Fears of disease spreading prompts action

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Govt' to decide fate of sick bison

Government officials are seeking a panel to make recommendations in a special inquiry to decide the fate of a diseased bison herd at Wood Buffalo National Park.

The bison, roaming freely in the 60,000 sq. km park in northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories, suffer from tuberculosis and brucellosis (an infection that can cause the animals to become sterile or the females to abort their calves).

Fears that the diseases could spread to domestic cattle in the Peace River area and another herd of rare purebred wood bison at the MacKenzie Bison Sanctuary near Fort Providence, N.W.T. has prompted government officials to take action. The healthy herd of 1,600 wild bison is the largest of its kind in the world.

The most severe action being considered is to kill the entire diseased herd of 4,500 bison. But the extermination of the bison has been complicated because it is estimated about 50 per cent of the herd is healthy and does not have either of the diseases, says Bob Redhead, an authority on the herd at the national park.

Redhead is a member of a task force that compiled a 400-page report on the diseased animals. The report, which includes four options for dealing with the herd, was met with discussion at a meeting in Winnipeg Feb. 11 by officials from the federal, provincial and N.W.T. governments.

The options are to fence the entire perimeter of the park, corral the bison and do more research, kill the entire diseased herd or do nothing.

The officials will ask Federal Environment Minister Tom McMillan to establish a review panel to study the report and find other options. The panel will be expected to hold public hearings and seek more technical advice before any recommendations are made to decide the herd's fate.

If the minister declines, a panel will be selected by an inter-agency group.

Although the report has not been made public yet, Redhead says it will be distributed to resource facilities no later than May. The report is being edited and condensed to 100 pages.

The Wood Buffalo Park reportedly became infected in 1925 when a herd of about 6,000 diseased plains bison was introduced to the park from Wainwright, Alberta.