Utah DWR makes short list for Yellowstone bison

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Billings, Mont. • Montana wildlife officials have come up with a short list of five entities that could receive bison from Yellowstone National Park under an experimental program to establish new herds of the animals.

The roughly 145 bison have been held for the past several years on behalf of the state at a Bozeman-area ranch owned by philanthropist Ted Turner. They were captured from the park in 2005 and 2006, put into quarantine and tested repeatedly to make sure they don't have the disease brucellosis.

Ten entities offered proposals to take the animals.

Montana wildlife officials said Monday they've narrowed that to five finalists: The Fort Peck Indian Reservation's Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the American Prairie Reserve.