Paul Thomas Richards February 22, 2011
Dan Wenk, Superintendent
Yellowstone National Park
PO Box 168
Yellowstone, WY 82190-0168
Ph: 307-344-7381
Fax: 307-344-2005
E-mail: yell_superintendent@nps.gov
Dear Superintendent Wenk,
Congratulations on your appointment and your first day in the office! You have stepped directly into a buffalo wallow. I pray that you apply more common sense than your predecessors. PLEASE act as a true public servant and PLEASE provide proper stewardship for America’s many at-risk and endangered wildlife species, instead of continuing past failed National Park policies that facilitated the extirpation of our Nation’s priceless wildlife Heritage.
Since you are new, you may not know that Yellowstone’s bison herd is America’s ONLY population of wild, migrating bison. These bison now approach complete extinction, due to the unmitigated malfeasance of the US Department of Interior and the National Park Service.
THOUSANDS of pure-DNA bison—in fact, the world’s ONLY remaining pure-DNA wild bison–are being harassed, tortured, captured, and slaughtered in and around Yellowstone National Park.
This is a National, Tribal, and Inter-National disgrace–An affront to Earth’s biodiversity, all Indigenous Peoples, and the very mission of the National Park Service!
The National Park Service and Yellowstone National Park MUST withdraw from the failed “Inter-Agency Bison Management Plan,” which outlaws the very existence of living wild migrating bison in Montana; by establishing no-exceptions firing lines and unrestricted “Killing Fields.”
During the last 20 years, Yellowstone National Park’s immoral Killing Fields have exterminated 6,502 of the only wild migrating pure-DNA buffalo in the world.
Over the last decade alone, the US Department of Interior, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park, and the Montana Department of Livestock has already slaughtered more than 4,000 (4,098) of the only remaining wild buffalo on Earth–National, Tribal, and Inter-National tragedies of such monumental proportions that tears, grief, sorrow, and shame can only begin to suffice.
Wild migrating buffalo are a vital American Legacy, fully deserving the respect and protection of the National Park Service, which, ironically and incredibly gallingly, uses these exterminated wild bison as its very own National Park Service badge and symbol!!
Wild migrating buffalo are rounded up and slaughtered by your own Yellowstone National Park employees, working side-by-side with Montana Department of Livestock’s trespassing “cowboys” on ATVs, ORVs, snowmobiles, helicopters, 4-wheel drives, and other forms of motorized terrorism and harassment, wholly inappropriate and often fatal during wintertime.
As a result, America’s only population of wild pure-DNA migrating buffalo can no longer follow tens of thousands of years of Ancient instincts; can no longer migrate to their traditional winter and spring habitats; and can no longer calve in their traditional calving areas.
I respectfully ask that you:
1. Please IMMEDIATELY abandon all participation in and funding of the disgraced “Inter-Agency Bison Management Plan.” Please end, ENTIRELY, the Plan’s ridiculous prohibition of living wild migrating buffalo in the state of Montana.
2. Please IMMEDIATELY withhold ALL funding of, ALL funding to, and ALL cooperation with the Montana Department of Livestock.
3. Please uphold the National Park Service’s mandate to protect Yellowstone’s buffalo, perhaps our Nation’s most important icon (Along with the bald eagle, which, thanks to dedicated conservation leadership in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, we were able to save from extinction!).
4. Please uphold the US Department of Interior’s stewardship responsibilities for America’s First Nations and Indigenous Peoples.
5. Please immediately release 600 wild Yellowstone buffalo, currently trapped in the “Stephens Creek Trap,” panicked and awaiting slaughter, back into the Wild.
6. Please work closely with the Gallatin National Forest and other National Forests to allow Yellowstone’s bison to migrate onto adjacent public lands. Despite beliefs to the contrary by your predecessors, allowing bison to migrate onto these National Forest lands is NOT optional! Since you are new, you may not know that the Gallatin National Forest’s Forest Plan MANDATES the Gallatin National Forest provide habitats for maintaining viable populations for Yellowstone’s bison and all other Indigenous species.
It is not too late for wild, migrating buffalo, although they teeter on extinction’s brink. I would like to assume that you are a dedicated public servant. If so, PLEASE fulfill the incredibly constructive potential of your new job.
Superintendent Wenk, it is up to YOU to stop this senseless slaughter, disgusting mindless violence, and continued genocide against America’s Indigenous Peoples and indigenous endangered species. NOW!
Please respond to this e-mail. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Paul Richards
30 Browns Gulch Road
Boulder, MT 59632-9709
Copy to:
Ken Salazar, Secretary
US Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: 202-208-3100
Fax: 202-208-6965
E-Mail Address: feedback@ios.doi.gov
Jonathan Jarvis, Director
US Department of Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Room 3312
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: 202-208-4621; 202-208-3818
Fax: 202-208-7889
E-mail: jon_jarvis@nps.gov
National Park Service Contact Information
Relevant US Department of Interior and National Park Service Web Sites and Contact Information:
US Department of Interior On-Line Feedback Form
National Park Service Contact Information
US Fish and Wildlife E-mail Address
Bureau of Indian Affairs E-mail Address
Ethics Office Contact Information
Editor’s Notes:
The Killing Fields: For year-by-year breakdowns of Yellowstone National Park’s and Montana Department of Livestock’s wild buffalo slaughters, please CLICK HERE, or go to: http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/ .
Dan Wenk assumed his new position as Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park on Tuesday, February 22, 2011.
Wild buffalo are Sacred to Indigenous Peoples, Tribes, and First Nations, now dispersed throughout 12 Western states and three Western provinces. Fully ignorant of his inherent and sickening racism, Montana’s Governor, “Buffalo Brian” Schweitzer, addressing the Montana Stockgrowers Association’s Annual Convention on Friday, December 11, 2009, in Billings, Mont., proudly boasted: “No Governor in Montana history has sent more bison to slaughter than this Governor.”
Please send your comments to Wenk, Jarvis, and Salazar today! Your comments need not be lengthy, complicated, or legalese. Brief comments containing relevant information, true emotions, or legitimate feelings are just fine!
Although anger is certainly justifiable regarding the unconscionable slaughter of 6,502 of the last wild migrating buffalo in the world, try not to let this anger poison your comments.
Please remember that Wenk is new to the Killing Fields and Wenk did not sanction past indiscriminate and wholesale Montana Department of Livestock buffalo slaughters. Please try to help Wenk, as he faces the difficult task of educating VERY powerful enemies of National Parks, National Forests, public wildlife, endangered species, and the fragmented islands of necessary habitats and biological diversity our Nation’s priceless public lands Legacy contain.
PR’s Brief Bio:
As a journalist with more than 43 years’ experience in Western politics and resource issues, Paul Richards has served as editor or co-editor of three newspapers, newsman and editor for The Associated Press, and elections manager for The AP, UPI, ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC.
Richards founded and produced a successful radio news network; founded and hosted a political television interview program; founded and managed a news service for weekly newspapers; and authored a syndicated statewide political column.
Richards is a voluntarily-retired member of the Montana House of Representatives and a former candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Richards owns a leading consulting firm for nonprofit organizations, PR Media Consultants®, Public Interest Media Since 1968, near the community of Boulder, Mont.; works as a professional writer and editor; and contributes Dispatches from the Wildlands™, located at: http://blogs.alternet.org/paulrichards/ to AlterNet.
More Info:
More Dispatches from the Wildlands™ at: http://blogs.alternet.org/paulrichards/ .
Information about Paul Richards is available at: http://www.PRMediaConsultants.com and at: http://www.Richards2006.us .
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“In Wildness is the Preservation of the World.”
Henry David Thoreau
