A Victory for Wild Bison: Yellowstone Decides Against Remote Vaccination Plan
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

Buffalo Field Campaign
January 2014

Remote vaccination is a costly, ineffective, time-consuming project that would have had significant negative impacts on bison behavior, natural disease resistance and immunity, the visitor experience of bison within Yellowstone National Park.

A dance of celebration! No biobullets for these beautiful beings!
BFC file photo by Stephany
Click for larger image

Buffalo gained another small victory this week. Yellowstone National Park announced their final decision on an Environmental Assessment for remotely vaccinating wild bison with bio-bullets containing the experimental livestock brucellosis vaccine, RB51, which has never been approved for use in wild bison. Many of you commented on this EA and we sincerely thank you for your time and effort. Remote vaccination is a costly, ineffective, time-consuming project that would have had significant negative impacts on bison behavior, natural disease resistance and immunity, the visitor experience of bison within Yellowstone National Park, and other negative impacts as outlined in this joint letter [PDF] from Buffalo Field Campaign and Western Watersheds Project.

Your comments influenced the Park's decision, so we hope you'll take a moment to celebrate this good news! Pat yourself on the back with one hand, and with the other, keep pressure applied to prevent Yellowstone from following through with other harmful plans. While bison will be safe from remote vaccination, the Park Service says they will continue to administer RB51 when bison are captured. However, Yellowstone says that this year it is unlikely that any captured bison will be vaccinated, because they will be handed over to tribal interests for direct shipment to slaughter.

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