Apparently, the Yellowstone Buffalo heard is in danger. If they leave the protected borders of the National park, it's apparently open season. Half of Yellowstone's buffalo herd has been wiped. Out. This killing is done of out of fear that the buffalo MIGHT spread a disease to the cattle on the ranches outside of the park. Hmm…sounds like the same reason more or less, that the wolves are being killed. Ranchers get a clue please!
All you have to do is read some of my posts to know that I care about the environment. I do donate to couple of environmental organizations about once or twice a year. It's never a huge amount, but I know that the amount that I send helps them out. I received a request for additional donations from the National wildlife federation. It's an opportunity to have my gift automatically doubled. I know these people don't realize that I'm out of work for the summer. The smallest donation they are accepting is $100.00 dollars. Yeah…$100.00 dollars, which I might give if I was receiving a paycheck. I don't want to see the buffalo being killed, but I can't afford to dish out money every time the wind blows. Oh…and ummm…by the way, they are going to get a letter from me also on other subject or maybe a phone call might be better. Every time that I get mail from them, it's addressed to MRS. Lonerguy. Well first off, I'm not dating anyone and if I was they wouldn't be a MRS. I thought that at one time, I had cleared this up. It's just another wonderful example of people hearing my voice and assuming something, so yeah…if you call me and I answer. It's is a man on the other end of the line. It's about as good as the GLBT organizations who call the other line and are given my number still manage to call the other line. Well, I'm out for now. Have a good one.
Thanks for writing and your concern about the buffalo in Yellowstone. Yes, they are under a lot of attack.
It's hard to explain also the politics of groups involved in the struggle for the buffalo - generally speaking, I personally wouldn't recommend giving any money to National Wildlife Federation on this issue for a whole host of reasons I don't have time to go into here - however, chief among them is that they would be using buffalo money to raise money for a bad leasing deal made with a church community north of the park - that doesn't actually help buffalo.
However, that said, there are a lot of good groups doing work for the buffalo. And, not all of them require your money - if anything, they require your time and energy (even if you don't live near Yellowstone). Please check out Buffalo Field Campaign, the only organization that is in the field working for the buffalo 12 months a year - see http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org .
In my case, I live in Bozeman and am very active in another grassroots support organization called Buffalo Allies of Bozeman - which you can get to from the link on my name. We're also actively looking for support - help that can be given in some cases far from our Montana town. And, we are definitely not asking for your money.
There are some other good groups as well.
Also, just as a side note, I work on a Yellowstone "newspaper" at http://www.yellowstone-online.com/newspaper.html . Your post is about to be linked from there in a matter of minutes. Searching for interesting news related to Yellowstone is what brought me here.
Thanks again for your concern for Yellowstone and the buffalo who inhabit it and simply want to roam without artificial boundaries being set up in their way by the government and the livestock industry.
Posted by: Jim Macdonald | July 10, 2008 at 02:37 AM