Stories from the Field

So, I know I posted that video from the biggest haze so far this year, but there are several stories from the last few weeks I'd like to share. The buffalo have only had four days of rest without harassment in the last 5 weeks.

My friend with the gouged eye, two weeks later

Most of the buffalo that have been hazed have been very pregnant females. It was inevitable that some would be trying to give birth on the day that agents on horseback approach forcing them a dozen miles or more from their ancestral calving ground. On one particular day, a momma was IN LABOR when her family group was hazed 13 miles away from their calving ground near the South Fork of the Madison River. After the first 3 miles, blood started to stream from her vagina. Heartbroken, I asked the agents to separate her from the haze, hoping that mother and foetus would be able to face grizzly bears and wolves alone better than a severely traumatic birthing process. Regardless, because the agents decided to haze this group without consideration of the fact that she was OBVIOUSLY in labor when they began the haze amounts to much more than simple neglect; treatment of wild buffalo is more egregious than that of cows. No, this amounts to a malice that has to be seen to be believed. The very next day, the same mother in labor was reunited with her family group back in the land they had started the day before. Two weeks before, I filmed a buffalo whose eye was gouged out. This particular the day, the poor momma was still in labor, and her family was hazed together with the group that was now home to the buffalo with the gouged eye. Six riders pushed these two very vulnerable buffalo and about 50 others some 16 miles that day, from the South Fork of the Madison to Barnes Hold inside Yellowstone National Park.

Momma, her newborn, and a yearling

 

Just four days ago, during the major hazes committed by dozens of agents on horseback, ATVs, and in a helicopter, about 70 buffalo were pushed east along highway 287, down highway 191, and east about 2 miles into the Park. After 12 miles, a mother and calf were separated from her herd by the agents and she was followed by a yearling. Less than a hour later, she was seen approaching 191, back along the route she was hazed. Solely responsible for herself, her newborn, and a yearling, this young mother had panic in her bones. She ran at top speed up 191, her baby and the yearling severely struggling to match her pace. They crossed the road, and followed 287 back the way she came, looking for her family group and driven by the strong instinct that led her to migrate northwest along Hebgen Lake in the first place. For days, we watched with worry as she and her two young companions evaded predators and wandered the area, until a group of 5 adults also returned along the haze route back to the land they belong with.

Racing up 191, panic-stricken

These are things perpetrated by agencies that we pay for with our tax dollars. In the last ten years, $30 MILLION has been spent on the harassment, capture, experimentation, and slaughter of the last wild, genetically intact herd of buffalo. These organizations are the National Park Service, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, Forest Service, USDA's APHIS, and Montana Department of Livestock. The animosity that the hazing agents display towards the buffalo here is the end result of a horrible error in thinking. Human beings have so profoundly lost their connection, dependence, and appreciation of nature and our role on this planet that the life that gives us life is seen calculatedly as a source for profit. The entirety of life is but a nuisance to be tamed or eradicated. From the clear-cutting of old growth trees for timber to the swatting of a fly in your kitchen, from the intoxication of water by fracking to slaughtering coyotes displaced by suburban housing developments, from the Great Pacific Garbage Patches to the hazing of buffalo in and around Yellowstone National Park, human beings perpetuate utter destruction on a daily basis. When you realize the immense scope of the destruction we cause and the intricacies of the system that foments this destruction, be prepared to reconcile with a primal hatred for all of humanity including yourself. While humans have all but decimated the world that created them, we must realize that somehow, some way, this planet and some forms of life will long outlive humans. The question is; do we want to continue to exist here? In my opinion, human existence is so threatened that our species will face major devastation within my lifetime. I for one refuse to hold up the crumbling castle of Civilization, and I will do everything in my power to clean up the messes we've made of this planet, all with a profound love for the good potential in humanity.