| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
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| News
Article 1/24/04 |
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| As
tribal bison herd gets larger, food supply dwindles
By MIKE STARK
Of The Gazette Staff, Billings Gazette
January 24, 2004
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High
atop a snow-swept plateau on the Crow Reservation, bison
shuffled in the morning sun at the sound of an approaching
airplane.
As it passed overhead, most of the shaggy giants raced
to the south, while a few others scattered here and there.
They ran for a few seconds and, as the plane buzzed away,
regrouped on a bare patch of ground that overlooks Bighorn
Lake, craggy canyon walls and a wild landscape that stretches
to every horizon.
On this day, the sightseers' plane was a minor disturbance
for the Crow bison that roam 22,000 acres on the reservation.
The rest of the winter hasn't been so easy for them -
or for the people trying to manage them.
Recent drought and a growing herd have pinched the food
supply and sent hundreds of buffalo spilling off the reservation
onto private and public land in Wyoming.
With ranchers and government officials worried about bison
feeding on cattle grazing allotments, Crow Agency crews
this fall and winter have been busy trying to push the
bison back onto the reservation and keep them there. Because
of the steep terrain and deep snow, much of the work has
been done in helicopters and aboard snowmobiles, trucks
and ATVs.
"It's been pretty hectic," said Leroy Stewart,
director of the buffalo program at Crow Agency.
Three people on bison crews have been injured, none seriously,
including one man who was in a pickup truck when it rolled
at the bottom of a canyon and another who crashed an ATV.
Meanwhile, tribal officials are looking for ways to reduce
the size of the herd - which now stands at about 1,100
- and possibly recoup some of the high costs of hazing.
About 200 buffalo have been killed this season, with most
of the meat going to tribal members. An upswing in buffalo
prices and a chance to get bison meat into a federal food
program could help, Stewart said.
Tribal officials are determined to make something work.
"For most tribes, the economic impact isn't the driving
force behind it," said Fred DuBray, director of the
Intertribal Bison Cooperative, of Rapid City, S.D., which
represents more than 50 American Indian tribes with bison
herds. "There are a lot of cultural realities that
exist."
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Millions of bison once wandered the continent, providing
spiritual and physical nourishment to tribes. In the 1800s,
hunts and slaughters reduced the bison population from
about 60 million to a few hundred.
In recent generations, tribes throughout the West have
been restoring bison to the landscape "to help heal
the spirit of both the Indian people and the buffalo,"
according to the bison cooperative.
The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota has the
largest herd in the country with about 3,500 bison, DuBray
said.
On the Crow Reservation, the current herd is the second
attempt in a century to bring back the bison.
In the early 1930s, bison were brought to the reservation
from Yellowstone National Park and the National Bison
Range near Moiese.
In following years, the bison tested positive for brucellosis,
a disease that can cause cows to abort their calves. Pressure
mounted from cattle ranchers to do something. The herd,
which had grown to about 1,500, was eliminated between
1962 and 1966.
The tribe reintroduced bison to the reservation again
in 1971, this time importing about 400 animals from Theodore
Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, where brucellosis
has not been a problem.
Ideally, the Crow herd should be several hundred bison
fewer than 1,100, Stewart said, but tribal officials have
had a tough time limiting the population and keeping the
animals within the reservation borders. The recent drought
hasn't helped.
Wildlife managers have designated tens of thousands of
acres on the reservation for the bison to graze, much
of it in high, remote areas where the animals can roam
freely. But the grasses and other food sources have been
stressed by a lack of moisture, providing dwindling forage
that is slow to be replenished.
The bison have eaten much of what's available, Stewart
said.
"They've cleaned out the forage area this year,"
he said. "With the drought, there wasn't enough forage
for them and they started heading south."
The southward migration began in the fall as bison left
the reservation and crossed the Montana-Wyoming line east
of Bighorn Lake, about 13 miles north of Medicine Wheel
National Historic Landmark, northeast of Lovell.
Unlike bison that walk out of Yellowstone National Park,
where ranchers are concerned that brucellosis might be
transmitted to cattle, the concern over Crow bison, which
are brucellosis-free, centers around something more basic:
food.
Not long after leaving the reservation, the Crow bison
were eating on private ranch land and land owned by the
Bureau of Land Management and Bighorn National Forest,
raising concerns that the bison might cut into food supplies
meant for cattle. Some also worried that federal agencies
might cut back on grazing allotments as a reaction to
the bison.
More than 500 bison were pushed back to the reservation
in the first week that tribal crews began tracking them
in the air and on the ground. Since then, more have wandered
off the reservation and efforts to get them back have
been renewed.
"It's very expensive and in that kind of terrain,
you really have to watch it," Stewart said.
Cold weather, deep snow, heavy timber and treacherous
terrain can make it difficult to get to the bison and
then steer them where they need to go. Crews have had
several close calls getting out of canyons and other tight
spots, Stewart said.
"As many times as we push them, there's a higher
percentage of ... accidents and it's taken a toll,"
Stewart said, mentioning the three workers who have been
injured this year. "Besides, it's a lot of wear and
tear on the vehicles. All of our ATVs and snowmobiles
are in the shop right now."
Wildlife managers have been talking with federal officials
about the possibility of putting up a fence at a bottleneck
passage on the south end of the reservation, Stewart said.
Bison, though, are known to move easily through fences
or over them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Continued monitoring and perhaps a few fences may be part
of the solution, but tribal officials are also looking
at other measures.
About 200 bison were harvested in an effort to downsize
the herd. Most of the meat went to tribal members and
a few bison were sold.
Stewart said the tribe might have sold more bison earlier
but the prices were low. That could be changing soon.
The buffalo market may be buoyed by news that a cow in
Washington state had mad cow disease.
"Buffalo prices should shoot up any day," Stewart
said.
If that happens, 200 to 300 bison may be trucked off the
Crow Reservation and sold, he said. The revenue could
be used to cover the expenses of hazing bison and to fund
education and natural resource programs.
DuBray said he believes efforts to market bison were already
pushing up buffalo prices before the news about mad cow.
Tribes could benefit from a potential bump in prices from
mad cow, but DuBray cautioned that bison exports face
some of the same restrictions as cattle.
"I don't think we want to jump on this as a marketing
opportunity," he said. "I'd hate to exploit
someone else's problem."
But beyond mad cow, DuBray said, interest in bison may
be growing among consumers. The grass-fed bison managed
by the tribes could be considered organic but DuBray said
he tends to shy away from that classification because
"it means so many different things."
Bison elsewhere could be housed in a pen and fed organic
food and still be considered organic, he said. The tribal
bison are "much more than that."
"Basically they're wild animals and they're treated
that way," DuBray said.
The Intertribal Bison Cooperative has also been pushing
to allow tribal buffalo to be included in the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations.
DuBray said the program tends to purchase surplus food
and pass it along to the reservations. Too often, he said,
the food doesn't provide a proper nutritional balance.
"So unfortunately, a large part of their diet has
been these kinds of foods, lots of carbohydrates, fat
and cholesterol. That leads to health problems on the
reservation," DuBray said. "It needs to be addressed."
Tribal officials are lobbying the federal government to
widen the variety of food that's provided in the program.
Bison raised by the tribes would be healthier for recipients,
DuBray said.
For the Crow, getting into the federal program would give
managers a chance to trim the herd, make some money to
cover their costs and provide sustenance for the reservations.
"We're trying to get native food to native people
and get revenue back from what we're doing," Stewart
said.
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