bison, while decidedly photogenic, should not be used as props in family photos. NPS photo.

A 12-year-old Pennsylvania boy has been hospitalized after a Yellowstone National Park bison, evidently perturbed that he was part of a family photo shoot, tossed the boy about 10 feet into the air.

While park regulations dictate that visitors get no closer than within 25 yards of bison, and no more than 100 yards of bears and wolves, the family reportedly was standing within 2 feet of the bison while trying to take the picture this morning. Visitors reportedly warned the family they were too close to the bison.

The incident occurred just off the trail adjacent to the Uncle Tom’s Trail parking lot along the South Rim Drive of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

The bull’s horns did not puncture the boy, and the only outward injuries he suffered were abrasions possibly received from hitting the ground after the fall. However, the boy complained of abdominal pain and so was transported by ambulance to the Lake Clinic and then flown to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.

The name and hometown of the injured juvenile aren’t being released. His current condition is not available.

Comments

Cindy K.,

We look forward to some hard numbers from NPS. What we have seen are counts that NPS sends out that say right up front that they are not population estimates. We would like to see those estimates and transparency on the method used to determine undercount.

Even by what's coming out from the NPS press office, the numbers were at 2100 (a handy number for the IBMP), which is still significantly over half the herd dead from the previous fall.

As for the emotions of buffalo, I am not qualified to say. I have heard others who have said that buffalo will return to the same site that loved ones died for years after the fact and seen video footage suggesting as much. There's no doubt that the boy and the family violated the bison's sense of space. Now, if only the Park Service and the IBMP partners would stop doing the same. Then, we wouldn't have these kinds of discussions.

We look forward to a direct conversation with park staff about what's happening with buffalo. It's better than being ignored and having the slaughter and hazing program continue.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World


A p.s. on this,

It also behoove us to have a frank discussion of the facts, the legal requirements, and the ethics of the situation without the kind of thing in your response to me. Your appeal to your authority as a ranger is not relevant to establishing the facts about actual bison numbers and the issues of right and wrong regarding the bison slaughter and hazing policy. My being a carpetbagger is also not relevant to the issue either - I don't and never would claim to have all the information regarding the bison - certainly not from five years working for a park concessionaire selling junk mostly made overseas. One's appeal to authority or the ad hominem used to show that someone is not an authority is not relevant; what is relevant is the policy itself, how that policy is actually affecting buffalo, and whether that policy is right or wrong.

Is it right or wrong that 1,613 buffalo were either sent to slaughter or hunted during the past winter? Outside of the buffalo killed by Native Americans asserting their treaty rights, all the others killed were ostensibly under the management of IBMP partners, most of which this winter happened at the Stephen's Creek capture facility? Is that factually correct? Even the Montana hunt was directed by the FWP, an IBMP partner.

Is it right or wrong that another 100 plus buffalo calves were sent to the quarantine facility near Corwin Springs?

Is it right or wrong that hundreds of buffalo were held for much of the spring in the Stephens Creek capture facility inside of Yellowstone National Park? Were they fed hay? Were buffalo born there? How many miscarriages were there?

Is it right or wrong that more than half the herd from the previous fall is now dead? What are those numbers? Where is the research and the methodology used to determine those numbers? Our group has not posted an exact number - statements from me are not statements for the group. Robert Hoskins reports that non-park people doing their own counts - whose methodology I also haven't seen - are coming up with numbers are lower than the 2,100 that have come out from the Park Service. It would be helpful for us carpetbaggers - as well as local people who have worked on this issue for decades in some instances - to have access to those facts so we don't have to trust the word of someone simply based on their ranger experience.

Now, I have a genuine legal question I don't have the answer to - what is the contractual obligation of the NPS under the IBMP? What I mean is, can NPS pull out of the IBMP? What are the penalties for pulling out? How does the IBMP ever end?

And, here's another question that might either be scientific or ethical or both - is numbers the only way to measure damage to the bison herds? You criticized me for anthropomorphizing buffalo, and yet that only begs the question of what effects slaughter, hazing, herd reduction and disruption, and winter have on the psychology of bison and the sociology of bison herds. What is the disruption, what is the damage, how might that affect the behavior of individual bison? What studies can you point to so that we could be better informed about this? If I shouldn't see a connection between the context of what happens to the buffalo by the government in the winter and what happens with tourists in the summer, then you point to me research why that is. And, ethically speaking, what other damage is at stake here in understanding the IBMP?

