Appearing in today's Missoulian and Billings Gazette, Lee Newspapers reporter Jennifer McKee misrepresented the press release of Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

I wrote the following letter to McKee in response.

Ms. McKee,

I am writing on behalf of myself and not the group I am a member of - Buffalo Allies of Bozeman - regarding your article today that appeared in some newspapers on the brucellosis issue as it relates to corriente roping cattle. Though I am writing for myself alone, I am quoted in the press release that we sent out, and I helped edit and distribute the release.

I believe there is a severe misrepresentation of what's said in the release, and I hope to set the record straight - hoping that the papers will correct the mistake or at the very least that you will give written acknowledgment of the error.

You write about Bozeman Allies of Buffalo:

"Another wildlife group, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, put out a statement calling for Gov. Brian Schweitzer to pull out of the current brucellosis management plan because Corriente, not bison, were behind the outbreak."

In fact, this is wrong on two counts.

What we say in our press release regarding corriente is the following:

“The current rhetoric from state officials refuses to consider that diseased Mexican Corriente roping cattle may have been the source of the outbreak in Pray. Let’s stop pouring tax dollars into a failed plan, where we spend more than what Montana’s economy will suffer for losing its brucellosis-free status.”

First of all, we don't say that corriente were involved; we say that they may have been the source of the outbreak. Secondly, and more importantly, we never say anywhere in the release that Schweitzer should pull out of the management plan because of corriente, especially since we don't identify corriente as the cause. What we say here and elsewhere in the press release is that bison weren't involved since they have not been in the Paradise Valley near that ranch in a long time, that the continued slaughter and hazing of bison did not prevent brucellosis, and that the IBMP has cost more over time to implement than it will cost Montana for losing its class free status (especially absurd given that buffalo were certainly not the cause - and note that we do not identify the cause and merely tangentially suggest what might have been the cause).

So, we never say that corrientes "were behind the outbreak"; we never call on Schweitzer to pull out of the plan "because Corriente" were behind it. All that's correct is that we have called on Schweitzer to pull out of the plan and that we believe it's not possible that bison were behind the outbreak.

As a new grassroots group in Bozeman, this is the first mention of our relatively new group in the newspapers that this appeared in; it's not helpful to our group to have our press release and therefore our group misrepresented. I ask again that you would correct this for us.

Thank you for your research on corrientes; I'm not sure that what you've written proves definitively that the cattle was not involved; however, I did find the piece informative. If anything, it only deepens the mystery of the source. However, no matter what, what's been happening with cattle and brucellosis in Montana only further is exposing the absurdities of the Interagency Bison Management Plan.

Most Sincerely,
Jim Macdonald

Update: McKee wrote me back saying that she believes her report is "essentially accurate" but failing to elucidate what is essentially accurate. about it.

I plan on writing an essay pretty soon - for now, activism is taking a lot of my time. Here is another press release that our group has worked on. I try to avoid being quoted in these things, but here I am quoted this time.

I was wearing my hat as activist and organizer with Buffalo Allies of Bozeman again yesterday. This is a report from flyering yesterday.

Late yesterday afternoon, there were thousands of people waiting to see Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speak in Bozeman.

Knowing that a few days in advance, I created the flyer shown in the picture, which you can also download as a pdf. Because the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) has three federal agencies as its partners, it was fitting that we try to convince people who are supporting the man who might be the next president, to do something about the buffalo in part by pulling the federal government's support for this terrible plan.

I couldn't have possibly created enough flyers. They went out of my hands so fast as people waited in line to enter the event.

So, if you support Barack Obama - heck, even if you don't -, if you live in the Gallatin Valley, if you support wild buffalo, please consider this flyer; or give it to someone else who might be interested. Our community potluck on Sunday, May 25, will be out of date soon, but everything else will still be timely.

