Efforts redoubled to protect Yellowstone.

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Publication: National Parks

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Publication Date: 0000-00-00

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Abstract: Informs about the success of the efforts of NPCA to protect the Yellowstone National Park. Details of the same; Note on the efforts of NPCA to defeat a plan to slaughter wildlife in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. Ongoing efforts by NPCA to protect Yellowstone National Park have begun to reap positive rewards, but the proposed New World Mine and a plan to slaughter area wildlife continue to jeopardize the park's exceptional resources. In February, NPCA brought together 14 conservation groups to request that the World Heritage Committee consider adding Yellowstone to the "World Heritage in Danger" list. As a result, the committee is sending an international team of park experts to Yellowstone this summer to investigate the threats posed by the mine. "The world is watching to see if the United States will make sure to preserve our first national park unimpaired," said Terri Martin, NPCA Rocky Mountain regional director. Widespread opposition from NPCA and others has generated objections to the mine at the highest levels of government. When he visited Montana in May, President Clinton said, "No amount of gain that could come from [the mine] could possibly offset any permanent damage to Yellowstone." Yellowstone Superintendent Mike Finley has also come out strongly against the mine. "[Noranda does not] have a right to mine in a manner that destroys property owned by the American public," Finley told the Enterprise, a Rocky Mountain newspaper. The project would include a 75-acre tailings impoundment to store an estimated 5.5 million tons of acidic mine waste. If the impoundment were to fail, this waste would spill toward the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River, which has been named one of the most endangered rivers in the United States. Calling the impoundment "an environmental disaster waiting to happen," Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.Mex.) was planning at press time to introduce a bill in mid-June that would safeguard the headwaters of the Yellowstone from the enormous threat posed by the mine. NPCA is also working to defeat a plan to slaughter thousands of bison and elk in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks to eliminate the threat of transmitting brucellosis to area livestock. Brucellosis is a disease that causes cattle to abort their young. Although the transmission of the disease from wildlife to cattle in the wild has never been proven, local ranchers say that the wholesale slaughter of bison is the only solution. In May Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) sponsored legislation that calls for rounding up all Yellowstone bison and testing them for brucellosis. If they test positive, they will be killed or neutered, although research has shown that only a fraction of animals that test positive actually has the disease. The Montana Department of Livestock says the plan should include the region's elk as well. "These unjustifiably extreme proposals constitute an intolerable attack on bison and elk and on our national parks as sanctuaries for wildlife," said Martin. "Reasonable measures exist to guard against any possible risk." These measures include vaccinating cattle and temporarily keeping them off the winter ranges and calving areas of bison and elk that occur on public lands. PHOTO CAPTION NPCA continues to work to protect the Yellowstone River from the New World Mine.

Keywords: animal, mammal, wildlife, management, population, mortality, Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, bison, Bison bison, elk, wapiti, Cervidae, Cervus elaphus, disease, brucellosis, livestock, human activity