Adjacent is the Fort Belknap Reservation where the Nakoda and the Aaniiih manage a range with more than a thousand bison so building a tourist destination helps economic development for the entire region. Two recent acquisitions totaling 12,534 acres bring APR's deeded and leased property to more than 475,000 acres despite an appeal by the State of Montana and a bunch of Earth haters who failed to stop the non-profit from grazing bison on eighteen BLM allotments in five counties. A recent decision by the BLM allows for 7,969 animal unit months at $1.35 per AUM of permitted use with a 1:1 conversion from cattle to bison.
And, after Montana's Earth hating governor lost his second appeal to stop American Prairie's leases on public land he's suing Yellowstone National Park over its planned expansion of bison territory into lands managed by the US Forest Service. That Republicans in Montana's executive branch and welfare ranchers are angry about the Interior Department ruling means it's the right thing to do. Since Republicans own the seats of power in Montana they whine YNP neglects its commitments to the management of the park’s buffalo population in order to decrease the spread of brucellosis to cattle but know wapiti spread it far more often than bison do.
Instead of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Department of Livestock is the governing arm for bison that leave the protections of the park and is party to the lawsuit.
In an email to [Montana Free Press], Buffalo Field Campaign Habitat Coordinator Darrell Geist criticized the state’s motivation for filing the lawsuit. [Montana sues Yellowstone National Park over bison management plan]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. So, with help from the InterTribal Buffalo Council that started with nineteen tribes and now enjoys the membership of 83 Nations who own 25,000 American bison in 22 states, the Eastern Shoshone Nation will apply a $3 million grant to grow their herd and enhance cultural resilience.
“There’s a big effort to get buffalo out of Yellowstone to tribes,” said Jason Baldes, a Montana State University graduate who is the Shoshone Tribal Buffalo representative. “A lot of tribes are interested in those Yellowstone genetics to enhance the heterogeneity of other herds.” Perhaps even more impactful, however, are three grants of $21.25 million to the InterTribal Buffalo Council to restore and manage native grasslands ecosystems for tribal buffalo restoration in Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Florida, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. [Buffalo rematriation: Grants boost efforts to transfer Yellowstone bison to tribes]In 2023 the National Park Service rehomed 300 bison in the South Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and Standing Rock Sioux.
In April, 2024 with Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland in attendance and in cooperation with Colorado State University ITBC moved five yearling bulls and five heifers with Yellowstone genetics to the Taos Pueblo. Then with ITBC efforts Grand Canyon National Park sent a hundred critters of some 380 from the North Rim to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in September.
No comments:
Post a Comment