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How Native American tribes are bringingback the bison from brink of extinction

Jeremy Hance

The continent’s largest land mammal plays crucial role in spiritual lives of thetribes

Wed 12 Dec 2018 08.41 EST

Bison herd with calves in Lamar Valley, Yellowstone Park. Photograph: Neal Herbert/Yellowstone NPS

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/12/how-nat…can-tribes-are-bringing-back-the-bison-from-brink-of-extinction 4/10/19, 5D41 PM of 8

O n 5,000 hectares of unploughed prairie in north-eastern Montana, hundredsof wild bison roam once again. But this herd is not in a national park or aprotected sanctuary – they are on tribal lands. Belonging to the Assiniboineand Sioux tribes of Fort Peck Reservation, the 340 bison is the largestconservation herd in the ongoing bison restoration efforts by North America’s

Indigenous people.

The bison – or as Native Americans call them, buffalo – are not just “sustenance,”according to Leroy Little Bear, a professor at the University of Lethbridge and a leader inthe bison restoration efforts with the Blood Tribe. The continent’s largest land mammalplays a major role in the spiritual and cultural lives of numerous Native American tribes,an “integrated relationship,” he said.

“If you are Christian and you don’t see any crosses out there, or you don’t have yourcorner church … there’s no external connection, [no] symbolic iconic notion thatstrengthens and nurtures those beliefs,” said Little Bear. “So it goes with the buffalo.”

Only a couple of hundred years ago, 20 million to 30 million bison lived in vastthundering herds across North America. They were leftover relics of the Pleistocene andone of the few large mammals to survive the Ice Age extinction.

But less than 400 years after Columbus’ direful voyage, white settlers pushed their waywest into Native American territory in so-called manifest destiny. And the USgovernment made the fateful decision to cripple the Native Americans through whatevermeans necessary. One of these was the bison: the government viewed slaughtering thegreat herds en-masse as a way to starve and devastate Native American tribes.

Within just decades, the bison went from numbering tens of millions to within a hair’s

Bison in the snow Photograph: Neal Herbert/Yellowstone NPS


breadth of extinction. “Fort Peck was the first to stand up and say we want to help. Wewant to restore these important bison back to their historic Great Plains home,” saidJonathan Proctor, Rockies and Plains program director with NGO Defenders of Wildlife,who has worked with the tribes for years to bring the bison back.

To do so, the tribe looked to Yellowstone’s bison herd. After the slaughter of the 19thcentury, 23 bison survived in a remote valley in Yellowstone. Today, the herd is 4,000strong and is seen as a vital population because it has never been domesticated orinterbred with cattle, maintaining genetic purity. While so-called pure genetics of thebison are often important to scientists and conservationists, Kelly Stoner – who heads thebison program at the Wildlife Conservation Society – said the issue is more complicatedamong tribal groups.

“You’ll find that amongst Native Americans … the predominant attitude is ‘if it looks likea buffalo and smells like a buffalo, it’s a buffalo’. The deep, personal relationship betweenNative Americans and buffalo exists, and is relevant and important, whether or not aparticular animal has 8% cattle genes or not,” she explained.

Still, in 2007, Fort Peck Reservation eyed Yellowstone’s herd as a potential source to builda cultural herd. Fort Peck, and many other tribes, already had a commercial herd – usedfor economic purposes – but now they wanted to build a second herd with conservationin mind.

But getting bison from Yellowstone national park would prove far harder than Fort Peckinitially thought. Although pure bred, Yellowstone bison carry the disease brucellosis.The Yellowstone bison originally contracted the disease from cattle in the early 20thcentury and now ranchers and state officials fear a return. Although scientists have neverrecorded brucellosis jumping from bison to cattle, it is theoretically possible according to

Yellowstone National Park Bison Herd grazing as a storm rollsin Photograph: Jacob W Frank/Yellowstone NPS


lab research.

“It’s really difficult [to pass]. It’s passed through the placenta,” explained Proctor. “You’dhave to have cattle mix with bison in the spring when the bison would potentially aborttheir calf because of brucellosis and the cattle would have to lick [the aborted placenta].It’s not likely.”

Still, cattle ranchers so fear the disease that they have pushed for hundreds, sometimeseven more than a thousand, bison to be slaughtered every year in Yellowstone nationalpark to keep the animals from roaming outside the park boundaries and potentiallymixing with cattle. Yellowstone elk also carry the disease, but are spared slaughter sincethey are seen as less of a risk.

The brucellosis panic almost stopped Fort Peck from ever getting Yellowstone bison.Over six years, the tribes had to battle anti-bison legislation from the Montana congressand legal battles. The case went all the way to Montana supreme court, which the tribeswon unanimously.

