Additionally, the exact boundaries of the park must be clearly understood and marked, so that no citizens accidentally enter into the park lands and slaughter the Bison while they are protected by the federal government. At the same time, there needs to be some leeway so that the citizens in need can still take the vital source of meat and protein when in need, especially in the winter.
The current policy required NPS officials to try to corral Bison that left the park before they got to private lands. Yet, there is a major problem here because Bison are naturally migratory. Thus this plan is not the most appropriate because the Bison are always going to leave the park at some point in time. Thus, there are a number of policy alternatives here. First and foremost, the park officials can work with the federal government to persuade Montana to adopt stricter hunting regulations in regards to the Bison. Bison can also be tagged and tracked to ensure that NP has a better chance of catching them before they enter into public lands. Alternatively, the NPS officials can lobby to have the hunting of Bison banned completely through bringing national attention to the issue.
The best policy alternative here would be to increase the...
Bison naturally migrate, and as such it would be difficult to try to stop all of them. At the same time, tagging and tracking each animal might be a costly endeavor. NPS must work with the state of Montana to increase the strictness of hunting Bison within state borders. Thus, larger fines and penalties would be brought to those who went above their limit in hunting Bison. At the same time, the corralling of Bison to be shipped off to slaughter must be stopped. The herd can be thinned out by hunting in smaller proportions. This policy can later be evaluated by checking the number of Bison each year and ensuring that their numbers are not dropped too much by hunting.
Within this case, the five-step model did help generate ideas and make me better understand the problem at hand. It made me look at all the players and angles, and how each stakeholder would be affected by policy change. Yet, it does not guarantee that the alternative policy will work. The issue here is whether or not Montana officials would agree to enforce this new policy. If they didn't it might be a long drawn out court battle. If that was the case, the five-step model did not really provide the framework for dealing with opposition.
