His group shadows the buffalo hunters, carrying an odd combination of recruiting brochures and objections -- they still oppose the hunt, arguing that it is "canned" because the buffalo are being treated like domestic animals in Montana, confined to a few thousand acres.
Vader and his hunting buddies have thought long and hard about these issues: Is it sporting to stalk a creature that is so oblivious to danger that, 125 years ago, millions were slaughtered by gunmen who could ride right into herds?
Buffalo, also known as bison, are found throughout the West but mostly live on ranches and are largely descended from cross-breeding with cattle. The Yellowstone herd is among the few herds that have no cross-breeding in their lineages and the only one that roams wild.
For several years until 1991, Montana's Department of Fish, Parks and Wildlife held hunts to control the buffalo. State wildlife agents would lead hunters to buffalo that ventured too far into Montana, then point out which ones they could shoot. They'd even provide a tractor to haul away each 1-ton carcass. Protests by environmentalists set off a national outcry, and the state canceled the hunt.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer, an avid hunter and former cattle rancher, said he was no fan of that approach.
When he approved the latest hunt, he said he wanted it to be a true sporting event. In Montana, he said, "we like to hunt. We're not people that put a bucket of grain behind our house so we can shoot an elk off our deck. We like to get out."
Even so, some hunters have been able to drive up and stand near the road to shoot the buffalo. Others have chased the animals, or, after wounding one, stalked it for miles to finish it off.
The governor acknowledged that buffalo would never be as difficult to hunt as more skittish animals. But he said he hoped they would develop a healthy fear of humans to make their pursuit more challenging, which would lead him to increase the number of buffalo hunting permits.
Schweitzer is also trying to persuade Yellowstone-area ranchers who have small herds of cows to move them so the buffalo can roam more freely in the state. That would end the need for the systematic herding of bison that last month caused a group of buffalo to flee onto an iced-over lake and fall in. Two drowned.
