The National Park Service has a long history of ineptitude in reference to animal management. Pretty much anything they get involved with gets screwed up. From Canadian wolves, to Bison, to Elk. It is laughable if you think that that they actually have a clue about accurate numbers, in terms of breeding, or anything else. They can no more manage animals, than they can anything else. Sexual harassment, financial mismanagement nepotism, and outright fraud, th list goes on and on. The NPS is a total GoatFluck of stupidity.
I am no fan of the NPS, having worked directly with them a few times over the years, but they're no more inept than roughly the same percentage of workers in the public sector. The hiring process is ridiculously long but partly for a reason. Policy and regs necessitate the scrutinization and if there was any hint of nepotism, it'd be brought up ASAP. That sexual harassment thing that happened a while back resulted in a lot of disciplinary action and removals IIRC. As has some fraud that I have known about.
My guess is that some public affairs person didn't get the input from a biologist before publishing that piece about 5-90 cows. I've seen worse slip ups, both in govt and the private sector.
