A state senator says Montana isn't doing enough to prevent the spread of brucellosis and is crafting legislation to give the state Department of Livestock a bigger say in how disease-carrying wildlife is managed.
"We have to do something," said Sen. Debby Barrett, R-Dillon. "(Brucellosis) right now is not being addressed in wildlife."
Barrett, who ranches near Dillon, represents Beaverhead, Madison and a portion of Jefferson counties. In recent months, she has been holding public meetings in the Greater Yellowstone region to gather input on what her legislation should look like.
While she said her bill would not deal exclusively with brucellosis -- she is also concerned about a tapeworm prevalent in gray wolves -- it is the most pressing disease.
Brucellosis causes cattle, bison and elk to abort their young. While bison were long considered the main source of the disease, elk have been blamed for several cases in cattle in recent years.
Yet the state is not doing enough to prevent elk from spreading the costly disease to cattle, Barrett said.
"I certainly don't want the DOL to manage elk, but (DOL) is the only entity in the state that can manage any disease," she said. "We see a huge problem, but there are no solutions yet."
The specter of giving the state livestock department more control over wildlife is worrisome to environmentalists already frustrated with how DOL manages bison for brucellosis near Yellowstone National Park.
"We're adamantly opposed to handing any more control over wildlife to the Department of Livestock, and I think that's what she would be proposing," said Glenn Hockett with the Gallatin Wildlife Association. "We'd rather see bison managed more like elk, not elk managed more like bison."
Added Mark Pearson, national parks program director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition: "Taking an utterly failed policy for bison and applying it to elk seems like the worst conceivable approach to government policy."
Hockett said the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks is already working with ranchers to keep elk away from cattle feed in the winter, and argued it makes more sense to manage livestock to keep them away from wildlife, not vice versa.
"I don't try to vaccinate the skunks to prevent my dogs from getting rabies," he said.
Barrett said her bill as envisioned would not model elk management on current bison policy, but would aim to be more aggressive toward preventing disease transmission.
"There's no possible way we can haze and slaughter and quarantine the elk that are already in Montana," she said. "It's just that we have to manage the disease.
"All of the burden, all of the onus, all of the cost has been placed on the livestock producer," she said. "Ranchers have no more control over elk in Montana than they do the weather."
Daniel Person can be reached at dperson@dailychronicle.com or 582-2665.
Native posted at 2:01 pm on Wed, May 5, 2010.
Did someone actually vote FOR this woman??? Amazing! She hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of having a rational thought. She is obviously deep in the pockets of the good ol boys who will do anything to have livestock eat every blade of grass in the state into the dirt. Cows have always been susceptible to diseases and they have always been vaccinated/treated for them. They are the interlopers here and the onus should be on the rancher to keep the cows from the elk/bison/etc.
bullgod posted at 9:19 am on Wed, May 5, 2010.
Hey I have an idea,,, why don't we get rid of the damn wolves so that the elk can move back up into the mountains where they used to live? And while we're at it, let's charge landowners that won't allow public hunting a tax on every elk that spends the entire fall and winter on their land. They want to protect them from us, they can pay us for them. They are supposedly our elk.
alexrussell posted at 8:17 am on Wed, May 5, 2010.
Senator Barrett is a typical conservative. She cries about government but then wants government to fix all her problems and subsidize her at our expense. This bill would take money from Fish, Wildlife and Parks and use it to kill our elk, deer, antelope, bison and moose. Hunters need to let her know we don't want higher taxes and higher license fees so she can use it to wipe out our game herds. This has always been the goal of some livestock producers, wipe out all game that competes with cows for forage. Her email is grt3177@smtel.com.
pester posted at 7:03 am on Wed, May 5, 2010.
Hey I have a novel idea. Why not manage the livestock with the Department of Livestock and mangage the Wildelife with the Fish WILDLIFE and Parks department. It's obvious the Livestock industry is having trouble with the livestock or we wouldn't be having this discussion. So what makes anyone think the Livestock department should try to manage wildlife?
smykiss posted at 12:52 am on Wed, May 5, 2010.
Another brilliant idea, Sen. Barrett. Let's kill off all the vectors of disease to livestock, meaning all elk, deer, bison, etc. This woman is anti-wildlife and anti-hunting. Yeah, ranching isn't as easy as it was when you were a kid. Get over it. I wonder if she has any interest in the new "split-state" brucellosis status for MT or if she just wants to reduce our elk herds done to nothing (they complete with cows for forage, you know).
Couldn't agree more with Hockett: "I don't try to vaccinate the skunks to prevent my dogs from getting rabies" - duh. You're never going to be able to vaccinate a free ranging elk herd, no matter how much money you have. Especially since there's a huge reservoir for brucellosis in WY, SOUTH of the park in those blessed elk feedlots.
No mention in this article on why brucellosis is here in the first place (it was brought to the western US by livestock) or why it remains in our wildlife populations (feedlots in Wyoming are a key contributor). Would've been nice to have a little historical context...