Montana approves revised bison hunt

BILLINGS – Six months after canceling a planned bison hunt because of concerns about bad publicity, Montana’s wildlife commission has approved a revised hunt of bison that leave Yellowstone National Park, beginning this fall.

The hunt will allow up to 50 bison to be killed over a three-month period in southern Montana, a spokesman for the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks said Friday.

In January, the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission canceled an abbreviated hunt – which would have been the state’s first for bison in over a decade – after Gov. Brian Schweitzer expressed concern about potential damage to the state’s reputation.

Tom Palmer, a department spokesman, said the commission gave tentative approval on Thursday to selling 25 either-sex bison licenses for use between Nov. 15, 2005, and Jan. 15, 2006, and another 25 licenses for use from Jan. 16 to Feb. 15. The total includes one bison allocated to each of the state’s eight Indian tribes during each of those periods, he said.

The proposal would also expand the hunting area by about 34,000 acres, including lands near West Yellowstone and the park’s western boundary, said Pat Flowers, a regional supervisor with the department. The month-long hunt scrapped last winter involved about 124,000 acres, including along the northern border and in the upper Gallatin. But bison aren’t as likely to be found in the upper Gallatin, he said.

“The acreage in itself doesn’t tell the story,” Flowers said. “It’s in the acreage that bison use.”

Officials plan to take public comment on the plan.

Flowers said the agency is committed to ensuring a fair chase hunt and believes that steps proposed, such as expanding the area and limiting and spreading out the number of hunters, helps achieve that.

“We’re as well positioned as we can be to offer a legitimate hunt,” he said.

Craig Sharpe, executive director of the Montana Wildlife Federation, said his group’s board still must review the commission’s proposal. But he believes it will support the plan. Having two time periods and fewer hunters on the ground at one time are positives, he said.

But Mike Mease, coordinator for the Buffalo Field Campaign, said allowing the hunt, without allowing bison from the park to roam freely in the state, would be a “huge liability and a joke.”