Some of us in Buffalo Allies of Bozeman went over to the State Capitol building in Helena to support Buffalo Field Campaign's rally for the wild buffalo in and near Yellowstone National Park and to protest Governor Brian Schweitzer's part in the largest slaughter of wild buffalo than at any time since the 19th century.

This season to date 1,607 buffalo have been killed, according to Buffalo Field Campaign. As the killing continued, I joined a new group dedicated to providing support for the buffalo. One part of that mission is to provide solidarity to other groups with related missions. As a result, those in our group gladly support Buffalo Field Campaign; a few of us found the time to take the trip to Helena - a town I personally had never before been.

While we were in Helena, hazing of buffalo west of the park had begun. That was among the first topics of conversations among participants. The National Park Service in their press release have promised a "slow haze." As one of the rally participants said, "There's no such thing as a slow haze with a helicopter."

The rally itself was a small affair on a breezy and cloudy day in Helena. Besides hundreds of tombstones in place of the record number killed this winter, there were a couple of banners. One in particular was held by rally participants at the corner of the intersection. Food was provided by Seeds for Peace, and there was a small skit involving the impossibility of interagency juggling of the Interagency Bison Management Plan. A juggler tried repeatedly to juggle six items only to have the items fall to the ground. Participation at the rally was small. Besides the BFC volunteers who were there - most of BFC were in the field monitoring the bison haze - the next largest group was from Bozeman. We met a person from Bozeman who had just found out about our group via the revised press release as it appeared in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that morning. There were also a couple people from Helena there.

However, because of the location, there was not too much interaction with local people. A few stopped to look or came over to ask questions. From my personal standpoint, the point seemed to be one of spectacle so that a visual image of the death might be put on the Governor's lawn, indeed the lawn of the people of Montana - all of us in a small way culpable for not stopping this embarrassment. If the image provokes, then the action will be a success. I suppose reports like this - whether they are read and seen - will be part of the story of this particular action.

There was a television media person who came at the end of the rally. She was from ABC in Helena and interviewed Joe Gutkoski from our group. Joe traveled with us and is an amazing marvel to me. He has been working on these issues for a very long time, on the front line for the buffalo long before there was a Buffalo Field Campaign. Joe seems to know everyone in Bozeman; more remarkably to me, he knows everything about the land and wildlife along every square inch between Bozeman and Helena. I learned so much from him riding in a car, about river flows, about where dams are, where irrigation is, the history of land and water fights on a particular parcel of land, about the loss of 99% of bighorn sheep this year in the Elkhorns. He was at a meeting early in the morning; later he finished the day at our Buffalo Allies of Bozeman meeting. I hope I can have that much dedication and energy as time goes by.

The rally ended with a kind of comical farce, a trip up to the Governor's office to give Governor Brian Schweitzer (along with Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis) a "Buffalo Bill Award" for having killed the most buffalo since any time since the 19th century. We marched into the State Capitol, up the stairs, and into his office to present him the award.

Predictably, Gov. Schweitzer was not in the office. Instead, there was an intern there ready to greet us. The young man admitted that he knew very little about the issue but said that we should all stay in touch, that the governor loves to hear from his constituents, and he had ready a press release that the governor had issued that very day in anticipation of the rally (though one that has not appeared on his Web site as of this report). The scene was rather amusing. Bureaucracy insulates itself putting people on the line not empowered to do anything to deal with people who would like to raise an issue.

At one point, some of the governor's staff peaked in through the doorway. However, they soon scurried back into their office. Instead, it was an intern and buffalo friends engaged in a kind of silly banter. I said aloud that perhaps we should just sit there until he returns, but that wasn't really the plan.


From there, the rally ended. Perhaps, the governor got the message; however, it will take people continuing to let him know how badly he has turned his back from his campaign promises for him to feel the punishment. Schweitzer somehow has overseen a bison slaughter worse than his predecessors; however, he has done it with the gall to pretend that he is making progress on bison management. Buffer zones and split-state status and now the CUT deal all are slick ways to obscure the point - he is not doing anything to stop the killing.

