Disputed Deal Puts Yellowstone Bison on Ted Turner’s Range

Bison-kind will be better off having more independent population centers in case one gets into trouble. Isn't this obvious? There is no better custodian than Ted Turner to care for one of these centers. Getting the offspring is just compensation. I don't understand why people have a problem with that. Maybe because he gave all that money to the UN? He should give more, others should give too.

This quote says about that.

The “Yellowstone 87” are a kind of Noah’s ark of their kind. Genetically, these bison still carry the shaggy swagger of their Ice Age forebears that lived alongside saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths.

Montana wildlife managers hope they will be the fount for establishing new free-roaming populations elsewhere in the state or around the West — if the animals prove, through the five years of testing, to be free of diseases that can infect cattle, especially brucellosis.

At the heart of the controversy is the human intervention that has shaped the animal’s history, from the brink of extinction around 1900 to their strange modern status. They are now raised for meat by the hundreds of thousands on private ranches, or left to roam free in Yellowstone.

The other recommended comment gives the story.

Ted Turner has done more than any single individual to protect the genetic diversity and thus the long-term survivval of the American Bison. His motivations are first and formost in defense of the planet's biological diversity. That he sees, also, that providing a market for these animals is a good way to build their populations accross the land is not motivated formost by financial interest. It is a market strategy for biodiversity conservation that is working. Whatever the outcome of this lawsuit, Mr. Turner deserves praise for his vision and conservation efforts.

The beef industry wants a monopoly.