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In a breach of the local code of ethics -- and possibly the law -- 32 are killed after straying onto a neighbor's land.FAIRPLAY, COLO. -- This is not a place where buffalo are welcome to roam. When 32 bison lumbered across a fence that separated their owners' vast, wind-swept expanse of land from a neighboring ranch in March, they ended up dead. Some fell where they were shot. Others scattered, galloping for miles before they succumbed in the snow. They were victims, contend the bison's owners, of a murder plot hatched by the neighbor, a Texan frustrated by what...

Bison bones bolster idea Ice Age seafarers first to Americas Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service Published: Monday, March 24, 2008 Head of a bison, part of a series of ancient bison bones found on Vancouver Island and nearby Orcas Island in Washington state. A series of discoveries of ancient bison bones on Vancouver Island and nearby Orcas Island in Washington state is fuelling excitement among researchers that the Pacific coast offered a food-rich ecosystem for Ice Age hunters some 14,000 years ago -- much earlier than the prevailing scientific theory pegs the arrival of humans to the New World. Fourteen...

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. - After an absence of more than a century, wild bison were returned to Colorado's Front Range on Saturday in full view of Denver's skyline. Sixteen buffalo from the National Bison Range in northwestern Montana were released in an enclosed 1,400-acre section of a wildlife refuge that formerly was the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, where nerve gas and other chemical weapons were manufactured. "The release went very smoothly. We would say this was a tremendous success," said Matt Kales, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He said the animals were released in an area that had...

Bison poop has more to offer than a field-clearing smell. Genetic analysis of the feces has revealed there are two breeding populations of bison in Yellowstone National Park, according to a new study. The discovery has implications for how to manage the roughly 4,000 bison (called Bison bison by scientists), which were previously considered one giant breeding population within the park's boundaries... The poop itself doesn’t contain the DNA. When a bison chows down, the roughage scoots through the digestive tract before a less-recognizable chunk of it passes out of the gut. During the descent, cells lining the gut slough...

MALTA, Mont. — The animals certainly looked like bison, with the characteristic humps and beards. But just to make sure, a pick-up truck slowly rolled up to them, and a bison wrangler shot a drug-filled dart into one of several calves. A few minutes later the anesthetized animal was on the ground, grunting and squirming. Several men warily moved in to hobble the animal and take blood samples. This bison wrangling was being done to test the genetics of a herd of 39 animals that is being used by the American Prairie Foundation as seed stock to re-create a large-scale...

Source: University of Washington Released: Mon 07-Aug-2006, 15:10 ET Ancient Bison Teeth Provide Window on Past Great Plains Climate, Vegetation Scientists have devised a way to use the fossil teeth of ancient bison as a tool to reconstruct historic climate and vegetation changes in America's breadbasket, the Great Plains.The third molar from a bison jawbone grows to 3 inches in length and has several times more surface area than a quarter. Newswise — A University of Washington researcher has devised a way to use the fossil teeth of ancient bison as a tool to reconstruct historic climate and vegetation changes...

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...

Mat Schulz goes hunting for the endangered bison in a primeval corner of Poland. For most people, Poland is connected with images of factories, coalmines and shipyards. But between the industrial landscapes there are mountains, lakes and sea. Most surprisingly, on the border with Belarus, Poland also has mainland Europe's last primeval forest - 8000 years old and 1250 square kilometres in size. The Bialowieza Forest still exists because Polish and Lithuanian royalty used it for hunting from the 14th century. When, in the 19th century, the land became part of Russia, the tsar reserved it for the same purpose....

GARDINER, Mont. - Montana's first bison hunt in 15 years opened at sunrise Tuesday, with a 17-year-old boy bagging the first buffalo within 90 minutes. The hunt, aimed at thinning out the bison population near Yellowstone National Park, came after years of protests from animal rights activists. State and federal officials say the hunt will help manage a population that has grown to an estimated 4,900 animals, more than some fear the area can support. Some ranchers are also worried some diseased bison could spread illness to cattle. George Clement, a teenager who took the day off from school, killed...

HELENA, Mont. - A hunter who drew one of two dozen coveted licenses to take part in one of Montana's first bison hunts in 15 years is a convicted felon who legally can't carry a gun. The state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks acknowledged that it has no authority to strip the man of the license. However, officials have alerted the man's probation officer. "Obviously as a convicted felon (on probation), he cannot possess or use a firearm," said agency spokeswoman Mel Frost. "If he does use a firearm, it is not violating Fish, Wildlife and Parks rules. It...

A mother has filed a complaint to the Patient Commission after finding her newborn baby had the name armband of another woman.No one at Haukeland University Hospital can explain how the error occurred despite numerous and strict routines concerning the identification of newborn infants, newspaper VG reports.A DNA test determined that the woman was the biological mother to the child she had had home for several weeks and that no exchange of babies had taken place at the maternity ward.The hospital was baffled by the error, as each newborn is tagged on both the foot and arm but in this...

