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Family Planning on the Range: The Battle Over Bison Contraceptives
Atlantic ^ | 11-22-11

Posted on 11/22/2011 4:11:22 PM PST by SJackson

Could contraceptives offer protection for the nation's last continuously wild herd of American bison?

At feeding time, residents of the Brogan Bison Facility cluster around a hay bale, blinking at flecks of alfalfa dust that swirl in the air and settle in their shaggy coats. The herd, chewing and lowing, mills in a holding pasture near Corwin Springs, Montana, surrounded by sweeping mountain views and a seven-strand wire fence. Blue-painted squeeze chutes are settled in the dirt nearby, bordered by a swath of prairie grass that stretches for a few miles until it meets the northern border of Yellowstone National Park. This, under a graying sky beginning to spit the first snowflakes of another long winter, is the unlikely center of a contentious debate over birth control.

The bison, gathered after drifting out of Yellowstone earlier this year, are potential subjects of a USDA study of GonaCon, a contraceptive vaccine for wildlife. Originally developed by the USDA as a non-lethal form of pest control, GonaCon works by lowering the concentration of sex hormones in the bloodstream to weaken fertility and the urge to mate. The contraceptive was recently approved in Maryland and New Jersey for curbing the population of wild deer. Now researchers are hoping to use GonaCon to stop the spread of brucellosis, an infectious bacterial disease that causes pregnant ungulates to abort their calves.

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...


TOPICS: Local News
KEYWORDS: brucellosis; napl
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1 posted on 11/22/2011 4:11:23 PM PST by SJackson
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To: Iowa Granny; Ladysmith; Diana in Wisconsin; JLO; sergeantdave; damncat; phantomworker; joesnuffy; ..
If you’d like to be on or off this Outdoors/Rural/wildlife/hunting/hiking/backpacking/National Parks/animals list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.
2 posted on 11/22/2011 4:11:51 PM PST by SJackson (Haven't changed the environment, just take a bath. Eat a piece of chocolate. You need one. Michelle)
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To: SJackson

I sure wouldn’t want to be the poor fellow that had to put condoms on the big guys.

Yikes.


3 posted on 11/22/2011 4:14:21 PM PST by HonestConservative (http://www.freedomradiorocks.com)
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: SJackson

Here’s a whacky, way out there idea: Have a lottery. Cull them and pass the mashed potatoes.


5 posted on 11/22/2011 4:22:09 PM PST by waterhill (Strawberry jello is wild pig crack, they love it more than life)
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To: SJackson
When brucellosis crops up on cattle ranches, herds must be quarantined and infected members butchered. Additionally, the bacteria can pass to humans through unpasteurized milk.

But I read on Free Republic that raw milk is a great thing!

6 posted on 11/22/2011 4:23:45 PM PST by iowamark (Rick Perry says I'm heartless.)
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To: SJackson
If there are too many bison, allow a hunting season with an apropriate number of tags in the park. This is just the government trying to promote the anti-gun/anti-hunting agenda. The anti-gunners know that many Americans own guns primarily for hunting, so they claim they have no problem with guns for huning. Meanwhile the same leftie foundations that fund the antigun people also fund the anti-hunting people. If they can cut down the number of hunters, they cut down the number of gunowners to oppose them. One big problem the anti-hunters face is that hunting is necessary for controlling wildlife populations. So they come up with crap like this, at our expense.

Unfortunately a lot of gunowners who don't hunt don't understand why they need to defend hunting for the sake of their own rights.

7 posted on 11/22/2011 4:27:31 PM PST by Hugin ("Most time a man'll tell you his bad intentions if you listen and let yourself hear"--Open Range)
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To: iowamark

There is a well proven method of bison population control. It involves bows and arrows and skinning knives.


8 posted on 11/22/2011 4:27:54 PM PST by Qout
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To: SJackson

Interesting...

My wife and I are considering raising bison. She has many food allergies and it is one of the meats she can tolerate however it is very expensive.

All of the local farms sold out of their bison and would not cull anymore this year so in some places you can’t get it.

Here’s an idea, shoot the damn things and put them on someone’s plate!


9 posted on 11/22/2011 4:31:00 PM PST by TSgt ("Romney" means "rino cult" in Kenyan)
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To: SJackson

The very first two sentences contract each other. I didn’t read any further.


10 posted on 11/22/2011 4:52:02 PM PST by mamelukesabre
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To: Hugin

That’s common sense, government isn’t interested. Though if they considered what the tags would bring in, it would make sense if the funds were allocated to the park. There are plenty of backcountry areas in Yellowstone where a hunt would be safe.


