Half of Yellowstone National Park's bison dead!

[Heather]

GARDINER, Montana (CNN) -- More than half of Yellowstone National Park's bison herd has died since last fall, forcing the government to suspend its annual slaughter program.


Between harsh weather, hunting and an annual cull, fully half of Yellowstone National Park's bison have died.

1 of 3 More than 700 of the iconic animals starved or otherwise died on the mountainsides during an unusually harsh winter, and more than 1,600 were shot by hunters or sent to slaughterhouses in a disease-control effort, according to National Park Service figures.

As a result, the park estimates its bison herd has dropped from 4,700 in November to about 2,300 today, prompting the government to halt the culling program early.

Full story at cnn.com

[myronman3]

wonder what the mortality rate would have been if no animals had been hunted?  someone will try to spin this to suit the anti's.......... "evil hunters kill bison, over half of the herd is dead!!!!"  and the rest of the facts will be omitted.

[FourBee]

Hey Heather:
  Seeing your Topic, I thought it may be in relation to this article I read........

January 11, 2005
Data from the Idaho Observer

Yellowstone National Park, WY
The once clear cold 40 degree water of   Yellowstone Lake is heating up.      The 300ft deep, 139 square mile lake sits 7000 feet above sea level in the northwest corner of Wyoming.     Floating dead fish cover the surface, killed by rising temperatures and deadly gases.      At 65 feet below the surface, the water is 88 degrees.      Animals are migrating out of the Park.      A 28 mile long , 7 mile wide 5"inch high bulge in the ground was noticed in August of 2003, with ground temperatures of 200 degrees.

[deltecs]

Keep broadcasting this temperature increase will only support Gores global warming, or now politically correct term of climate change, due mans' toxic waste.  Might be a good place for thermal energy source.

[magooch]

Sounds to me like Jellystone might be a good place to be--away from--the further the better.  It is a hot-bed of thermal activity, which has popped off before and it will probably do it again--just like Mt. St. Helens that is situated about 40 miles east of me.

[Moss88hunter]

I watched something on National Geographic that was about this. It said that the bison would go to these geothermal vents to stay warm in the winter. The problem was that some of these vents release toxic vapors and that was what was killing many of them.

Evan

[Graybeard]

Yellowstone is the site of one of the most powerful super volcanoes of all time. Scientist generally accept that another is inevitable it's really a matter of when not if it will happen. Of course that might be thousands or even tens of thousands of years away but then it could happen today as well.

[Aardvark]

Any time is right..I was there in Kelso Washington when St Helens blew.
She gave us plenty of warning in the form of bulging slopes, ash vent, etc...
All this was the geothermal energy creeping towards the surface...
maybe Old Faithful is giving those same alarms.
As my old Daddy once said--"I ain't lost nothing there and I ain't going there looking for it".

[FourBee]

WOW !
   That thing is HUGE....................

[Echo4Lima]

You sure its not environmentalist misinformation?