
The Government Won’t Let Me Watch Them Kill Bison, so I’m Suing (2015) - ggauravr
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xd7x9k/witness-to-a-massacre-0000652-v22n5
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spraak
> I think that if the public knew what was being done to the Yellowstone herd,
> people might demand a change in policy.

I feel the same way about all animals unnecessarily slaughtered. "If
slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian." [1] I would
take it further and say that if dairy farms had (metaphorical) glass walls
[2], everyone would be vegan.

It's tragic what is happening to the Bison, but it's not significantly
different than what happened to most people's meals.

[1] [https://youtu.be/HjqOTtJYXX0](https://youtu.be/HjqOTtJYXX0)

[2] [https://youtu.be/iL9QJEm_SJY](https://youtu.be/iL9QJEm_SJY)

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throwaway8941
I think this statement could only have come from someone who haven't spent
much time outside of big cities. At least where I am from, people in more
rural settings don't care about bovine or porcine feelings. This certainly
doesn't mean that we torture animals, but when their time comes, the knife
goes in, and meat goes on the table. "Everyone" most certainly would not
become vegetarian.

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brnt
Countryside dwellers dont know any more about the particulars of slaughter. I
find that even farmers tend to be surprisingly ignorant outside of their
narrow slice of expertise. Remember, argiculture is a highly specialized and
thus compartmentalized industry, so there is usually no need to know anything
about other links in de chain.

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johnchristopher
> I find that even farmers tend to be surprisingly ignorant outside of their
> narrow slice of expertise.

In recent years I came to the conclusion that this statement is true for the
majority of us.

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brnt
I think many people, 'countrysiders' and farmers included, mistakenly
attribute some sort of natural mysticism, simplicity to farming. There is
absolutely nothing 'natural' or simple about industrial (western) farming.
From mining minerals, producing fertilizers, landscape management, crop
engineering, cropfeed engineering, butching techniques, disease control and
then foodtech which has it's own universe of methods and companies.

It takes an interested mind to put all that in perspective. Whether or not you
do that has nothing to do with where you live or what you do (well, maybe some
agritech types have this in their job description).

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captainredbeard
Plenty of interested minds put that together and don’t come to the same
conclusion as you, my friend.

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Mathnerd314
The lawsuit did apparently result in some access, no particularly good camera
angles though: [https://truthout.org/articles/montana-s-beef-with-buffalo-
an...](https://truthout.org/articles/montana-s-beef-with-buffalo-and-
yellowstone-s-buffalo-battle/)

The fight now seems to be focused on getting the bison classified as an
endangered species: [https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2019/09/fish-and-
wildl...](https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2019/09/fish-and-wildlife-
service-again-declines-review-yellowstone-bison-esa-protection)

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mikorym
I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs. Culling of wild animals by
definition has to do with carrying capacity and I would have expected that to
be the basic point of discussion.

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adamnemecek
OK, why ban public access?

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masklinn
Maybe because they think it's easy to whip up public frenzy even over
something completely justified?

Though as the uncle comment notes, it doesn't really seem "completely
justified" here.

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casefields
FYI: article dated May 21 2015

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jedberg
This makes me so sad. I visited Yellowstone in 2013. The buffalo are
magnificent, beautiful creatures. One of them almost killed me, and I don't
blame it one bit. I was driving on _its_ road.

I really wish they could figure out a way to let them roam off of the park
lands.

