Amid rewilding surge tribal bison authority buys Mobridge packer

If cattle grazing is the key to preventing wildfires why is ranch country still suffering near daily high or even extreme grassland fire danger indices so often during winter? 

Indigenous peoples set at least 47% of fires in the Interior West between 1776 and 1900 because smoke from cultural fire has been long-applied to control tree pests and just 150 years ago bison would be clearing the grasses that drive large range fires.  

In 2010 then-Democratic Senator Tim Johnson tried to make a portion of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland adjacent to Badlands National Park part of the Tony Dean Wilderness Area and in 2011 Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) revived the idea. 

Led by The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit that began buying land in that part of South Dakota in 2007, sold some of it to Badlands National Park in 2012. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Defenders of Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy teamed up with the National Park Foundation, Badlands Natural History Association, Badlands National Park Conservancy and the National Park Service Centennial Challenge fund to expand the bison range at Badlands National Park by nearly 35 square miles. 

Today, restoring and rewilding American ecosystems are parts of the Green New Deal and with cooperation from Democratic South Dakota State Senator Troy Heinert more bison are coming home to the Nations.  

South Dakota State University, the National Bison Association, and the National Buffalo Foundation came together to form the Center of Excellence for Bison Studies, located at the SDSU West River Research & Extension Facility in Rapid City. [Buffalo (knowledge) gap]

So, encouraged by President Joe Biden the Cheyenne River Buffalo Authority Corporation has purchased West Side Meats in Mobridge.

Wizipan Little Elk is the CEO of RedCo, short for the Rosebud Economic Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. One of the tribe’s social enterprises is establishing the Wolakota Regenerative Buffalo Range, 28,000 acres that will be home to 1,500 bison. “We’re in year one of a five-year stocking plan,” he said. “Once the stocking is finished, it will be the largest Native American-owned and managed bison herd in the world.” The herd will also represent up to 7% of all Native American-owned and managed bison. Bison are easier on the environment than other livestock. Little Elk says bison will drink once a day and then go somewhere else to graze. Cattle prefer to hang around their watering hole and can do a lot of damage through overgrazing in the same area. [Rosebud Sioux Tribe builds bison herd to regenerate land, health, spirit]