=

* Pm es

ee
oo *

me
= Me me:
ep.
reser Gag

ca

£ * x aie

Bison in Wood Buffalo national park; government's proposed kill has sparked opposition.

More than agriculture issues
seen in proposed bison kill

By PAUL OGRESKO

The slaughter was swift and brutal. In the
late 1800s as “civilization” swept west, over
60 million bison which had roamed the
western plains in vast herds were slaught-
ered by hunters. The decimation coincided
with the destruction by military force, alco-
hol and disease, of the Plains Indian tribes
who had for thousands of years relied on
the bison for food, shelter and clothing.

The extermination of the bison also
marked the death of the nomadic life of the
Plains Indians as fences, towns and train
tracks obstructed the once open plains.

The remnants of the bison herds were
relegated to a few protected parks — the
tribes to reserves. Today there are more
than 100,000 bison in North America,
although the great majority: are domestic
livestock, feeding an increasing demand for
the lean meat.

Now the world’s largest free-roaming
bison herd is in danger. The 4,200 bison
which roam the | 1 million-acre Wood Buf-
falo National Park in northern Alberta and
the Northwest Territories are threatened by
disease and human intervention. They will
be slaughtered if a proposal by the Depart-
ment of Agriculture goes ahead. The
department says the herd must be destroyed
for the good of the species and to protect the
cattle industry that is expanding into the
area surrounding the park. ;

Tests conducted in 1985 by the agricul-
ture department revealed that up to 55 per
cent of the Wood Buffalo herd were
infected with either bovine tuberculosis or
brucellosis which causes spontaneous mis-
carriages in livestock. Agriculture Canada is
worried that the diseases will spread to
neighbouring cattle herds - while local
ranchers are demanding action. Ironically,
the disease came from cattle in the first place
when, in 1925, 6,700 plains bison which had
grazed with disease-carrying cattle were
added to the wood bison herd.

Wood bison were a smaller and darker
subspecies than the plains bison, although
today all but one northern herd of 2,000 are
a hybrid from the 1925 actions.

Government officials at the time even

6 Pacific Tribune, February 26, 1990

welcomed the introduction of diseased
bison into the Wood Buffalo herd with the
incorrect assumption that bovine tubercu-
losis would affect only older bison, thus
becoming another way to control the popu-
lation. Up to that time the bison was con-
trolled through the natural predation of
wolves, occasional hunting by Natives and
settlers and by drowning during spring
floods in the delta.

Ina decade, if Agriculture Canada’s plan
to deal with the problem goes ahead, the
entire herd will be destroyed and a process
of restocking the park with uninfected bison
will begin. However, many Natives, envir-
onmental groups and residents of the area
are saying the slaughter is unnecessary and
is being encouraged by logging companies,
oil and gas interests, and ranchers who view
the untouched forest, possible mineral and
gas resources, and grazing land of Wood
Buffalo park with envious eyes.

Agriculture Canada, and many scientists,
are arguing that the only way to stop the
spread of the disease is to eradicate it com-
pletely and then to reintroduce unaffected
bison. They argue that a selective killing of
diseased bison would not only be too costly,
due to the vastness of the park and the size
of the herds, but also that diseased animals
would inevitably be missed.

The federal environment ministry has
appointed an environmental assessment
panel to examine the problem and, when
public hearings currently underway con-
clude, to come up with a recommendation.
Many, such as Dene/Metis negotiator
George Kurszewski, have little faith in
either Agriculture Canada’s plan or the
review process itself.

“Agriculture Canada and Renewable
Resources are trying to do a sales job,”
Kurszewski said recently in Native Press.
“They’ve already determined outside of this
process what course of action they should
take. What they’re trying to do is justify
through these hearings why (the slaughter)
should be done.”

Opponents of the slaughter argue there
are other options than the wholesale elimi-
nation of the herd. They are also afraid that

if the 4,200 bison are eliminated the park
may go with them. They are challenging not
only the proposal of Agriculture Canada
but also suggesting that there are other
interests at play than maintaining a free-
roaming bison herd.