If this rally had some shortcomings in getting the message across, it is only that much more imperative that we do more. It was heartening to see our town represented in Helena; with that, let's do more.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Chris Klatt
406-599-3629
lodgepole@riseup.net
May 12, 2008

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman Is Founded to Take Action against the Slaughter and Hazing of Wild Buffalo
New group takes a grassroots approach toward advocacy of buffalo in the Yellowstone area.

(Bozeman, Mont.) – In a winter where more wild buffalo have been killed than at any time since the 19th century in and near Yellowstone National Park, concerned local residents in the Bozeman area have formed Buffalo Allies of Bozeman – a new grassroots group taking action on behalf of the American bison.

“We believed we needed to build a community of action so that the slaughter we have seen this year, where over 1,600 animals have been killed, never happens again,” said Mel Schroeder, one of the members of Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

The theme of community is at the heart of the new group, which is open to everyone in the Bozeman area who accepts the group’s mission. Buffalo Allies of Bozeman calls for stopping the slaughter and hazing of Yellowstone’s wild buffalo herds, promoting the expansion of free-roaming buffalo outside of Yellowstone National Park, conserving the natural habitat of the buffalo herds, allying with and giving solidarity to groups working on related missions and supporting a diversity of strategies and tactics to achieve the mission. All those participating at meetings make decisions together on events and actions.

“What makes us a little different than some of the larger environmental groups is that we depend entirely on the energy of the public for making decisions,” said Schroeder. “There is no Executive Director or President; we all roam on this path together.”

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman held an educational event in March, featuring Mike Mease of Buffalo Field Campaign. On May 25 at 7 PM, the group will be hosting a potluck in Bogart Park that is open to the public. In June, the group will host a forum on the various ways Bozeman residents can take an active role in buffalo advocacy.

The group will also be working with the Gallatin Wildlife Association on changing Montana law so that buffalo are respected as wildlife and not treated as a disease control issue. Furthermore, Buffalo Allies of Bozeman will be speaking out against the recent deal made between state of Montana, the National Park Service and the Church Universal & Triumphant. According to Schroeder, “This is a bad deal that, contrary to what some have said in the media, is not a step forward for a single buffalo. The more I learn about it, the more I realize that this does not actually provide habitat, safety or respect for any buffalo – and at an exorbitant cost to taxpayers.”

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman meets every Wednesday at 7 PM at Montana State University’s Strand Union Building. For more information, please visit: http://www.buffaloallies.org.

The new Web site is up at http://www.buffaloallies.org for Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

I had a need to go into Yellowstone on Saturday, and so I did - this time by myself. I'm not going to share much here except a fraction of the photos from Saturday. It's not even worthy of mention in the Yellowstone Newspaper, which according to my own standards, I only post stories when they express some unique point of view. These are just pictures that I took.

If you are curious, however, I have still been writing. Check out this discussion on ethics that I've participated in over at Ralph Maughan's site.

Click on the pictures, and they should get somewhat larger; I reduced them somewhat to save bandwidth.



self-shot at the Lower Falls



Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone



Lower Falls



Upper Falls



Big ice at the Upper Falls



Pearl Geyser at Norris Geyser Basin



Ledge Geyser - check out that weird snow



Blue Star Spring (near Old Faithful)



Old Faithful



Bison and calves in the Firehole geyser region

Anyone actively engaged in a cause will surely be asked at some point whether they might be doing something else better with their time? For me in particular, I have been asked why I was in the anti-war movement when there are people starving in the streets of Washington, DC, as one example. More recently, I have been asked why I have been involved with promoting the cause of the buffalo in and around Yellowstone when surely there are other things that are more seriously wrong in the world. This sentiment has been expressed to me in comments to one of my recent essays, and its sentiments are urged in the closing chapter of a popular Yellowstone fly fishing Web site.

The question, then, is whether what we care about is as serious or as important as something else we might otherwise be doing?

