URGENT! We need you to speak up for Yellowstone National Park and the wild Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and all of its native wildlife.
Yellowstone National Park officials are asking the public for comments on a proposal by the U.S. Forest Service and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks to poison 45.5 miles of Buffalo Creek—about 12 miles within Yellowstone and 33 miles in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness—plus 11 lakes in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in Montana, part of the famed Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
The proposal involves massive amounts of helicopter and motorized equipment use—for up to a decade—within the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and Yellowstone National Park, in addition to spreading hundreds of gallons of the poison rotenone. Incredibly, rotenone would even be applied to Buffalo Creek in at least two places within Yellowstone National Park! Much of the project will be staged from Slough Creek, a popular campground and wolf-watching location in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley.
The USFS and MTFWP goal is to kill the rainbow trout they have been stocking in these naturally fishless waters since the 1920s, and replace them with Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Neither fish species existed in the project area historically and the continued stocking–and now the poisons–are taking an unknown toll on the area’s native amphibians and other aquatic life.
Wilderness Watch supports efforts to conserve Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Those efforts need to focus on the trout’s native waters. Destroying native species and damaging naturally fishless ecosystems in Wilderness isn’t the answer for protecting native trout.
Moreover, intensive intervention and manipulation projects like this are fundamentally at odds with the Forest Service’s and Park Service’s mandate to preserve wilderness character, and raise concerning questions over the long-term viability of Wilderness itself.
The National Park Service (NPS) is accepting public comments through August 25. Because the project is being staged inside Yellowstone National Park—and a portion of Buffalo Creek that will be poisoned is inside the park—NPS has to also approve the project. That’s why your voice is critical now!
Speak in your own words and share any personal knowledge you have about the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness or Yellowstone National Park, but please also make the following points in your comments:
- Buffalo Creek was historically fishless above the falls at the Yellowstone/Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness boundary (though rainbows and other fish were planted above the falls decades ago). If the fish are removed the streams and lakes should remain fishless.
- The entire project area within Yellowstone is in Recommended Wilderness, which requires NPS to treat it as if designated Wilderness.
- The project proposes a total of 40 helicopter flights and other motorized equipment within Yellowstone National Park and the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, where all motorized use is banned unless essential to wilderness protection.
- Rotenone poison is not species-specific. The poison will not only kill fish, but also other gill-utilizing organisms. Poisons have no place in Yellowstone’s waters.
- The project lacks adequate environmental review; the cumulative effects from both the national forest Wilderness and the national park segments need to be better analyzed under NEPA.
Thank you for taking swift action to protect Yellowstone National Park and the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness! |
|
