How do you solve a problem like burgeoning bison? Birth control

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For Catalina‘s storied bison herd, a smaller population means more food and better health for all. Toward that end, the Catalina Island Conservancy has a new tactic for keeping the bison birth rate low: birth control. (Even animal-rights group In Defense of Animals supports the idea, donating $50,000 toward the program.) Our colleague Louis Sahagun has the story; here’s an excerpt:

Half a dozen men with walkie-talkies and cattle prods set out on foot at sunrise Thursday to coax a herd of 10 feral bison into a corral a mile away at the bottom of a Santa Catalina Island valley.

It wasn’t easy. In the final days of the mating season, a massive bull kept one beady eye on his cows, all of them pregnant, and the other on his human pursuers, who followed close behind shouting and waving their arms as the animals lumbered up steep slopes and into plunging ravines.

It was one of several herding operations that will culminate today with the inoculation of female bison older than 2 years, part of an experimental program designed to limit the population through contraception. The goal: reduce herd size -- which increases by 15% or more each calving season -- to a manageable, healthier, less environmentally damaging and constant 150 or so.

The vaccine is non-hormonal and will not harm the animals or change their social structures, said Carlos de la Rosa, the conservancy’s chief conservation and education officer. It is also reversible after about a year.

‘Bison will continue to be bison,’ De la Rosa said. ‘Males will continue to compete for females, and females will continue to go into heat. The only difference is that we can control how many calves they have.

‘For bison in love,’ he added with a laugh, ‘this means romance without responsibilities.’

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