If they test positive, they are slaughtered. While the new Joint Management Plan is not intended to be a brucellosis eradication plan, it employs many tools to manage and reduce the potential risk of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle. Limited numbers of bison will be allowed on public lands outside the park during winter when cattle are not present. Only limited numbers of bison will be permitted outside the park, within their prescribed winter range. The closer the bison come to the invisible line separating their mandated winter range from the open range, the more official resistance they will encounter.
Wild buffalo hold a special place inside the American public's hearts and heritage.
They need room to roam outside Yellowstone Park on federal lands to survive. Coefield and his group object to the new caps on the number of bison that will be allowed outside the park, and the additional limits on the buffalo herd's size within the park. The state of Montana incorporated and adopted the federal agencies' FEIS into its own FEIS for bison management and will implement the same Joint Management Plan as the federal agencies. The plan employs an adaptive management strategy, allowing the agencies to change the plan based on additional research findings in the future. If future research shows there is no way that brucellosis can be transmitted from bison to cattle, that could change the way the plan is implemented.