Posted on 03/22/2006 9:44:03 AM PST by managusta
CALGARY — The document reads like a doomsday scenario for Canada's largest free roaming herd of bison.
Offer bounties to encourage hunting. Set up hunt camps. Radio-collar "Judas" animals to more easily track herds. Use corral-traps to corner about 4,500 wild animals. Shoot them from the ground and the air. Get rid of the remains so the carcasses -- many infected with bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis -- won't spread diseases.
All of this would happen in Wood Buffalo National Park, an area larger than Switzerland, that straddles the boundaries of Alberta and the Northwest Territories, under the stewardship of the federal government, which is supposed to look out for the well-being of the wild animals.
The so-called bison Holocaust isn't new. But it is rearing its head again as health officials around the world try to cope with diseases, including bird flu and mad-cow disease, that have health and economic implications for humans.
"Times are changing," said Chief James Schaefer of Salt River First Nation in Fort Smith, NWT.
In 1990, mass culling was recommended by the Federal Environmental Assessment Review Office. But news of the mass slaughter caused an outcry here and abroad. The controversial plan was shelved.
Mr. Schaefer said stakeholders couldn't agree on how to cull and repopulate the park with disease-free animals. For him and the 300 or so people who live near the park, the bison that wander in and out of invisible boundaries are part of a way of life.
"We depend too much on them for food," he said.
Last fall, 32 scientists met to figure out whether it was possible to eliminate the diseases from the park by culling the herd and then reintroducing the species.
Experts from Environment Canada, the University of Alberta and the Canadian Wildlife Service helped draft the 84-page "Proceedings of the Bison Disease Technical Workshop," which is making the rounds at Parks Canada.
Ottawa has not endorsed the scientists' plan.
"There is no active discussion between governments at this time," said Douglas Stewart, director-general of national parks with Parks Canada.
According to the report, the cull would take 10 years and the repopulation through salvaging the diverse genetic material from the disease-free members of the herd would take a decade after that. It would cost between $62-million and $78-million.
The report, however, doesn't say whether the cull should be done.
"The organizers recognize this controversy, but believe an answer to the technical feasibility of disease eradication is necessary to inform the broader policy questions surrounding the issue," the report said.
In other words, it doesn't kill the debate.
Interestingly, bovine tuberculosis, a chronic, debilitating respiratory disease that results in death, and brucellosis, which causes spontaneous abortions and stillbirths among infected cows, were imported when Ottawa shipped bison there in the 1920s to bolster the new park's population. The animals from Wainwright, Alta., contracted the disease from cattle, but so far, the disease hasn't been passed back to domestic cattle from the bison.
"This is something our industry has been working on for 30 years plus," said Ron Glaser, a spokesman with Alberta Beef Producers, which worries about losing Canada's disease-free status of domestic stocks.
Neither illness is treatable in a practical sense, said Gerald Hauer, Alberta's assistant chief veterinarian. Antibiotics are prohibitively expensive and the diseases are tricky to treat.
What about a mass slaughter?
"Lots of different groups have different opinions," he said, "Other people say let it run its course."
He doesn't know which option is preferable. There is a theoretical risk that the disease could spread to Alberta's beef or bison industries as wild bison mingle with domestic herds, but it is "quite small," he said.
"It is on the radar. We are concerned about it," Dr. Hauer said.
I loved turtle soup the one time I tried it.
My father was one of the cowboys hired to round up the bison and load them on cattle-cars at the soon-to-be military base at Wainwright. I found some interesting info here.
Wainwright.http://collections.ic.gc.ca/canoe/cargo.htm
****"Bless the beasts and the children"... anybody remember that maudlin film? ****
That film was so bad that the makers even put advertizing in gun magazines to try to trick people to come and see it. The film was aimed at the Hippie generation, about 1971.
The Gus of Autumn, a so-called "documentary" about hunting ran on CBS, was just as bad. Some of the hunting footage of the polar bear hunt was faked and passed off as real.
78 million to kill 4500 buffalo?
i'll make 'em a deal...i'll do it for 50 million.
You don't grind up turtle meat -- you fricassee it! I use a "modified fricassee" -- a recipe I got from a very elderly German woman (my friend's grandmother).
First you clean it. (After a trip to the hospital to sew up my finger, I refined that part of the process -- I first parboil it (after killing and bleeding), and then I clean it. The parboiling makes it possible to peel off the scales and outer skin without heavy knife-work -- or, the risk of slipping and gashing your finger!)
Once it's cleaned, you cut it into sections, and then boil them until tender.
Then, you batter and deepfry the pieces.
MMMmmmm.... GOOD!
I'll do it for $25 million, AND, I'll haul off the meat for FREE!
Quite delicious, actually. Somewhat reminiscent of lobster, in both texture and flavor.
Oops, mea culpa. I got my replies mixed up.
I was talking about snapping turtle, not bison. I've never had bison, but I understand it's pretty good eating. I'd like to try some some time.
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