Thank Your for Signing On To List American Bison As A Species Of Conservation Concern!

Your individual endorsement will be added to the list of signatories on our final report for submission to the National Forest.

The report will be submitted as a public comment on the proposed action to recognize American bison as a species of conservation concern.

Becoming a signatory will also give you standing to object to the National Forest’s final decision.

If you have any questions about your submission, please email Excecutive Director Ken Cole, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Thanks again!

YOUR VOICE WILL HELP REPEAL MCA 81-2-120

Why should Montanan’s support repealing MCA 81-2-120?

• Because MCA 81-2-120 is destroying wild buffalo, and failing to fulfill Montana’s public trust responsibilities “to create and maintain conditions under which humans and nature can coexist” on behalf of “each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations.” (Montana Code Ann. § 75-1-103).

• Because MCA 81-2-120 absurdly puts the Montana Department of Livestock in charge of Montana’s only wild buffalo! Do you agree that this is crazy?!

Under MCA 81-2-120: Montana Dept. of Livestock agents have trespassed onto private land to harass wild buffalo without landowner permission, and in many cases, over the objections of and against landowner wishes. It required an executive order from Gov. Steve Bullock in 2014 to restrain this taxpayer-funded agency from trespassing on private land to harass wild buffalo. ⁽¹⁾

Under MCA 81-2-120: for Montana's hunt, wild buffalo cannot be hunted without permission from the State Veterinarian and the Montana Dept. of Livestock. ⁽²⁾

From 2004-2022, of 171,448 applicants, 1,119 hunters drew wild buffalo tags generating at least $2,032,945 in revenue for Montana. ⁽³⁾

Under MCA 81-2-120, from 1995-2010, the Montana Dept. of Livestock shot or “captured for slaughter” 1,482 wild buffalo migrating into Hebgen basin, a habitat comprised primarily of National Forest land. ⁽⁴⁾

Under MCA 81-2-120: proceeds from auctioning wild buffalo killed by the Montana Dept. of Livestock go into a special account to fund the livestock agency. ⁽⁵⁾

Under MCA 81-2-120: in the spring, Dept. of Livestock agents haze or harass wild buffalo in their habitat while mother buffalo are calving. These costly and unnecessary government operations harm wild buffalo, degrade wildlife habitat, and make a mockery of science-based wildlife management. ⁽⁶⁾

Under MCA 81-2-120: buffalo once belonging to future generations have been and still are being taken for quarantine from the wild in Yellowstone National Park and privatized for commercial benefit. Montana’s promise of buffalo being conserved as wildlife continues to be broken. ⁽⁷⁾ 

Under MCA 81-2-120: wild buffalo roam less than 0.4% of the habitat in Montana. ⁽⁸⁾ There is no year-round population of wild buffalo in Montana, and no provision in MCA 81-2-120 to sustain wild buffalo—a wild, native species that Montana biologists recognize as vulnerable to “extinction or extirpation in the state.” ⁽⁹⁾

Why not run a citizen initiative and repeal MCA 81-2-120?

Because Montana state legislators would simply undo what the majority of Montanans would do at the ballot box: vote to manage wild buffalo as a wildlife species with habitat available to sustain the migratory species in the wild. Everyone concerned about wild buffalo must persuade elected officials repealing MCA 81-2-120 is the right thing to do.

How did MCA 81-2-120 become law?

In the early 1990s, Montana cattle ranchers were in an uproar over the migration of buffalo into habitat in Montana beyond Yellowstone National Park's borders.

Using the fear of brucellosis disease and loss of the state’s brucellosis-free status, cattle ranchers successfully manipulated the Montana legislature into passing MCA 81-2-120. The new law displaced Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ authority over the public’s only wild buffalo population, putting primary authority for the migratory species in the hands of the Montana Dept. of Livestock and the State Veterinarian.

Who pays for enforcing MCA 81-2-120?

From 2000-2016, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture-APHIS funneled $10,381,534 in taxpayer funds to the Montana Dept. of Livestock to enforce MCA 81-2-120. ⁽¹⁰⁾

From 2000-2016, Montana’s contribution to enforce MCA 81-2-120 totaled $238,772. ⁽¹⁰⁾

It is the American taxpayer who is paying the Montana Dept. of Livestock to capture, slaughter, harass, haze, vaccinate, quarantine, and shoot wild buffalo.

