If a certain proposal being discussed goes into effect, Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park will be preserving a whole lot less.
A current plan being debated to reduce the herd of bison and wild horses roaming the 22,000-acre park to 12 females is counterintuitive to the natural elements of what exactly Alachua County residents want to preserve.
As for the remaining paltry number of wild animals kept for the appeasement of the public? They’ll be contained in a much-smaller 150-acre viewing center.
About 100 people attended a meeting Tuesday evening to relay public comments on the proposal to remove most of the bison from Paynes Prairie.
We feel attendee Bruce Hicks said it best — “Once you put animals into a containment for viewing, isn’t that a zoo and not a preserve?”
Park officials have said the proposal to remove the majority of the wild herd is largely in order to protect the public from bison that might or might not escape.
While we strongly agree protecting public safety should be the No. 1 concern, park officials have not demonstrated that the bison or horses pose a great enough threat to the public to warrant selling them to the highest bidder.
Moreover, attendees at Tuesday evening’s public comment meeting threw daggers at the park’s highest-bidder system of removing the natural wonders of Paynes Prairie, saying this system would open up the possibility of people bidding on the bison in order to slaughter them for meat.
And we don’t think that aligns with a very “preservationary” mindset. Let the buffalo roam.
