Billionaire Ted Turner is set to receive 88 Yellowstone National Park bison from Montana that were supposed to be put on public or private lands.
The animals, now housed at a joint federal-state quarantine compound in southern Montana’s Paradise Valley, are part of a state program geared toward placing disease-free animals on public or tribal lands.
Turner struck a deal with the state that will allow him to keep 75 percent of the bison offspring — an estimated 188 bison — in exchange for boarding the animals for five years. Montana would get an estimated 150 bison back in 2015.
Turner already owns about 50,000 bison, but this group of bison is valued for its pure gene pool.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) had asked Turner to submit an offer for the bison last fall after an earlier plan to move them onto a Wyoming reservation fell through. The state has also turned down at least two American Indian reservations that wanted some or all of the bison.
“There were a lot of people that wanted [the bison] on public lands. We’re not ready,” said Montana wildlife chief David Risley. “The Turner option, all it does is buy us time to come up with a long-term solution” (AP/Billings Gazette, Feb. 2). – DFM