Along those same lines, in terms of the buffalo issue itself, we see success as a line we can make progress towards one step a time. Just last week, the Governor of Montana - Brian Schweitzer -and the Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park - Suzanne Lewis - alongside the Church Universal & Triumphant (CUT), as well as allied mainstream environmental groups (National Wildlife Federation, National Parks Conservation Association, Montana Wildlife Federation, and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition), announced a deal where in exchange for $2.8 million, CUT would sell their cattle and lease grazing rights to 25 (and in later years 100 buffalo) for part of the year to Yellowstone's buffalo population (which has been shrunk dramatically from 4,700 to less than 2,300 over the course of the winter). Those buffalo would be tested for brucellosis, fitted with vaginal transmitters, and then forced back into the park after a certain date. A spokesperson for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition has called this an imperfect but "good step."

Is this a good step, or is there something else we might be doing? It's the same question. As an advocate for buffalo but a critic of the deal announced last week, how can I answer that I should be acting on behalf of Yellowstone buffalo but reject that we should be taking this route?

This essay aims to answer both. The common thread that clarifies how we should look at this is a rejection of basing our ethical decisions on utilitarianism, or the belief that we should always "act for the greatest good for the greatest number."

On the face of it, one cannot easily reject doing the greatest good for the greatest number. Doing good should be good, and the more good, the better. The problem, of course, is that it's a truism. What is good, what makes it great, and how can one know how to make the good better, for the greatest number of what? To reduce our decisions in life to this maxim tells us absolutely nothing about what we should be doing, how we could figure that out, or for whom we should be acting.

Is the greatest good common sense? Do we know what the good entails? For the classical utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, the greatest good was to be grasped by the happiness principle. By "happiness," Bentham and Mill took it to be the same as pleasure. Yet, we haven't really moved further. Pleasure is either so broad as to be meaningless or so specific that there's no way of knowing whether maximizing it is good.

The problem with identifying our actions simply with the "greatest good for the greatest number" is that we can have no idea what that means except in specific contexts where good is defined. If we are playing baseball, the batter's greatest good is not making an out, for instance. Yet, life is not baseball. What is the rulebook or definition of "the good"? In the end, utilitarianism doesn't take us any further toward the basic ethical question. What is good, and what is it should I be doing? How will I know that what I do is good?

A lot of people are very sure they have a sense of what is more or less serious, more or less good. We hear all the time that those who gave their life (or killed in war) for a greater cause have done something more noble than those who have received the supposed benefits of their action. We hear that great leaders - let's say Abraham Lincoln - who achieve great ends for a great number of people have lived better or more meaningful lives than those who simply live in a world provided as a consequence of those actions. We might get a whiff of Aristotle in the suggestion that that which is nearest the cause is greater than that which is merely a consequence of it. However, most won't resort to Aristotle; they will simply resort to what they take as common sense. For some, people mean more than animals. Americans mean more than Iraqis. The citizen means more than the foreigner. It used to be men meant more than women and whites meant more than blacks, and civilized meant more than uncivilized. The king meant more than his people. All of these things at some point or other were common sense notions of good. John Locke, for his part, would have argued that the property owner meant more than the property he owned, and so the slave owner meant more than the slave. And, let's be bold here, there are people who work on the buffalo who will argue that the wild animal means more than the domesticated animal - that is, the buffalo means more than the cow. However, others who support livestock interests will say just the opposite.

In truth, very few people argue why their supposedly common sense notions of good mean what they do. They just will be quick to point fingers when they are sure that what you believe in is worth something less than something else. It is very easy to say that something is more serious; there will always be a group who will listen. It's not easy at all to justify it, and it adds nothing to promote a calculus of greatest good for the greatest number when no one can figure out what that means.

So, what is the good? Can we figure out what a greatest good is? I know that there had better be some answer for it or else there is no room for any of us to stand in criticism of the choices of others. We could let the "Judge not lest ye be judged" stand as that. Yet, as actors in this world, we must pass a judgment of sorts, or we would be paralyzed into inaction, which is actually not even possible. Even those who do not seem to move inject an influence on the world by their very inactivity.

