TRNP moving 300 bison to two Nations

Before the European invasion Puebloans in what’s now northern New Mexico hunted bison on the high plains along the east slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and today Picuris is one of 76 tribal entities represented on the Rapid City, South Dakota-based InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC).

Today, with cooperation from Democratic former South Dakota State Senator and Sicangu citizen, Troy Heinert more bison are coming home to the Nations.

The National Park Service is rehoming 300 bison in the South Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and on the Standing Rock Sioux Nation. Executive Director of the InterTribal Buffalo Council Heinert says the move will provide genetic diversity and increase the size of existing tribal bison herds.

The move comes as the US Department of Agriculture is investing in adding more bison to tribal nutrition enhancements.

This pilot will also explore smaller packaging and purchase orders to meet small- and mid-sized enterprises at scale and exclusively target Historically Underutilized Business Zones (HUBZone) purchase preferences benefiting economically distressed areas, of which all tribal reservations qualify. All producers announced through this pilot operate on tribal lands. [USDA Invests in Bison Purchase Pilot Incorporating Indian Country Bison for Tribal Feeding Programs]

These days only about 500,000 bison inhabit North America and less than 1 percent of their historic range, just 3 percent of the Earth’s land surface remains untouched by human development and a sixth mass extinction is underway. 

After meeting with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland during her visit to occupied South Dakota in October, 2022 Troy Heinert's name has been plastered all over the national news for his work with the ITBC to restore the American Bison to tribal communities in the West.

Montana's Republican welfare ranchers are howling at Yellowstone National Park as it develops a plan that moves more bison to the Nations instead of relying on slaughter to manage numbers.

Sen. Heinert was the first Indigenous American elected to the South Dakota Senate.

Learn more at Wyoming Public Radio.
 

Great to see Troy Heinert at work doing what he loves! The work of the Intertribal Buffalo Council does important work educating and assisting tribes in starting and expanding herds as well as with buffalo processing. 🦬
Pilamayaye https://t.co/ci5PkMd3ss pic.twitter.com/C0IzumUjjg

— Reynold Nesiba (@ReynoldNesiba) August 4, 2023