Yellowstone Trails Lead Bison to Slaughter - Lawsuit Seeks to Save American Icon

As the snowmobile season begins in Yellowstone National Park, The Fund For Animals, Bluewater Network and other groups filed suit in Washington D.C. challenging the National Park Service's (NPS) one-two punch against Yellowstone's magnificent bison herd -- grooming
snow-packed roads that facilitate bison leaving Yellowstone, and then participating in the slaughter of those very animals when they leave the Park.

"It is time for NPS to stop leading Yellowstone bison to their slaughter, by grooming the very trails that help bison find their way out of the Park each winter," said Michael Markarian, president of The Fund for Animals. "If NPS is not going to heed the judge's call for closing some of these trails, we have no choice but to ask the Court to order NPS to do so."

The Humane Society of the United States will become a plaintiff in the suit on January 1, 2005, when The HSUS and the Fund join forces to create the world's largest animal protection organization.

Just a year ago, a federal district court judge found that the NPS was ignoring "studies indicating that winter park use, and especially trail grooming, has lead to major changes in bison migration patterns," and ruled that, in light of these studies, it is "damning that the NPS has failed to close a single road to trail grooming" or take other steps to deal with this
problem. Although the Judge ordered the agency to finally deal with this issue, instead the NPS has decided to maintain the status quo for the next three winter seasons, grooming the entire 180 miles of winter snow-packed system through the heart of Yellowstone -- even though, since 1985, more than 3,200 Yellowstone bison who have left the Park have been gunned down or trucked to slaughterhouses.

Trail grooming involves the use of heavy equipment that prepares Yellowstone's snow-covered roads for use by snowmobiles and other uses. Bison also travel along the groomed trails in the park, enabling them to conserve energy and search for food sources outside the park boundaries.

"NPS must stop its duplicitous treatment of the bison," said D.J. Schubert, wildlife biologist for The Fund for Animals. "The agency can't keep taking the very actions that facilitate bison migration -- trail grooming --and at the same time be part of a coalition that kills the bison when they leave the Park. If they just lined them up and shot them everyone would be
outraged, but these misguided policies are tantamount to the same thing, and must come to an end."

The Fund for Animals and others originally sued the government over this issue in 1997, and in a Settlement the NPS agreed to study the issue. More than seven years later NPS has still not addressed the issue, and bison continue to die in the meantime. Although the present suit does not seek to enjoin any trail grooming this winter season, The Fund intends to seek trail
closures when the case is resolved on the merits later this year.

A copy of The Fund For Animals filing is available on-line at: http://www.fund.org/uploads/YellowstoneTrailGroomingComplaint.pdf.

The plaintiffs in the case are represented by Howard Crystal of the Washington, D.C. public interest law firm Meyer & Glitzenstein.