“The biggest roadblock is the politics in Montana,” said Robert Magnan, director of theFort Peck tribes’ fish and game department and the buffalo program. “They don’tunderstand what we’re trying to do out here.”

The first Yellowstone bison finally arrivedin 2012: around 60 animals in all. “Therewas a huge celebration; many, manypeople from the community came out,”said Proctor. “It was just thrilling to see.”

Two years after their arrival, Magnan saidthat the bison had already begun torejuvenate the land.

“We’ve seen the ecosystem revive.Grassland birds have returned, nativegrasses are thriving. We welcome and lookforward to the buffalos’ continued benefitsto our tribal lands.”

Since then, several more deliveries havebeen made and the Fort Peck herd – at 340 – is among the top 10 conservation herds inthe US.

TheTatanke Oyate, Buffalo Nation, Singers from the Fort PeckReservation in Poplar, Montana, sing a welcoming song forbison arriving from Yellowstone National Park on Monday,March 19, 2012. Sixty-four bison from Yellowstone NationalPark were shipped to northeast Montana’s Fort PeckReservation on Monday Photograph: Richard Peterson/AP


But the work has only begun. In 2014, two years after the bison came to Fort Peck, 13tribal nations – representing eight reservations both in the US and Canada – signed a‘Buffalo Treaty’. The treaty outlined the importance of bringing back free-roaming bisonto both the US and Canada. “We used to always have an empty chair for the buffalo, forthe spirit of the buffalo [at the dialogues], in our talking circles,” said Little Bear, whofacilitated the dialogues. “It’s hard to explain but the buffalo was basically asking us,‘you know, I’ve been gone for 150 years, why do you want me to come back?’”

By the end of the dialogues, the tribes agreed why. “The concern was the young peoplehear only stories, they hear the songs, they see the ceremonies, but they don’t see thebuffalo out there,” added Little Bear.

The treaty is already making good. Last year, Blackfeet Reservation, also in Montana,received 89 genetically pure bison from Elk Island in Canada. Although the Blackfeet’sIinnii Initiative – their name for buffalo – is the youngest, it’s also the most ambitious.

The tribe is negotiating with state officials to allow these bison, which are free ofbrucellosis, to range freely into Glacier national park and even, hopefully, one day asnorth as Waterton Lakes national park and Blood Tribe Reservation Canada – whichwould make it the first international bison herd in over a century.

A herd roam on the Fort Peck Reservation near Poplar,Montana Photograph: Matthew Brown/AP

Tribes sign the treaty to commit to bison repopulation andconservation in Polson, Montana Photograph: DennisJorgensen/WWF


Little Bear said they are also working with the Y2Y Initiative, which aims to create amassive wildlife corridor from Yellowstone to the Yukon for wildlife such as bears andwolves.

“We talked to the Y2Y people and said ‘hey, what about buffalo?’ And [they said], ‘wenever thought about it but we can include buffalo.’” This year, wild bison returned toBanff national park after being gone over 100 years. Little Bear said the tribe’s BuffaloTreaty acted as a “catalyst” for the re-wilding in Canada’s first park.

“Tribes of the northern plains are the lead in wild bison restoration right now,” Proctorsaid. In 50 years’ time, the conservation community hopes to have at least 10 bison herdsthat number 1,000 animals – the minimum, he said, needed for the bison to fulfil theirecological role (currently only Yellowstone has a herd of more than 1,000 animals).

On top of that, Proctor hopes there will be a few herds of more than 10,000 animals, aherd size which hasn’t been seen since the mass extermination in the 19th century.

“Well never see bison roaming the entire Great Plains again,” said Proctor. “We’ll neversee 20 million to 30 million bison again. No one is trying to go back in time. We’re tryingto go forward. We’re trying to restore this important animal where we can, where peoplewant them, and to the level where they will help restore the natural balance.”

For any of this to happen, Native American tribes will be key. They have the land and thedesire to bring back the continent’s largest land mammal. And it’s not just bison, Proctorsaid. They have been instrumental in conserving wolves, grizzly bears, swift foxes andblack-footed ferrets among other species.

Magnan said Fort Peck’s “dream” is to have 2,500 buffalo in their conservation herdrunning on more than 40,000 hectares. Already the tribe has passed a resolution to

A coyote and bison in Lamar Valley, Yellowstone national park.Photograph: Sumiko Scott/Getty Images


purchase more land.

“It’s amazing … with limited budgets and widespread poverty, [Native American tribes]are the leader in wildlife restoration when compared to the state wildlife agency,” hesaid. “In reality, it was not the buffalo that left us, it was us that left the buffalo. So wehave to do something.”

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Newly born bison calf and mother Photograph: NealHerbert/Yellowstone NPS


Topics

WildlifeThe Age of ExtinctionNative AmericansAnimalsfeatures


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