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Emergency: Devastating Bills Declare War on Montana Bison

Jamie Rappaport Clark, Defenders of Wildlife

March 5, 2013

It’s the latest threat to wild bison conservation.

All we have worked for could be severely compromised if a batch of bad bison bills passes through Montana’s state legislature. Some of Montana’s most extreme anti-wildlife legislators are attempting to make restoration of wild bison to the Great Plains nearly impossible.

We are pulling out all the stops to defeat these anti-bison attacks.

Please help with an emergency donation to support our wild bison restoration efforts – and save other wildlife in danger.

A Massive Assault on Bison

The worst of the bills, SB 143, would:

Order Montana officials to "immediately" kill or remove all wild bison migrating into Montana;

Prohibit wild bison relocation anywhere in Montana except to the National Bison Range - where wild bison are already located;

Establish a bison hunt "statewide and at any time of the year;" and

Allow landowners to shoot wild bison on private land.

To add insult to injury:

SB 256 would make Montana’s wildlife agency liable for any property damage from wild bison, a precedent meant to financially prohibit bison restoration;

SB 341 would require Montana’s wildlife agency to navigate a massive list of additional hurdles prior to relocation of any wildlife species and prohibit relocation if the species could impact livestock grazing, clearly intended to prevent bison relocation; and

HB 396 would attempt to give county commissioners veto power over bison restoration within their counties - even on tribal lands and our federal public lands.

Our Plan for Bison

Defenders of Wildlife’s Rockies and Plains team is working overtime to turn back this cruel assault on bison recovery.

We’re working with a diverse coalition of tribes and conservation organizations to testify against these bills and mobilize opposition; we’re getting word out to the media to bring attention to these bills; and we’re organizing Montanans to show up at the Montana capitol, make phone calls and send emails to exert grassroots pressure on legislators and the governor.

Our efforts are beginning to pay off. Three of the eight anti-bison bills are now dead. But five more remain a threat to wild bison in Montana -- and we need your help more than ever to continue this critical work.

Last year, we helped relocate 61 pure wild bison from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. It was the start of an historic effort to restore Yellowstone bison to key places in the Great Plains – an effort that is now in jeopardy, unless we can turn back this latest assault. Please help today!

Help stave off this cruel assault on bison recovery!