We can have this discussion, the moron carpetbagger and the group he belongs to and the seasoned veteran ranger and the National Park Service - we would welcome that discussion. The more that people understand what's going on, what could be going on, and what should be going on, then we'd all be better off.

In the meantime, we all agree that families from Pennsylvania and elsewhere should not be posing for pictures 1 to 2 feet from buffalo for the safety of themselves, the animals, and a whole host of other reasons as well. Still, I fail to see why I shouldn't be curious whether there's more to this story than that. Why shouldn't we wonder if there isn't also a connection to the summer buffalo annoyed by tourists to that same winter buffalo suffering under the IBMP.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World


Cindy K;
And where do you come from? What kind of 'education' school of hard knocks or other wise gives you the 'authority' to ridicule ANYONE?
Those Bison are conditioned year after year by 'you' Rangers, and DOL agents to despise any form of humans, with the incessant hazing and harassment of these majestic animals. I have lived with and among these animals (grizzlies included) for over 40 years, and I have to tell you they are way smarter than most humans, and especially the "Park Rangers". Your type of attitude does NOT belong in a National Park that is SWORN to PROTECT that which is within it's boundaries.
WHY didn't the Park TEST those Bison they so quickly hauled to the slaughterhouse? In 'your' own IBMP plan it states to test and slaughter ONLY the positive. Had 'you' done that, the supposed Brucellosis problem in the Bison could have been reduced. Instead 'you' slaughtered everything 'you' could get your 'hands' on. How is that PROTECTING? How is that Scientific?
The Park Service is nothing more than a pawn in the Cattleman Association's game. The Park service (when it comes to protecting the animals) are WORTHLESS.

Editor's note: Parts of this comment were deleted for gratuitous personal attacks. Everyone should focus their comments on substantive issues and not resort to personal attacks just because of a difference of opinion. Failing to maintain civility does no good.


KDoyle, I completely agree with you!


My feelings echo those of the previous contributors in that whoever made the decision to stand so close to the bison was the definition of stupidity. The question I have is who paid for the airlift and subsequent medical transportation? I would hope that the NPS sent any bill to the family as they were entirely responsible for this incident.


Gee, Cindy and Ann: Please Chill Out ! All this hostility cannot improve your objectivity. Ann, the NPS is NOT just a pawn of the Cattleman Association, as they are boxed in by a hostile Administration in the White House, whose favorite Governors are actively undermining NPS authority. So it is not an easy political environment for anyone to work in, especially people by profession NOT trained to be smart politically. And Cindy, you are a public servant, and need to develop some empathy for people devoted to your park. They cannot all be like you, and it undermines the Service when Rangers appear to be people-hating. Learn to temper your remarks, and try using some gentleness or a sense of humor.

The enemy are people who don't care, not those who do.


d-2; then you're telling me that if brucellosis wasn't a cattle disease the Park would still just slaughter at will? I think not. They are killing bison because of the cattle and for no other reason. In my opinion, they are being used by the cattlemen's association, and the Stock Growers, as pawns in the all out war to eliminate any competition for grass. Although this is really the wrong place to discuss the idotic policy of APHIS, it is more about the idiotic practices of tourists, and the Park Service allowing it to go unpunished. A thousand dollar fine per person involved in that 'photo' shoot would be a good start in sending a message to visitors, that there are rules in that Park and they are there for a reason.


One other point on this d-2, don't be too quick to put this only on Bush; this process started in earnest under Clinton. In terms of Montana's involvement, it's happened under both Republican and Democratic regimes. This is less about who rules the political machinery and a lot more about who controls the levers of that machinery. In Montana, the livestock industry has disproportionate political leverage based on their numbers and their value to the economy; in the IBMP, they control APHIS. As long as NPS as an agency - regardless of president - does not take a stronger stand against the industry, it's fair to say of it that it's a pawn. It's not a piece exercising it's own power; it's being exercised by someone else. In this case, facts show that livestock interests are controlling the politics and the pawns on the board.

But, the question remains - what is the relationship of policy that hurts animals and herd units in the winter with what they do in the summer. It still strikes me as hypocritical - not that hypocrites shouldn't speak - to call for tourists to stay away from wildlife when the agencies involved don't do the same and in fact bother them in much more profound ways. Of course, tourists should stay away from bison whether a hypocrite tells you or someone else; however, it does bring to light what else is wrong.

Jim Macdonald
The Magic of Yellowstone
Yellowstone Newspaper
Jim's Eclectic World


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