11 posted on 11/22/2011 4:53:03 PM PST by SJackson (Haven't changed the environment, just take a bath. Eat a piece of chocolate. You need one. Michelle)
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To: SJackson

Family planning?!

Bison don’t have “families” and they certainly don’t “plan”.


12 posted on 11/22/2011 5:08:11 PM PST by Dr. Sivana (May Mitt Romney be the Mo Udall of 2012.)
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To: SJackson

Is this one of Ted Turner’s ranches? More gun control. Shoot the deer and elk with birth control and then you don’t need to shoot them with lead. Why do the Democrats want all those private firearms gone? Look at how mad they get when they can’t buy enough voters to get their way. Do you think they would have any trouble ordering someone to point a gun at you? Ted Turner is insane. All those little people keep getting in his way when he wants to own Yellowstone.


13 posted on 11/22/2011 5:32:32 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: iowamark

Brucellosis is a form of TB that can pass the “interspecies barrier” ! Hence the practice of innoculating dairy animals and tagging them that’s prevailed for at least 50 years ! Milk - raw or otherwise - from these animals/herds is safe for human consumption ! Were it not so we’d have had an enormous TB outbreak decades back as all “dairy families” - and often their neighbors - drank “raw” milk !

The issue with Bison is one of long standing, as domestic cattle shared the same range with “wild” bison. Given the dispersed nature of both species in the West, its long been possible for interspecies breeding and transfer of mutually supportable diseases; aka brucellosis, before prophylactic measures could be implemented on domestic herds.

Personally, I don’t see any reason for the “wild” distinction, and many against it. IMO, the american bison throve upon developing genetic diversity within isolated populations that - in the fullness of time - were introduced/tested in the general population on a hapstance basis. The so-called “wild” population - sans TB protection - is small hence may be a genetic dead end FAWK ! Remember this was a species that evolved to create large populations and multiple genetic evolutions within that population, if Mendel’s Laws prevail. >PS


14 posted on 11/22/2011 5:47:43 PM PST by PiperShade
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To: PiperShade
Their hides simply weren't thick enough to stop bullets ~ failure of evolution I guess.

The brucellosis problem is a tad different. For many years the big complaint was that "wild" buffalo passed it to "tame" cattle ~ supposedly unfairly or something (big Democrat issue on that one).

I think the surrounding cattle in this case involve both buffalo raised under conditions of domestication and domesticated old world cattle raised for meat.

Not sure there are dairy cows out there wandering around in that part of the country now that we can haul milk cross country in tankers.

But you raise a good point about how buffalo succeeded in raising up huge numbers that weren't killed off by brucellosis or other diseases ~ and you'd better believe the brucellosis was fighting back trying to come up with "killer aps" that could strike back at the buffalo, and any humans in the area.

Notice that the American Indians, with a gazillion buffalo around, didn't domesticate any of them ~ so why? Down in South America the same Indians domesticated vicuna, guanaco, llama, etc. Obviously the idea of domestication was current in the Americas!

15 posted on 11/22/2011 6:40:52 PM PST by muawiyah
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To: SJackson; null and void; Slings and Arrows; Lazamataz; martin_fierro
Thanks, SJackson.

To the rest of you: *PING*

Cheers!

16 posted on 11/22/2011 8:03:42 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: grey_whiskers

Bookmark


17 posted on 11/22/2011 8:21:40 PM PST by Publius6961 (My world was lovely, until it was taken over by parasites.)
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To: grey_whiskers; MeekOneGOP; Conspiracy Guy; DocRock; King Prout; Darksheare; OSHA; martin_fierro; ...
GonaCon works by lowering the concentration of sex hormones in the bloodstream to weaken...the urge to mate.



18 posted on 11/22/2011 9:38:19 PM PST by Slings and Arrows (You can't have Ingsoc without an Emmanuel Goldstein.)
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To: SJackson

If safety is a concern they could make it traditional archery/blackpowder only. Somehow he idea of taking a bison with a 45-70 trapdoor Springfield just seems right.


19 posted on 11/23/2011 8:54:23 AM PST by Hugin ("Most time a man'll tell you his bad intentions if you listen and let yourself hear"--Open Range)
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To: SJackson; Slings and Arrows
What is wrong with these people? Are they out of their stinking minds?? Way to wipe out the bison, dirt brains.

How about letting hunters in to cull the herds instead of preventing their reproducing? You want to save this particular species of buffalo? With contraception? And that makes sense... How???

Leftists. They're hopelessly insane. Maybe we should feed the contraceptives to them instead.
20 posted on 11/23/2011 1:28:07 PM PST by TheOldLady (FReepmail me to get ON or OFF the ZOT LIGHTNING ping list)
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