After a sudden Brucellosis outbreak, the authorities at Yellowstone National Park decided to convert a big part of their bison trap into a special quarantine facility. Also, they are planning to perform several tests on the animals to find out if there are any sick specimens, and make sure no more should fall ill.
- Yellowstone officials are afraid their bison might be suffering from Brucellosis.
- The disease causes cattle to suffer miscarriages.
- They decided to convert the Stephens Creek facility into a quarantine area.
The Yellowstone officials got afraid that their bison might be in danger of contracting Brucellosis, and decided to take immediate measures. Together with livestock authorities and the Department of Agriculture, they came up with the idea of turning the facility at Stephens Creek into a quarantine area.
More precisely, the authorities are planning to put all 24 bison from the northern area of the park into quarantine without having to move them all the way to the current protection area at Corwin Springs. Therefore, they thought of turning the Fort Peck Indian Reservation into such a facility.
This happened after Brucellosis started making victims among livestock. This condition causes cattle to suffer miscarriages, which can seriously affect their populations. Therefore, the officials took measures to keep the animals safe from the disease. Before making sure they are healthy, male bison need to stay in quarantine for a year.
However, taking bison into quarantine would have been too costly for the Yellowstone authorities, so they decided to bring the quarantine to them. Turning Stephens Creek into such a facility would reduce the costs, and would allow them to keep the animals under a much closer supervision. They are currently waiting for all the authorizations, and will soon start the conversion.
Officials fear that more than half of the bison living in Yellowstone suffer from Brucellosis. So far, they faced no case of them transmitting the disease to other wild cattle. However, they felt compelled to quarantine the animals and make sure all of them are safe.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.