At recent hearings in the NWT, Len
Heron, a former games warden, raised the
$64 question: “Once you eradicate the buf-
falo what’s left? What do you need the park
for? Some of the best white spruce is in that
park. Timber may become the real prob-
lem. The future of the park is threatened,
considering the development of pulp mills
in Alberta.”

Wood Buffalo National Park is the larg-
est national park in the country. It is a land
of underground rivers, salt flats, valleys,
springs, and vast spruce and jack pine
forests. It also contains the northern nesting
site of the endangered whooping crane and
the world’s largest freshwater delta, fed by
the Peace and Athabasca rivers.

The massive logging and pulp projects
planned for northern Alberta, including

"seven new or expanded pulp mills along the

Peace and Athabasca rivers, will see dioxins
and other pollutants flow into the delta

area, contaminating the land and the wild-
life.

In addition to the external threat of pulp
mill pollution flowing into the delta, envir-
onmentalists are warning that the eradica-
tion of the bison will upset the natural
balance of the area. Wolves — the park has
one of the largest populations left in North
America — rely on the bison as a primary
source of food, and will be forced to turn to
the deer and caribou population which
would in turn be decimated.

The Native bands in the area have been
denied any say in the future of a species they
relied upon for thousands of years. They are
threatening court action to stop Agriculture
Canada’s plan and to demand a role in the
decision. In what may be historical justice,
the fate of the largest free-roaming herd of
bison may depend on the success or failure
of the Native challenge.

Senate rejects
Ul cutbacks bill

Calling parts of the proposed legisla-
tion “deplorable and unacceptable,” the
Senate Feb. 14 handed Bill C-21, the bill

“proposing cuts to the unemployment

insurance program, back to the govern-
ment for changes, including elimination
of the provision to remove federal money
from UI..

The bitterly-contentious bill, which
would radically alter an important Can-
adian social program to make it conform
more closely with the U.S. unemploy-
ment insurance program, was to have
been in effect by Jan. 1, 1990. But the
Senate held it up in response to demands
from more than a hundred groups across
the country, including the Catholic
Bishops, and conducted its own hearings
before recommending several amend-
ments.

It is asking the government to reinstate
federal funding for UI, to ease eligibility
rules, guarantee benefits for fishermen
and maintain regional benefits.

Senator Jacques Hebert, representing
the Liberal majority in the upper house,
called the legislation “purely and simply
a demolition operation designed to des-
troy the present unemployment insu-
rance system.” He acknowledged that
even as amended the bill was “bad legis-
lation” but said the Senate opted to seek
amendments rather than accede to
widespread demands to kill the legisla-
tion.

Great Lakes fishers
win court victory

The Ontario Court of Appeal, in a
judgment last month ruled that members
of the Great Lakes Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union fall under the jurisdic-
tion of provincial labour law. The court
rejected an argument advanced by the
fishing companies that all matters per-
taining to fisheries fall under the jurisdic-
tion of Parliament.

A decision against the union and the
Ontario Labour Relations Board would
have seriously jeopardized organizing in
the industry, since union certification
already carried out under OLRB auspi-
ces would have been null and void.

“We would have had to re-certify
everyone all over again,” Canadian
Autoworkers marine division rep Mike
Darnell told the Tribune.

A negative decision would also have
cancelled $404,000 previously awarded
to 14 employees fired for GLFAWU
membership, Darnell said. That would
have enabled the companies to bring in
anti-union employees and the result
would be a dramatic step backward for
fishermen, many of them Portuguese-
Canadian, who have already waged a
lengthy fight to obtain trade union rights.

The decision reads, in part:

“We agree with the Divisional Court
that the Board correctly concluded that it
had jurisdiction to entertain the union’s
application for certification. The decided
cases have held that Parliament’s author-
ity ... is restricted to legislation for the
protection and preservation of fisheries
as a public resource. We agree with the
Board that Section 91 (12) does not
extend to the regulation of the business
of commercial fishing.

The labour relations of the appellants
and their employees are therefore a mat-
ter within provincial jurisdiction.”

}
Bate