He lay alone all night in the bitter cold with two broken legs before bullets ended his life. Others have been shot in their beds. Twelve were forced onto thin lake ice; they broke through and two drowned while their companions, in utter terror, struggled to pull themselves from the frigid water. Elsewhere, 300 were rounded up on their native soil, inhumanely incarcerated, and sentenced to death. By the end of this week, nearly 800 will have been killed at the hands of the very people charged with their protection.

Does this sound like a planned campaign of persecution and extermination? Perhaps a government-sanctioned attempt to destroy a population? Something that could happen only in a repressive and brutal regime?

Friends, it's happening in America. It's happening in Montana and Yellowstone National Park. It's happening to an American symbol of strength and freedom, to our nation's last wild, free-roaming buffalo, the American bison, who once roamed our land in the tens of millions.



Most Americans are unaware that only 23 bison escaped the mass extermination of the 1870s, finding refuge from extinction in the world's first national park. Yellowstone's bison are the genetically-pure descendants of those 23 survivors, our nation's last continuously-wild herd.

Today, under assault again, they need help from people of conscience. In the park, they are beloved wildlife. But their migratory instinct leads them to lower elevation land in Montana to escape the park's harsh winter. Here they are greeted with capture, quarantine, experimentation, bullets, and slaughter. Family groups are torn apart. Mothers and babies are separated. They suffer terror and injury as they are hazed and harassed relentlessly with snowmobiles, ATVs, helicopters...



Where does this happen? In Yellowstone National Park and on surrounding public land...land belonging to ALL Americans, whether we live near or far.

Who is perpetrating this? The State of Montana. The National Forest Service. Even the National Park Service itself!

Why is this happening? The politically-powerful Montana livestock industry sees bison as competition for grazing resources. They claim that bison will infect their cattle with brucellosis (a bacterial cattle disease), but this has never occurred in the wild, never once since cattle first infected bison in the early 1900s.

Who pays for this? YOU do "the American taxpayer" at over million per year.



What can YOU do? If you do nothing else, pass this message on to your e-mail contacts across the country and around the world. But if you want to learn more, visit http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/action.html

Buffalo Field Campaign volunteers are in the field every day documenting the activities that pass for bison management in Montana (view video footage at the website), and working for the day when these beautiful native creatures are welcomed home onto designated habitat where they are truly free to roam America's public land. Sign up for weekly BFC up-dates at: bfc-media@wildrockies.org Subject line: "Subscribe.

"Want to do more? Consider writing to one or both of the following:

Gov. Brian Schweitzer: (406) 444-3111, http://governor.mt.gov/contact/comments.asp (Montana is responsible for hazing, hunting, capture & quarantine, & slaughter.) In your own words, ask the governor to designate bison habitat and manage bison as America's treasured wildlife using science, not politics.

Suzanne Lewis, Superintendent, Yellowstone (307) 344-2002, suzanne_lewis@nps.gov (Yellowstone is responsible for capture within the park & shipment to slaughter.) In your own words, ask Ms. Lewis to stop killing bison to prevent them from leaving the park, contrary to everything the national park stands for.

Edward Abbey said, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." In defending America's last wild bison, we stand up to greed and dishonesty. We stand up for justice and the enduring qualities embodied in our great nation's symbol of freedom, the magnificent American bison.

KEEP IT GOING! PASS THIS MESSAGE ON



SPREAD THE WORD TO SAVE THE HERD!

Learn More at: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/action.html



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Buffalo Field Campaign

P.O. Box 957

West Yellowstone, MT 59758

406-646-0070

bfc-media@wildrockies.org

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org