"Using the law to protect America’s national mammal would undermine tribal efforts to build new herds."
"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will spend the next year assessing whether to protect Yellowstone bison under the Endangered Species Act — a court-mandated move that could upend recent attempts to reestablish wild herds on tribal reservations across the west.
The decision, published in the federal register by the Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday, stems from a series of lawsuits brought by the Buffalo Field Campaign and the Western Watersheds Project since 2014. Both groups want to see bison numbers in the park rise and hope to halt systematic culling outside Yellowstone National Park, which in some years has claimed more than 1,000 bison.
“Bison are forced into boundaries,” said James Holt, the executive director of the Buffalo Field Campaign. “They’re slaughtered. They’re quarantined. The North American model of wildlife conservation is failing bison and we can do better.”
The decision came as a surprise to many observers of Yellowstone bison, given how well the animals are doing by historical standards."