The estimated 4,000 bison in Yellowstone National Park are America’s last true, wild herd. Yet these iconic animals face harassment and slaughter when they leave the park in search of food.
Each winter, members of Yellowstone bison herd stray from the park in search of food. And each year, these animals are hazed back into the park (where food is scarce in the winter) or slaughtered…all out of an exaggerated fear that they’ll transmit disease to the area’s livestock.
Over 900 bison were slaughtered in 2005, and over 1600 in 2008! Whenever the Yellowstone bison herd gets larger than 3000, state and federal agencies kill them back in a twisted form of population control.
Help stop the slaughter. Tell Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that America’s last true, wild bison should be protected.
Stop the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
Have you ever heard of the Battle of Blair Mountain? Neither had I, despite its being the largest armed conflict on American soil since the Civil War and the largest labor confrontation ever.
Well the Appalachian coal industry wants to keep it that way, as the Los Angeles Times reports. In fact, not only does the coal industry not want you to know about this particularly dark piece of its history, it wants to rub salt into the wound by blasting away the historic battlegrounds to…wait for it… mine for more coal.
And, lately, it has the help of the National Park Service in accomplishing this task.
To start at the beginning, the Battle of Blair Mountain took place in 1921 in Logan County, West Virginia. Over the course of one week, more than 10,000 coal miners confronted an industry-backed army in their struggle to unionize and demand better treatment. It was a watershed moment in the history of the labor movement. The battle ended after some 1 million rounds were fired and the U.S. Army stepped in (check out some historic photos here.)
Ever since, state authorities have resisted highlighting the battle in history books and have denied commemoration attempts. For one, the episode doesn’t exactly shine a positive light on what West Virginia last year declared to be its state rock. It’s also pretty clear, based on today’s expose from Think Progress, that the coal industry has a firm interest in indoctrinating the state’s youth through the school curriculum.
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