At a hearing before Federal District Court Judge Charles C. Lovell in May, 2000, the Montana
Department of Livestock and U.S. Forest Service “represent[ed] to the Court that there is no
intention for future helicopter hazing in Horse Butte Area.”

During the winter and spring of 2000-2001 the Montana Department of Livestock repeatedly
used helicopters over the Horse Butte area to haze and capture buffalo. Five buffalo bulls have
been shipped to slaughter this year. Since 1984, 3,182 buffalo have been shot or shipped to
slaughter by the State of Montana with the cooperation of several federal agencies.

The Yellowstone buffalo herd is targeted by the agencies for “brucellosis control” when they
migrate to winter and spring range primarily on public lands surrounding Yellowstone Park.
Over the next 15 years the State of Montana and the U.S. government plan to spend $40-$45
million taxpayer dollars to haze, capture, test, vaccinate and slaughter wild buffalo that migrate
outside the Park.

“All this illegal activity impacting threatened bald eagles and the Yellowstone ecosystem is done
to protect cattle that don't winter here,” said Mike Mease of Buffalo Field Campaign. “Five
buffalo bulls have been shipped to slaughter. Trumpeter swans and migrating waterfowl have
been displaced. Bald eagle nests are failing to produce young. Why? So a few more taxpayer
subsidized cattle can range on public lands – land the buffalo is wrongfully denied.”

The Horse Butte Peninsula is home to three active bald eagle nests:the Ridge, Narrows and
Horse Butte. The Madison Arm of Hebgen Lake and Madison River are prime wintering and
foraging habitat for bald eagles in the Yellowstone ecosystem. The Horse Butte area, a 10,000-
acre peninsula near West Yellowstone, Montana, provides winter range and spring calving
habitat for Yellowstone's native buffalo herd.

In 1999 and 2000 the Ridge bald eagle nest failed, and in 2000 the Horse Butte bald eagle nest
also failed to produce young. This year, no bald eagles have been detected at the Narrows nest.
The U.S. Forest Service has not determined the causes of these nest failures, and has an
affirmative duty to cease any operations “in the interim period between initiation and
completion of the new consultation if any additional taking is likely to occur,” according to the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Biological Opinion.

"The bald eagle and the wild buffalo are the great symbols of freedom and wildness in this land,”
said Jim Coefield of The Ecology Center, Inc. “The U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service is allowing the Montana Department of Livestock to run amok and do what it
pleases at any cost. The vast majority of people do not support the agencies' actions, and we
trust the Court to use reason and end this disgrace.”

The environmental groups are based in Missoula and West Yellowstone Montana and are
represented by Brenda Lindlief Hall of the law firm Reynolds, Motl and Sherwood in Helena,
Montana. “The Montana Department of Livestock has consistently and systematically violated
the terms and conditions established by the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service for operating the buffalo capture facility and hazing buffalo on public lands,” said Hall.

“The Montana Department of Livestock has deployed helicopters in areas where they are
specifically prohibited, and has flagrantly ignored habitat protections established for bald
eagles,” she continued. “The U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have
wholly failed to analyze the effects of aircraft on bald eagles and other native wildlife. Further,
all of the Federal Defendants have actively assisted the Montana Department of Livestock in its’
illegal activities. This lawsuit seeks to uphold the laws that protect native wildlife and the
ecosystems that are part of the American people’s heritage.”
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