[Fairiedust]

Hunters have success as bison season returns

By BRETT FRENCH
Of The Gazette Staff
GARDINER - George Clement Jr.'s bison hunt ended only minutes after it started early Tuesday morning when he killed a bull just northeast of here. But the controversy over what took place will likely swirl for some time if hunt opponents have their way.

On the opening day of a first-of-its-kind hunt, Clement was the first hunter to shoot a Yellowstone National Park bison that wandered outside the park's northern boundary. Another was shot on private land in the West Yellowstone area by an unidentified hunter.

Montana hasn't held a bison hunt since 1990. Under the state's bison management plan, the animals aren't allowed to wander freely for fear they may spread brucellosis to cattle. The disease can cause cattle to abort.

As part of its bison-control plan, the state has reinstated a hunt. This latest one has been organized to be "fair chase" - hunters are not assisted by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in finding and taking the animals. But little about the hunt was normal.

Clement downed the bison with one shot from a .30-06 caliber rifle from 30 yards, then moved in close and shot the animal three more times to finish off the quick kill.

Shortly after killing the bison, 14 television, radio and newspaper reporters and photographers, along with two members of the Buffalo Field Campaign, hustled down to a small bowl where Clement, his father and brother tried to shoo away four other bison by throwing rocks.

"How did he feel?" a reporter asked the hunter.

"Indifferent," the 17-year-old Belgrade High School student said, and then added, "It's really big."

Perhaps nothing could prepare the family for the media attention, even though successful applicants for the 50 bison licenses were told what to expect during a mandatory instructional class developed by Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the agency in charge of the hunt.

Asked if the family braced the teen for what might happen, Clement's mother, Bonnie, said she had prayed for him. Asked if she was worried about the publicity, she said, "Worry doesn't change anything, so I try to avoid that."

Once the live bison were shooed off, Clement notched his license with the date of the kill and used black electrical tape to secure it to the bison's left horn. After snapping on blue latex surgical gloves, members of the family strained to roll the huge animal onto its back and George Sr. began making precise cuts with a hunting knife on the bison's stomach to remove its entrails.

It wasn't long before the four bison came jogging back, scattering the hunters and news media.

"They're gathering around to mourn the buffalo," said Dru Dixon, a Buffalo Field Campaign member, as he jogged away from the carcass to avoid the oncoming bison.

One bison paused to sniff its companion's carcass while two others butted heads. Once again, the Clements shooed the bison off, this time for good.



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Three pairs of Bison Field Campaign members, who oppose the hunt, were baby-sitting three groups of bison in the Eagle Creek area Tuesday. The bison were scattered across the southeastern slope of Sheep Mountain. Large boulders dotted the treeless landscape. Scrub sagebrush and thin tufts of golden grass poked up through a skiff of snow that had fallen 1,000 feet above the north entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

The animal rights activists' task, according to Buffalo Field Campaign member Jesse Crocker, is to document bison kills using video and still images and make them available to the public.

"Anyone who wants video, we're happy to distribute to," he said, especially national and international media outlets. The photos and video would also be posted on the group's Web site. The six men were not hazing bison, nor interfering with any hunter's pursuit of bison, which would be a violation of the state's hunter harassment law.

"My objective is to document the hunt, document the kill," said Tyler Carlin, who paused from filming the gutting of Clement's bison to warm his hands as temperatures hung in the single digits. "We want to show the rest of the country and the world what's going on here."

For its part, the state Fish, Wildlife and Parks department was taking a hands-off approach to the hunt, although it has boosted enforcement manpower for the two hunting seasons.

"We're in the vicinity and making sure we're available, but we're not hovering around the hunters," said Pat Flowers, Region 3 supervisor for the agency. Flowers said the state would decide, as the hunt continues, whether to keep the enforcement level elevated.

After his father had dulled three knives cutting through the bison's tough hide, George Clement Jr. went back to the truck to retrieve a knife sharpener, saw and tarp. His father said he didn't mind doing the dirty work in junior's absence.

"It's a privilege for me to do this," he said.

Adding to the unusual hunt atmosphere, Justin Duffy and Ben Turnbull of Livingston, who were hunting elk in the area, hiked down to the kill site out of curiosity.

"Wow, you could make a big coat out of that," Duffy said, pointing to the bison's mud-caked hide.

"Yeah," George Sr. said, "but it would take two men and a boy to wear it."

As he grew more used to the crowd that surrounded him as he worked to gut the bison, George Sr. was asked if he had considered the historical aspect of what had just taken place.

"I'm just part of a hunt today," he said. And then pointing his comments at Buffalo Field Campaign activists, he added, "I think they're blowing things way out of proportion. They're a big-game animal that has been hunted for thousands of years. I'm not the first one to take part" in hunting them.

George Jr. finally returned with the gear, including a camera, and his older brother B.J. posed him for a photo, with 11,000-foot Electric Peak looming in the background. "Hold the head up," B.J. joked.

Standing apart from the commotion, Connie Clement said of the bison, "It's a gift. I know a lot of people that can use the meat."