A recent article in the Bozeman Chronicle described the Yellowstone “Bison Conservation” Transfer Program.
The federal government is transferring public bison that belong to all Americans to tribal reservations, which is essentially a privatization of public wildlife. In the process, they are accelerating the domestication of wild bison from Yellowstone National Park.
Restoration and conservation of wild bison involve preserving ecological and evolutionary processes that have shaped bison for millions of years. By contrast, confining animals to fenced pastures, killing predators, winter feeding, selective breeding and other measures typical of livestock production destroy wild bison.
The transfer to tribes may seem like a better outcome than slaughter (tribes killed 1707 bison) by the same tribes at the border of Yellowstone. To see how “sacred” tribal hunting is, go here.
However, the entire program is analogous to suggesting that hatcheries contribute to the survival of wild fish. As any fish biologist knows, hatchery fish are genetically inferior to wild fish.
According to the article, the money will pay for fencing, water development, and other infrastructure to continue domesticating our wild bison.
Wild bison are subject to evolutionary selective factors such as predation, mate competition, forage and water availability, disease, and severe weather. These selective factors determine an individual’s fitness and which individuals are best adapted to their environment.
The annual slaughter of bison by tribal members and other hunters is part of the ongoing degradation of the wild bison genome.
Wild bison have several survival mechanisms. One is migration. Another is the ability to sustain themselves on native vegetation even in winter. The cultural context of herd family groups is one way that cultural knowledge of where to find food or evade predators is part of their persistence strategy. Standing united against predators like wolves is a survival mechanism that has worked for thousands of years.
Slaughter or transfer by humans removes bison from their grazing influence on the landscape and reduces prey availability for wolves, bears, and other wildlife.
Indian hunting on the border of Yellowstone eliminates all these traits and others.
The bison most likely to migrate are the first to be eliminated from the herd. Tribal hunting destroys the social context of family groups. The survival strategy of standing to defend the herd doesn’t work against humans with “traditional ecological knowledge” and high-powered rifles.
It’s important to note that tribal hunters exterminated bison from much of the West after they obtained the horse and gun. By 1860, bison had been extirpated over half of their former 1800 range.
Furthermore, on many reservations, the Yellowstone bison are slaughtered, often for a price by non-Indians. The Blackfeet, Fort Peak, and other reservations will sell you a license to kill the very bison they obtained free from Yellowstone.
Whether killed on the reservations or further domesticated by placing them on small enclosed parcels of land on the reservations, subject to selective breeding and other practices associated with domestic cattle, the end is the same- more significant loss of the wildness of Yellowstone’s bison.
This is the greatest insult to these wild creatures.
Yellowstone’s herd is of international biological importance as one of the least domesticated bison in the West, yet we treat them as so much meat on the hoof instead of the wild beings that have evolved since “time immemorial.” Just remember, the bison has been here for millions of years longer than the humans that colonized North America. If any entity deserves special treatment, it is Yellowstone’s bison.
One of the biggest obstacles to preserving wild bison is the state of Montana’s refusal to recognize the importance of restoring wild bison on public lands outside Yellowstone. The state cannot legally stop the federal government (due to the Supremacy Clause) from permitting bison to colonize the Custer Gallatin National Forest or transfer to the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.
Tribal slaughter or transfer of Yellowstone’s bison is essentially doing the bidding of the livestock industry. If there were no tribal involvement, the state would have to slaughter thousands of bison themselves, and one can only imagine how this would play with the general public. So, in essence, the tribes are the fall guys for the ranchers.
However, instead of confronting the state, the federal government avoided controversy by involving the tribes in destroying bison wildness.
Unfortunately, most of the “so-called” conservation groups in Montana, like the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Sierra Club, Buffalo Field Campaign and numerous other organizations, support tribal slaughter and domestication.
One inaccurate statement in the article is the questionable assertion that tribes have “treaty rights” to kill Yellowstone bison. Read the treaties. No tribes have ceded lands west of the Yellowstone River by Gardiner or treaty rights from the 1855 Lame Bull Treaty, which had a 99-year extinguishment clause and ended treaty rights in the area in 1954.
I have nothing against tribal bison herds, but there are numerous other sources of bison other than removing wild bison from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
To learn more about wild bison and organizations seeking to preserve them, visit the Montana Wild Bison Restoration Coalition, Roam Free Nation, Yellowstone Voices, or Alliance for Rockies.
Bio: George Wuerthner is an ecologist and wild bison advocate. He is the board president of the Montana Wild Bison Restoration Coalition.
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