How are the Interagency Bison Management Plan and MCA 81-2-120 related?

Shortly after MCA 81-2-120 became law in 1995, Governor Marc Racicot used the state statute to sue Yellowstone National Park to stop the migration of wild buffalo beyond park boundaries into Montana. The suit resulted in a settlement calling for the creation of an Interagency Bison Management Plan to placate Montana’s cattle industry.

Under the Interagency Bison Management Plan – the Montana “governor-approved plan” MCA 81-2-120 calls for – millions of taxpayer dollars are spent destroying thousands of wild buffalo inside Yellowstone National Park, and in Montana, on National Forest, state, and private lands. *

Another 15- to 20-year iteration of the Interagency Bison Management Plan is being prepared to fund the same costly, harmful, and destructive livestock practices embodied in MCA 81-2-120.⁽¹¹⁾ Buffalo Field Campaign has proposed a common sense alternative to the government to simply and effectively manage wild buffalo like wild elk.

* According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, for 2007, the last fiscal year reporting, the government spent $2,927,500 taxpayer dollars to implement the Interagency Bison Management Plan. From 2002-2007, the government spent $15,932,288 taxpayer dollars to implement its plan.

Will repealing MCA 81-2-120 harm Montana’s cattle industry?

It will NOT harm Montana's cattle industry!  In Montana, cattle are being managed under a U.S. Dept. of Agriculture-APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) approved and taxpayer-subsidized plan in Designated Surveillance Areas. Ranchers are reimbursed $9.50 to $14 per head for vaccinating cattle. ⁽¹²⁾

Despite a few cases of brucellosis transmission reportedly from wild elk to cattle, and zero (EVER!) from wild buffalo to cattle in 100 years, Montana's Designated Surveillance Area rules have protected the state's brucellosis free status AND DIMINISHED THE THREAT OF STATE SANCTIONS. ⁽¹³⁾

According to the Montana Dept. of Livestock, the new USDA-approved rules save cattle ranchers $5.5 to $11.5 million dollars annually – $110,000,000 to $230,000,000 since the rules went into effect in 2010.. ⁽¹⁴⁾

The unfounded threats and discredited fears of brucellosis raised by cattle ranchers do not justify Montana Dept. of Livestock management of Montana’s wild buffalo.

What are the outcomes of repealing MCA 81-2-120?  

The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks would manage wild buffalo as a native wildlife species.

The Montana Dept. of Livestock would regulate livestock.

What would managing wild buffalo like wild elk in Montana look like?

Wild buffalo would be managed by wildlife biologists, and be based on sustainable populations in available habitat. This is the same science-based standard currently and successfully used to manage wild elk, deer, and antelope in Montana.

Montana is blessed with tens of millions of acres of habitat on National Forests, wildlife refuges, and other public lands suitable for a migratory species like the wild buffalo. They could simply roam free, in peace and harming no one.

America’s indigenous peoples and tribal nations with cultural connections, spiritual ties, and treaty rights to wild buffalo can take pride in providing a respectful, lasting legacy for their relatives and future generations.

Montanans supporting wild buffalo as a native species can take pride in restoring the “monarch of the prairies”: the wild buffalo, an enduring American symbol of the freedom to roam.

Sources

The Montana legislative session is over.

The Governor has vetoed HB 132. The Governor has vetoed HB 332.

The legislature will reconvene in January 2021.

Know who you want to contact in the media? Click on the type to see the list:

National Media
Montana Newpapers
All Montana News Outlets
Tribal Papers
Radio

Write Your Letter to Support Buffalo Now!

Most of the time, articles about the buffalo slaughter end up in hard-to-find sections of the newspaper, if at all. This results in the buffalo’s story remaining untold to the public.

One effective way to combat this is to write Letters to the Editor, helping them understand the seriousness and importance of this issue.

As a token of thanks, we will send you a Free BFC T-shirt if you have a buffalo-friendly letter printed. Be sure to include the name of the paper or publication, and the date it was printed, along with your t-shirt size and mailing address. Printed LTEs can be sent via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by regular mail to: BFC-Media, P.O. Box 957, West Yellowstone, MT  59758.

Sample Letter

To whom it may concern:

American bison are America’s National Mammal, yet this honorable designation offers no protection for the country’s only continuously wild population – the unique and distinct Yellowstone National Park bison herds.

