National Parks Traveler Podcast | Managing Yellowstone Bison

As the National Mammal and a symbol closely tied to the National Park Service and the national parks, bison are highly revered in the United States. But that doesn’t mean they’re free of controversy.

Recently the staff at Yellowstone National Park released the Final Environmental Impact Statement on a bison management plan for the park. The preferred alternative in that plan calls for a bison herd ranging in number between "about 3,500 to 6,000 animals after calving." It also calls for a continuation of the transfer of bison to tribal lands via the Bison Conservation Transfer Program, and continuation of both a "tribal treaty harvest" and public hunting outside the park to regulate numbers.

But is that a good plan? We’re going to discuss that today with Erik Molvar, the executive director of the Western Watersheds Project which long has followed how the Park Service has managed bison in Yellowstone.