One of the few things I have come to realize about ethics - but a profoundly important intuition - is that we must be consistent. Meaning of all kinds depends upon consistency. That is, we must not do things which are grounded in contradiction. The good, if it means anything at all, cannot be identical with the bad. While this limitation on acting seems a trifling thing that hardly limits action at all, in fact contradiction has been at the fore of so many actions.

For instance, positing that one should act for the greatest good for the greatest number but failing to provide any meaning that would allow the maxim as serving as the basis for action is contradictory. It cannot be done because it is meaningless, and one cannot be called to do that which one cannot make sense.

However, more seriously, insisting that there are greater and lesser types of beings is one of the contradictions on which human society has been based. It is one thing to say that most humans will in fact favor those of their own kind, which is simply an observation. It's another thing altogether to say that they should, and that society should be constructed by the different beings that humans tend to value. People tend to value their dogs and cats but not as much as their boys and girls, and so some say we should generalize that tendency and make a social and ethical hierarchy based on that. Yes, ranchers value their cows for the livelihood they bring to them, their family and their loved ones, but is that a reason for banishing buffalo behind the borders of Yellowstone National Park? Yes, wildlife lovers value free moving wildlife, but is that a reason to uproot people and their way of life? We do not know that the cow is more sacred than the buffalo or vice versa. We cannot pretend to construct values based on those we perceive to be greater than others. We do not have any idea what the greatest good for the greatest number is. We don't know who is greatest; we wouldn't know how to construct the world for them if we did.

Yet, knowing that there is something contradictory in our social constructs, we know right off that this is not something we should be doing. It may not tell us exactly what we should be doing, but we do have very clearly knowledge of some of the injustice in the world.

But, having knowledge of injustice does not tell us what injustice is more unjust. One contradiction is the same as any other, in terms of being contradictory. There are not "more blatant" contradictions. Anyone who says that does not understand what a contradiction is. And, while some contradictions may affect more of certain kinds of beings (like World War II killed at least 50 million people, or the Holocaust killed 6 million Jews, or the genocide of American Indians wiped at least 95% of indigenous Indians from the earth), identifying the quantity of a particular kind affected with the level of injustice stills falls prey to the trap of prejudicing one kind of being over another.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said in his "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," an "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." This is not simply a quaint statement; it's because logically, it follows. In logic, one contradiction implies the truth of every other. That is, one contradiction holding true destroys the very fabric of truth, and this can be described very easily in logic. In a world where any injustice is tolerated as permissible, all others follow.

Yet, injustice is everywhere. Humans are finite. There is no way for them to be everywhere and fight everything. Every human will make choices about the injustices they will speak out against. So, while every injustice is connected, each being who can recognize injustice must necessarily choose particular injustices to combat. Our only guide are our emotions and experience, none of which are subject to judgment. We will roam as we are inclined to move. Where we are moved, where we recognize injustice, the good thing is to take action against it. Whatever that means, it means at the very least that we must be consistent and fight inconsistency.

So, why the buffalo? Why is the buffalo a cause for justice, but the cause of the livestock owners who are protecting their investment not a cause for justice? If wild buffalo is not necessarily any better than the domesticated cow, why choose one over the other? First of all, no one should be taking action on those utilitarian terms. A better reason for standing for the buffalo is that there has never been a good reason to stop them from moving outside of Yellowstone National Park. The reason they have been denied their movement has been because the livestock industry has historically enforced the notion that the land is better used for agriculture than it is for allowing wild animals to move, especially those animals that directly compete for grazing lands. That is, our current situation does not arise from asserting the greater good of buffalo over public lands but from directly the opposite - the assumption that buffalo are a detriment to the greater good. That being contradictory, an affront on reason, an arrogant assertion of ownership over land for a particular purpose, standing for the buffalo is a direct rebellion against the mindset that put them caged into Yellowstone National Park in the first place. Their being stuck there was a product of injustice; their still being stuck there is a product of the very same injustice.