Numbering fewer than threatened polar bears and having lost more habitat than threatened grizzly bears, wild American bison have no protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The U.S. Congress is also at fault in expressly directing federal agencies to do nothing for American bison under the National Bison Legacy Act:

Nothing in this Act or the adoption of the North American bison as the national mammal of the United States shall be construed or used as a reason to alter, change, modify, or otherwise affect any plan, policy, management decision, regulation, or other action by the Federal Government.

Nearly every year about 20% of these already bottlenecked herds are hazed, slaughtered, quarantined and even domesticated under the InterAgency Bison Management Plan on millions of the American tax-payer’s dollar. The explanation the IBMP agencies give for the slaughter is the concern of Brucellosis transmitted to cattle from wild bison. In reality this has never occurred. Elk have transmitted this westerner-brought disease twenty times in the last two decades, yet there are no arbitrarily drawn kill zones, no firing lines that elk are forced to run through. Bison must be managed like wild elk, as they have posed no threat to cattle whereas elk clearly have.

The U.S. government cannot honor our National Mammal by threatening their existence in the one place the wild migratory species still roams their original territory in the United States: Yellowstone.

It’s time to grant Endangered Species Act protection for recovering wild American bison herds on federal public lands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecocsytem. It’s time to grant Endangered Species Act protection for recovering wild American bison herds on federal public lands in Yellowstone. Join the Buffalo Field Campaign to learn more and take action for our national mammal!

Let the Buffalo Roam!

Helpful Tip on Getting Your Letter Printed

The editorial section is the most widely-read section of newspapers, and even local papers can reach thousands of readers. Listed immediately below are national and Montana State newspapers which must hear from every one of us. Farther down the page are links to even more media outlets—but please don’t stop there! Your local paper (wherever you are), and any other publication that you read or subscribe to should hear from you about this issue.

The buffalo only suffer because most people do not know about the travesty of their current circumstances. More people made aware of what’s happening to the buffalo will generate more people willing to help us defend them!

Please write to media outlets about the harassment and slaughter of the buffalo, and urge them to cover this national disaster and waste of state and federal resources. We must draw attention to the needless suffering of these unique and majestic animals.

Other action ideas: If you’ve seen articles about buffalo printed somewhere, please write a letter in response. It will also help the media to know that the buffalo issue is one people are interested in if you write a letter to their editor in regard to recent articles listed on this website that have been published about our work.

PLEASE NOTE: Most media outlets have specific criteria you must follow in order for your letter to be considered for printing. We encourage you to follow each set of specific guidelines. Also, making a follow-up phone call to the editor you write to often helps get your letter printed. Campaigns have been won before using this strategy, and there really is no better time than today to send your Letter to the Editor!

If your letter is printed/posted by a media outlet  please send a copy or link to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or to

Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
W. Yellowstone, MT, 59758

The action you are taking in defense of the buffalo is much appreciated!

NATIONAL MEDIA OUTLETS

The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Letter Policy: Letters should be no longer than 150 - 175 words, must refer to an article that has appeared within the last seven days. Include writer's address and phone numbers. No attachments, please. Send a letter to the editor by e-mailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (for readers of The International New York Times).

Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/about/la-letter-to-the-editor-htmlstory.html
Letters Policy: Keep brief, no more than 150 words. Include valid mailing address and phone number. Use plain text. No attachments. Make a follow-up phone call to be sure your letter is printed. Call (213) 237-5000. Email letters to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and address them to:
Letters to the Editor
202 W. 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

The Washington Post
http://help.washingtonpost.com/ics/support/KBAnswer.asp?questionID=91
Letter Policy: Letters must be signed and include the writer's home address and home and business telephone numbers. Letters to the Editor can be sent via e-mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by surface mail to:
Letters to the Editor
1301 K Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071

MONTANA NEWPAPERS

If you’re a resident of Montana, be sure to say so. If you aren’t, mention that this is an issue of national concern, and that you may make vacation plans elsewhere until they stop killing buffalo. Tourism is Montana’s second largest revenue source!

