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Elk Brucellosis Park Co.
"Working Group"
6
foot tall fences, elk and private hunting parties? I dont know what
they call that here in Montana, but back in Texas, we called it
"Game Ranching". |
Below are
the pages for the 3 meetings of the Park County Elk Brucellosis
"Working Group" This is a major Public Trust and North American Model of Wildlife Conservation conflict. |
Elk Brucellosis Modifications FWP Commission Public Comments
My
public comment objection email, Feb. 13, 2014, to the FWP Commission
Please contact the FWP Commissioners (contact at
bottom), they approved the adoption,
to submit your public comments before March 21, 2014
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Helena FWP is advocating this agenda, as they have each stage of this program to the FWP Commissioners, bypassing the need for the required Environmental Review that scientific wildlife management is based on. FWP Helena's Proposed Motion - "I move to adopt the proposed 2014 annual work plan modifications for the brucellosis-related elk management tools in the Paradise Valley as presented by FWP." NOT FWP WORK GROUPS
- Email to FWP Quentin Kujula about "local working group" January 28, 2014 Meeting with Audio File Dr. Mark Albrecht, DVM, ...does lethal removal minimize the risk of transmission? You may disperse those elk, and if youre talking about 6-10 elk, youre putting a fetus on the ground between May 1st and May 15th. You just put brucellosis on the ground. Im sure that caution would be used to the best it could, but caution really needs to be used well to make sure that theres not an opportunity for livestock having contact with where that gut pile is. Because that is an abortion. An abortion is how this is transmitted, its not commingling, its the abortion event and that lethal removal is an abortion event." December 18, 2013 Meeting with Audio File
November 7, 2013 Meeting with Audio File
Background Timeline and Information on FWP Elk Management in Areas with Brucellosis FWP Elk Management in Areas with Brucellosis 2014 Work Plan 2014 Elk Work Plan Public Comments Supreme Court of Montana. State V. C. R. Rathbone decision, "Montana is one of the few areas in the nation where wild game abounds. It is regarded as one of the greatest of the state's natural resources, as well as the chief attraction for visitors. Wild game existed here long before the coming of man. One who acquires property in Montana does so with notice and knowledge of the presence of wild game and presumably is cognizant of its natural habits. Wild game does not possess the power to distinguish between fructus naturales and fructus industriales, and cannot like domestic animals be controlled through an owner. Accordingly a property owner in this state must recognize the fact that there may be some injury to property or inconvenience from wild game for which there is no recourse." C.R. Rathbone was convicted for shooting an elk, out of season, for eating the grass at his ranch.) |
Montana Legislative Services Division - Legal Services Office, Legislative Inquiry into the MT Elk Management In Areas With Brucellosis finding - "Based on a review of the foregoing information, it appears that there is no specific reference in the Montana Code Annotated regarding the Departments's authority to manage elk for purposes of reducing or preventing the transmission of brucellosis between elk and livestock." Dec. 6, 2013 Montana Legislative Services Division, Requested Staff Legal Opinion on the Application of MEPA to the Department of Livestock's Designated Surveillance Area for Brucellosis Official Order - "The DOL is not a state agency that is exempted from MEPA. The DOL Order is an action that is defined under MEPA and the DOL's administrative rules and the DOL Order likely is not exempted or excluded from MEPA review...Based on this unfortunately lengthy but necessary legal analysis, the DOL's Order probably should have been subjected to the MEPA review process" Feb. 25, 2010 Wildlife
