Marion Williams: Want bison stay put? Then ban snowmobiles
Re “Yellowstone bison herd culled to meet tight cap” (Page 6A, Aug. 16): The marvelous American Bison is a migrating animal for good reason.
The lush valleys are under 20 feet of snow in the winter. That is when there should be well maintained feeding stations to “keep them in.” What needs to be kept out are the 1.5 million snowmobiles that enter Yellowstone annually. The animals are majorly disturbed by that noise, and keep running all day long, loosing all their winter fat.
Many hundreds, it says, are chased into trucks and hauled to slaughterhouses. All the hungry ones who leave the park in search of a milder climate are the smart ones, but they can’t pass on their genes if hunted.
The article mentions this Yellowstone program is steeped in politics. It looks like the Islamic State militants could do a better job.
Marion Williams, Modesto
This story was originally published August 27, 2015 at 2:10 PM with the headline "Marion Williams: Want bison stay put? Then ban snowmobiles."