The Billings Gazette
Letter Policy: Include signature of the author, writer’s street address and phone number. Maximum length is 250 words. The Gazette reserves the right to edit letters for clarity, conciseness, taste, and to prevent libel.
Send your letters to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and address them to:
Letters to the Editor
https://billingsgazette-dot-com.bloxcms.com/forms/contact/letter_to_the_editor/
Or submit by mail or fax:
P.O. Box 36300
Billings, MT 59107-6300
Send your letter by fax to: 406-657-1208

The Bozeman Chronicle
Letters Policy: Letters should be no more than 300 words, must be signed and must be addressed to the editor. Each letter must include the writer’s address. Writers should include phone numbers, which will not be published but may be used for verification. The Chronicle reserves the right to edit all letters for length, grammar, good taste, and libel. *Make a follow-up phone call to be sure your letter is printed. Phone: 406-582-2655.
Send your letters to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Letters to the Editor
Bozemand Daily Chronicle
2820 W. College
Bozeman, MT 59715

The Helena Independent Record
Note: This paper is read by Montana State Legislators!
Letter Policy: Limit letters to 200 words. Include address and daytime phone for verification.
Letters may be edited for clarity or length. Email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or fax to 406-447-4052. Make a follow-up phone call to be sure your letter gets printed! Call 406-477-4072.
Send your letters to:
Readers' Alley
P.O. Box 4249
Helena, MT 59604

West Yellowstone News
This paper is West Yellowstone's primary news source.  West's number one industry is tourism, so letters that speak highly of buffalo are very important.  Keep your letters brief - about 250 words. Include address and phone number for verification. 
Send your letters electronically to:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Their web site address is http://www.westyellowstonenews.com.
Phone number: 406-646-9719; Make a follow-up phone call to ensure your letter is printed.
Fax: 406-646-4023.

Organize letter writing and guest editorials to Montana's news outlets

Montana's news media websites:

http://www.abyznewslinks.com/unitemt.htm

Montana's newspapers for LTE's, guest editorials, and story ideas:

Billings Gazette https://billingsgazette-dot-com.bloxcms.com/forms/contact/letter_to_the_editor/
Bozeman Daily Chronicle http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/site/contact.html#utm_source=bozemandailychronicle.com&utm_campaign=topbar-col-two-nav-menu&utm_medium=direct&utm_term=contact%3Cspan%20class%3D%22hidden-md%22%3E%20us%3C%2Fspan%3E&utm_content=1
Helena Air http://www.helenair.com/contact/contact.html
Great Falls Tribune http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=CUSTOMERSERVICE03
Missoulian http://www.missoulian.com/contact/
Missoula Independent http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/ContactUs/Page
Lewistown News http://www.lewistownnews.com/our_newspaper/contact_us/
Montana Standard http://www.mtstandard.com/app/contactus/
Ravalli Republic http://ravallirepublic.com/app/contact/
Dillon Tribune http://www.dillontribune.com/contact
Hungry Horse News http://www.flatheadnewsgroup.com/hungryhorsenews/contact_us/contact_us.html
Cutbank Pioneer Press http://www.cutbankpioneerpress.com/site/contact.html
Belgrade News http://www.belgrade-news.com/site/contact/
Havre Daily News http://www.havredailynews.com/contact
Whitefish Pilot http://www.whitefishpilot.com/site/contact.html
Big Fork Eagle http://www.flatheadnewsgroup.com/bigforkeagle/contact_us/contact_us.html
Leader Advertiser http://www.leaderadvertiser.com/site/contact/contact_us.html
Carbon County News http://carboncountynews.com/contact-us
Choteau http://www.choteauacantha.com/site/about.html
Glasgow Courier http://www.glasgowcourier.com/contact/

Tribal newspapers or newspapers reaching Indian communities in Montana

Charkoosta http://www.charkoosta.com/contact.html
Indian Counry Today Media Network http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/contact
A Cheyenne Voice http://acheyennevoice.com/contact-us/
Big Horn Country News http://www.bighorncountynews.com/contact
Rez Net News http://www.reznetnews.org/contact
Native American Times http://www.nativetimes.com/index.php/component/contact/contact/2

Use radio to get your word out to rural Montana

Links to Montana's public radio stations:

Montana Public Radio http://mtpr.org/contact
Yellowstone Public Radio http://www.yellowstonepublicradio.org/contact/
KGLT Radio http://www.kglt.net/index.php/contact-kglt/contact-the-staff
KBGA http://kbga.org/about-us-2/kbga-staff/