Biologist Objections Please Contact the FWP Director, Deputy Director and FWP Commissioners (below) to protest this APHIS/DOL, political, livestock management out of our Montana Elk Management. According to Montana Department of Livestock's State Veterinarian, Dr. Marty Zaluski's testimony, based on the responsible science, "The chance that any one Montana animal (context was cattle) is brucellosis positive is 0.00024%." Not all cases of brucellosis in cattle and domestic bison in Montana (or the other 2 GYA states), since 2008 (when genetics advanced to determine), have been due to elk. Wildlife Management should be based on current, responsible, ethical science; not special interest groups greed, socialized agriculture, politics and the APHIS brucellosis eradication in our wildlife agenda holding the 3 GYA states of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana hostage by forcing them to capitulate to a Brucellosis Management Plan and Memorandum of Understanding, in order to receiven the Brucellosis Class Free Status. This does not have to be an "us against them" situation. We can have a healthy livestock industry and wildlife managed wildlife in Montana, for the benefit of a stronger, prosperous Montana. WILDLIFE
are not livestock, |
Where's The Wildlife Management Science? Park County and DSA Science and Stats Northern park elk population still dropping Bison EA PG. 49 Elk HD 313 Widlife Biology Information FWP Region 3 Wildlife Biologist DSA Elk Comments 2013 Elk Winter Count Estimates Chart Highlighted 2013 Elk HD Map with 2013 Elk Winter Counts Highlighted Changes in Elk Resource Selection and Distributions Associated With a Late-Season Elk Hunt 2010 2013 Winter Elk Counts HD Chart This chart is from the FWP website. I have taken zero as the baseline, anything below the objective number is highlighted yellow and the negative number written beside it in red. If it is less than 100 above, that is noted in black. This information was then plotted on a MT Ek HD map below. That way you can see the massive islands of connected yellow. Park County Elk Survey 2013 Chart this chart was supplied by FWP wildlife biologist when I requested it. I have taken a screenshot and added the stats in red. HD 313, where kill permits were issued to the Kinkies (spring of 2013, they did not use them, said elk moved on) is under objective -25%. The Yearling Bull count is .56%. In Hunt District 317, where the dispersal kill occured at the ranches, it is -16% under objective, with YRL Bull count .9%. There were no cow/calf counts done in HD's 314, 317, 315. Park County Game Damage Complaints from 2007-2012 - I contacted our FWP office and requested the last 6 years of game damage for Region 3 and specifically Park County. I have highlighted Park County/elk. The reason I chose these dates is that 2007 was the year they knew genetically the wildlife brucellosis infecting cattle was from the elk genotype, not the bison. The end date is the last year before this bloody working group program got started in 2013. As you can see, in 6 years, Park Co. had 5 elk complaints. 2007 - 1, 2008 - 3, 2010 - 1. The last 2 years there were none. So if elk are such a horrific problem there, why did the ranchers not contact FWP, file complaints under game damage and utilize public hunter access to mediate some of this conflict? Yet in Nov. 2012, when this elk brucellosis
draft Proposed Recommendations was going through,
they already had a rancher put in a request under this program,
with no public hunter access. Then in Jan. 2013, days before the
Proposed Recommendations were voted on the 10th, 4 Paradise Valley
ranchers put in dispersal hunt requests for their ranches, again,
with no public hunter access and several more stack fencing requests.
The Durgans wanted more than the 2000.00 saying they had larger
stacks. Then the Kinkies wanted kill permits. All of this is funded
by FWP sportsmens dollars, all of this with out public hunter access
and all outside of legally mandated game damage. For what? A 0.00024%
chance of elk transmission risk? If there really was an elk problem
before, why does it not show up in the previous years game damage
complaints? Years when they already knew that elk were the transmitters
of the brucellosis, not the bison? Whats worse, is not all the cases
of brucellosis in cattloe, since 2008 when they have been tracking
the gentypes, have been from elk. Papers published on the subject
showed cattle vaccine blooms and cattle brucellosis cases, not just
elk (they were the same genetic biovar, Biovar 1). I had to FOIA
test results. And this is not just limited to MT, it has occurred
in the WY and ID outbreaks, as well. Region 3 Block Management Map Please note that there is only one Block Management participant, not one of the Park County ranchers UYWB working group. Block Management allows public hunter access, which could help move elk, due to hunting pressure, off of the private lands where cattle conflict could occur. Blow up of Park County Outfitters leasing Private Lands Map This is a blow up of the an outfitter leasing private lands map, with the Park County section, HWY 89 area, clearly having multiple outfitter leasings of private land.
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