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Wild bison were not responsible for a single transmission, not one! Elk, not wild bison, have passed brucellosis to cattle

October 29, 2025/

With 2.1 million cattle in Montana, one might expect Governor Gianforte and our congressional delegation to know where cattle actually get brucellosis. But unfortunately, the governor and delegation appear locked into outdated, unscientific, and unsupported false assumptions that wild Yellowstone bison have transmitted brucellosis to cattle. They have not.

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Montana Governor Gianforte, Senator Daines, Senator Sheehy, Rep. Zinke, and Rep. Downey send letter to Interior targeting American Prairie – 60 Minutes American Prairie: Creating a huge new nature reserve in Montana

“We got a feeling that the APR, when they moved in here, they were at war with our culture, I guess, our communities and our cultures,” Stockton said. “But the fact of the matter is that in terms of actual impact, say, for me, personally, I’ve got more trouble with my billionaire neighbors.”

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The grim result of these false assumptions is that thousands of our nation’s last wild bison are slaughtered when they cross the invisible border of Yellowstone National Park, supposedly to prevent wild bison from infecting private cattle, which can cause cattle to abort.

That, however, is no longer accepted science. The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service commissioned the National Academies of Science, Medicine, and Engineering to undertake an exhaustive study to determine if the Park’s brucellosis management was working.

Contrary to the long-held assumptions, the study found that over the past 20 years it has been wild elk — not wild bison — that transmitted brucellosis to livestock 27 times.

Wild bison were not responsible for a single transmission, not one!

Mike Garrity

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