please stop commenting on something you know nothing about.

The tree huggers are saving your lungs. Don't you know that trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen? We exhale carbon dioxide. We inhale oxygen that the trees have converted for us. Please go back to school and take your science classes seriously.

While you're at it, take some classes in how to recognize propaganda from the truth. The animals are NOT carrying disease - that is the excuse and spin the exterminators are using.

You gotit, Devildoc. Of course the elk have it as well, but then, the elk have the hunters' lobby fighting for their existence. Too bad no lobby for America's great animal, her ancient bision and without a lobby and the big bucks, which buy America's freedoms -- a lobby! In America, money is God, and without regard to oxygen releasing, the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, the nitrogen cycle, the hydrological system, a regulated and moderated climate and the creation and renewal of a life giving soil to name but a handful of ecological free services provided for this nation by the Earth's biological diversity, just like our native bison. And, it was the hooved locust that introduced this disease, just like giardia, to America's life giving and sustaining systems, her ecosystems.

And, humans do not contact this disease! The slaughter of a animal in the business of oxygen, the atmosphere, food, water and life in exchange for an animal that devours Earth's life and life giving. Insanity!!

No one every shares, that the introduced, non-biological diversity, the "hooved locust"/ the European cow, consumes and kills the Earth's very ecosystems or all the reasons man exists and is breathing. Conversely, America's bison trim the vegetation they consume at a higher level than the hooved locust nor do bison trample stream beds and the Earth like the hooved locust.

When the hard winters occur at Yellowstone, by design or by God Almighty, a female bison leads the herd to a lower, warmer elevation, so they don't starve to death in the frigid winters. This is as natural a migration for survival, steeped in the aeons of America, as the Earth following the warmth of the sun.

How utterly sad and ignorant, that an animal in the eco-nomics of America's life giving and sustaining systems is slaughtered exceedingly cruelly, very wickedly, while one of the Earth's top planet killers is granted welfare ranching. And life. Only a raving idiot kills a vital strand in the web of all life.

So much credibility to America's paper laws and scientific ignorance. The judge has just handed the Earth a death sentence. Let the fools eat swine.

The National Academy of Sciences: The extinction of the Earth's biological diversity, JUST LIKE BISON, AND NOT COWS, is a threat to civilization second only to the threat of thermonuclear war."

I agree this seems like a huge number 560+/ I can understand where they have to maintain a certain number so the whole herd isn't endangered but this number is anywhere from a 1/4 to 1/8th of the herd of 2400 to 4000. I'm sure that this winter and the extremes were also very hard on the entire herd, why can't they just herd them back into the park?

Aunt, excellent and informative post. Every aspect of human life is underpinned to the Earth's ecosystems, like the great Yellowstone ecosystem, and all ecosystems are created, sustained supported and maintained by the richness of their biodiversity, just like America's animal, her bison. What says America, like bison, her oldest mammal!

After Prez Grant gave the order to starve out the plains native Americans by pushing extinct the plains bison, only 6 little babies of bison remained on the Earth, and a Native American sold the 6 tiny babies to some free-thinking ranchers, who knew what was coming and kept the babies secured on their ranches. These 6 babies became the Yellowstone herd, the last wild and free bison in America.

Enough that we had already pushed extinct, the woods bison in the east and one other specie. And, anyone who has participated in this animal atrocity and cruelty, or witnessed it, know, this is a blight on the American conscience and conscious as they are merciless killers, leaving babies orphans, shooting the babies in the legs, a cruelty that would make most normal Americans sick to their stomachs. For they have films of this animal atrocity and the cruelty therein inflicted. Guess the humane societies are afraid of the wealthy ranchers. When does America stand up to this animal cruelty and butchery?

Where's the outcries of America's animal lovers for animal torture and cruetly? Where's the screaming for the atrocity to our Earth because wiping out biodiversity kills the Earth and all she performs for man? Where's the humane societies? Where's the outcries of animal cruelty and viciousness? Bison are biodiversity, a strand in the web of all life, America! Your lives and future!

In my library, I have 2 books I could never finish -- one was about the Native Californians, the other, "The Buffalo Book" that details their close encounter with extinction for eternity. Evil, Americans at their most sadistic and evil...

Please, stop this animal atrocity and sickening cruelty!

common sense seems to be missing in "managing" the bison. but your comment got it right 100%. to deny these animals the right to migrate and forage for food is cruel and frankly stupid. so once again we are talking about the dept of interior. yep the very agency who "manages" drilling licenses on public lands, remember the BP oil spill. it is absurd to kill these animals because of this disease. keep the cattle out of our public lands.