Ignorance must be such sweet bliss for anyone who visits Yellowstone National Park and thinks the wildlife they see there represents fully recovered populations of some of North America’s most endangered species. Sorry to say, one park does not a recovered species make. For all its size, spectacularity and relative biodiversity, Yellowstone is little more than an island in an anthropogenic wasteland to much of its megafauna.
If ranchers and hunters had their way, wolves and grizzlies would be restricted to the confines of the park. Ranchers already have such a death-grip on Montana’s wildlife that bison are essentially marooned and forced to stay within park borders, battling snow drifts no matter how harsh the winter, despite an instinctual urge to migrate out of the high country during heavy snow winters.
Though Yellowstone is synonymous with the shaggy bovines, bison would prefer to spend their winters much further downriver, on…
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My son and his American family are planning a trip to Yellowstone in June and I’m joining them – but so anxious about it. Also coming along is my daughter-in-law’s father who loves hunting:( Bison have suffered at the hands of man for so long. There are those horrendous photos of mountains of slain animals from the 1870s and this is what Wiki says: In the 16th century, North America contained 25-30 million buffalo.[6] Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century. Less than 100 remained in the wild by the late 1880s.[6] When will man wake up?!?
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Absolutely horrendous! It’s an abomination what mankind has done to these animals. I hope you have a great trip, let me know how it goes! That guy should be so ashamed.
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