Now, thanks to severe winter weather, they're starving - and leaving the park searching for food.
The starvation of bison is not an accident of nature but the intended consequence of a disastrous National Park Service policy.
Yellowstone's wildlife hubbub began early in this century, when overly zealous protection by park managers allowed elk and bison populations to explode.
Each winter, thousands of elk fled the park to be shot by hunters at the boundary at a place known by 1910 as the "Firing line." Desperate authorities even built a fence in a vain attempt to keep some animals in the park and sent wranglers to fetch errant bison apparently headed for Seattle.
By the 1930s, biologists knew that overly abundant elk and bison were severely
The starvation of bison is not an accident of nature but the intended consequence of a disastrous National Park Service policy.
Yellowstone's wildlife hubbub began early in this century, when overly zealous protection by park managers allowed elk and bison populations to explode.
Each winter, thousands of elk fled the park to be shot by hunters at the boundary at a place known by 1910 as the "Firing line." Desperate authorities even built a fence in a vain attempt to keep some animals in the park and sent wranglers to fetch errant bison apparently headed for Seattle.
By the 1930s, biologists knew that overly abundant elk and bison were severely