Last Friday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced they will conduct an environmental survey of bison in Yellowstone National Park. This came after a federal judge ruled that the feds did not justify in 2019that the bison don’t need Endangered Species Act protections.
The nonprofit Buffalo Field Campaign filed the original lawsuit. Their executive Director James Holt said they will be following the investigation closely.
“We're going to initiate our own threats analysis, so that we can parallel the Fish and Wildlife Service process to ensure that to the best of our knowledge,” he said “They're doing it holistically and appropriately because we won twice in a row now, because they've failed to adequately uphold our public trust.”
Holt said he is very disappointed with how the federal government treats bison.
“It's a shame the way that America allows the Fish and Wildlife Service to continue to mismanage the species and push that onto the National Park Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said.
Holt said Buffalo Field Campaign is against the slaughter of bison in the park, but he added that this does not include the yearly tribal buffalo hunts that happen just outside the park.
