25 Jul The issue at hand in this case is the killing of the bison that roam in Yellowstone National Park.
Issue and Cause
(Kelsea)
The issue at hand in this case is the killing of the bison that roam in Yellowstone National Park. There are many issues that this national park faces, yet no other issue “has created the sustained national political controversy” (Clemons & McBeth, 2020). like the killing of these animals have. Bison are a many part of the history behind the Yellowstone National Park. It is reported that they are even a key element to the history of the American environmental movement. How to manage these bison is the real issue, and one that relates to brucellosis, which can be transferred to cattle. This is a bacterial disease that is infecting the bison in this range. This is why the ranching community is so worried.
Evaluations
The amount of bison obviously needs to be taken into consideration. As well as the well-being of these animals. How many of these bison could live in these areas at a promising rate, and how many may have this bacterial disease. Is there a way to cure this bacterial disease? Since there was a policy put in place for the bison to be protected, killing the bison if they had this disease did not work after a while. Keeping bison in one area is hard, but it could be done. This way, they cannot get to the outside cattle of other farmers. YNP is concerned with controlling the bison population from exceeding the capacity of YNP. Environmentalists and Native Americans are concerned with any killing of bison.Brucellosis transmission will be used to evaluate the policy alternatives (see Clemons and McBeth, 2020).
Policies
Policies were put into place to kill the bison who had this disease, but that goes against the protective order. Vaccinating the new bison calves are a good idea and should continue. The problem is how to deal with those who have this, to cure them. Having vaccinations for those who already have this is important and should be a new policy. There should be crowd control, and only allowing the bison in certain areas. As far as population control, it could be suggested to neuter the bison, or at least most of them. This will be a continuing issue because of the bison population growth. Until the population is controlled, the spread of disease will not be able to be contained. This is where the problem lies. Control the population and then manage the disease.
Adopted Policy
The best policy I would recommend is a combination of both. When new bison are born, vaccinate them. But for the bison who already have this disease, give them a drug to cure it or lessen the effects and contagiousness of the bison. These bison should be confined to certain areas, this way it lessens the probability of them giving it to other cattle. Even though this may cost quite a bit of money, in the long haul it would help the entire situation.