Norway's most controversial refugee has lodged a threat against the country that has hosted him and his family for the past 14 years. Mullah Krekar calls his possible deportation "an offense" that shouldn't go unpunished. Mullah Krekar continues to fight deportation back to Iraq, and calls any such order "an offense" that should be punished.Oslo newspaper Aftenposten reported Tuesday that Krekar, in an interview with Arab TV station Al-Jazeera, vowed he will never go along with a deportation order issued by Norwegian authorities. Cabinet Minister Erna Solberg initially ordered him sent out of the country in February 2003, calling Krekar...

The latest round of opinion polls hints that the national elections on Sep. 12 will contain considerable excitement in terms of producing a majority government.The red-green coalition of the Labor (Ap), Socialist Left (SV) and Center (Sp) parties remain vastly more popular than the tripartite center-right governing alliance, but the prospects of a clear left-leaning parliamentary majority are not so clear.In the latest poll by AC Nielsen for the Newspapers' News Agency (ANB), SV fell back fully three percent points from June measurements, to 12.8 percent, just marginally better than their 2001 showing. In compensation, Labor advanced 1.2 percent points...

A new government could spell the end of many telephone sales approaches, but humanitarian organizations will in any event be allowed to try to raise funds.The Socialist Left Party (SV) has proposed strict regulation of telemarketing, and potential coalition partner Labor is willing to consider tougher measures, newspaper Bergens Tidende reports.Current Minister of Children and Family Affairs Laila Dåvøy, a Christian Democrat, agrees that something should be done."I see that this has become a big problem for many people and this is particularly because the right to deny approaches has not worked properly. Even if the telephone subscriber has registered...

Armed police were forced to respond when a drunken national guardsman was seen bearing a weapon.The soldier had his AG3 rifle confiscated and was left to sleep his bender off in the drunk tank after being arrested in downtown Bodø, newspaper Avisa Nordland reports.Bodø police were notified of a drunken armed man roaming the downtown area on Monday evening after the suspect dropped one of the two bags he was carrying and his AG3 rifle fell out.Police found the guardsman waiting for a southbound train to depart, with his weapon stowed in the baggage rack above his seat, en route...

The Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue (NSSR) demands that measures be taken to prepare foreign tourists better for the demands of braving Norway's natural elements.German fishing tourists and inexperienced foreigners in kayaks were surprised and imperiled by Monday's storm conditions in northwestern Norway - despite warnings several days in advance."Greater responsibility must be imposed on boat hire companies, both in relation to weather information, safety equipment on board and the boats themselves," NSSR information chief Ingvar Johnsen said.On Monday 40 foreign kayakers got into trouble in the Geiranger fjord when the wind suddenly turned. Two capsized, but the paddlers were...

The front-running Labor Party slipped a bit and the political right surged forward as Norway's national election draws nearer.Labor fell back 2.7 percent points to a still dominant 30.7 percent showing in the latest political party survey from MMI, carried out for NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) and newspaper Dagbladet.Labor allies in the likely 'red-green' alliance, the Socialist Left Party (SV) and the Center Party (Sp), ended up contributing the same: SV down 1.2 points to 13.1 and Sp up 1.2 to 7.9.The red-green coalition would still have a parliamentary majority of 90 seats if this poll reflected an election.The Conservative Party...

The Labor Party believes Norway needs more Vinmonopolet--the state alcohol outlets."Every municipality in the country, apart from the very smallest, should have their own "pol" stores," Labor Party social policy spokesman Bjarne Håkon Hanssen told newspaper Bergens Tidende.At the beginning of 2005 there were 195 of the state monopoly outlets, in the country's 436 municipalities.Hanssen believes this measure would be the best way of preventing wine from being sold in grocery stores.Deputy Health and Care Services Minister Kristin Ravnanger said that it would not be particularly profitable for Vinmonopolet to increase their number of stores, something that the monopoly itself...

Two simultaneous accidents were too much for the ambulance service at Blefjell Hospital Kongsberg, but a resourceful bystander helped out with a delivery van.An unlucky motocross driver took a nasty spill during training at Basserudåsen last Thursday, and a call to emergency services only resulted in learning that another accident was occupying the available ambulance, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting) reports.Although Torgeir Lande could not tell how badly hurt the motocross driver was, he could see that the man's arm was dislocated, as was a finger, and one foot was badly injured.Lande said the victim was in great pain and decided the...

Staff at Vardø police station in northern Norway are exasperated for an unusual reason - they have too little to do.Vardø, an urban municipality with around 2,400 residents, lost its status as a separate police district during a recent reform, stripping it of responsibility for key tasks, newspaper VG reports.At the same time, crime in Vardø has been significantly reduced, leaving the remaining officers with a lot of empty time on their hands. A lack of funds for overtime pay means that evening duty is scarce, and so potential crimes are not being detected."At the present time we have too...