I am drawn to the buffalo for no better reason than life has put them in my way in the Yellowstone that I adore. There's no good or bad in that; it's an emotive response. However, the defense of the buffalo is a defense against an arbitrary boundary, an assertion of a greater good where there isn't. What happens after those boundaries are down, what happens after the rationale disappears is anyone's guess, but the decimation on the basis of a contradiction will be gone.

Likewise, when the environmental groups who have sold out the buffalo alongside the state and federal government promote this as a good step for the buffalo, we must be critical. On what basis is this a good step? It can only mean, if I am right, that this is a good step toward eradicating the unjust boundaries that have created this mess. However, it is not. Twenty-five buffalo will not have more land to roam because they will still be under the arbitrary control of the government, not allowed to stay, and not necessarily allowed to come back. The basic parameters of control remain; only the terms of the boundaries have changed. This only replaces one injustice with another, and so the grounds for fighting it have not changed one bit. It's not a greater good for some number; it's the same injustice faced by us all.

The only way to justify the notion that this is a "good step" is to suggest that this moves the process along in such a way that it will make it more politically reasonable in the future for more buffalo habitat to be accepted. It is as if the buffalo must prove themselves here before they will be allowed. It's the sort of argument that black male suffrage advocates argued against woman suffrage advocates, who told the latter that it's the "black man"'s turn when voting rights were a hot issue after the Civil War. Of course, putting aside that it took women another 50 years to get voting rights, the argument is incoherent. There is nothing for buffalo to prove. They are the victims of an arbitrary assessment of value. And, the only way to call this a "good step" is to make the very same arbitrary assessment of value. It's another inconsistent claim to know what the greatest good is and what the steps are for getting there.

We take steps, we make progress, we move forward, but we do so only when the terms are defined. Whether we are talking about ethics at large or the deal this past week with the buffalo in particular, we do not have a defined good with which we can make the proper measurements.

Until someone can show why advocating for the buffalo is a contradiction, I will continue to do so. From looking at their behavior, we can call to mind a lot. They have values, they protect their loved ones, they have favored foods and favored lands. However, when has a buffalo ever constructed a social and an ethical system based on their movements? They act without pretense of a greatest good for a greatest number. They simply act, and we discern their values and preferences based on how they act. We, however, live in a society based on arbitrary values, and we act based on assumed notions of greater and lesser, which is backwards. Those values are contradictory, and that we know is wrong. The buffalo, among so many other beings, are caught in this injustice. For a lot of autobiographical reasons, I am drawn to this injustice, but I don't pretend that it is the most important thing we should be doing. All working on injustice are working on the same thing.

So, to the extent we can, let's fight against injustice together. And, for those of us drawn to the buffalo, let's be fervent in taking action against what doesn't allow them to roam. That, among other things, means rejecting this deal and all those groups who are trying to make it happen.

***disclaimer: I'm now in a new buffalo advocacy group in Bozeman, Montana (as yet unnamed); this essay is my own and does not necessarily represent the views of the group.***

Today, the National Park Service and the state of Montana made some major announcements about the buffalo slaughter in Yellowstone National Park. One of the announcements that they made was that the slaughter for the season is over on both boundaries, though hazing operations will continue.

In light of that, Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) put out their weekly report, in which they said that the National Park Service has claimed that there are now only 1,436 buffalo alive. According to an email correspondence with BFC, they are now claiming that the number is 2,300 and that they miscalculated the number. So, the number of dead is not clear, but over half have died and perhaps more than two-thirds (down from 4,700). Winter in Yellowstone is not over; we expect a major storm this weekend. What will be the final census?

For public information, I wanted to share the IBMP report regarding bison. Here is the pdf version of that report.

***

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