Wildlife Promise » Wind River Tribes

Restoring Buffalo to their Home on the Range

Sarah Pizzo — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 17:08:00 +0000

Yesterday, I drove a thousand miles across the Great Plains and saw not a single buffalo. I did see domestic cows and sheep, coal-fired power plants and wind farms, miles of power lines and fences. I saw immense open prairie; grass-covered, wind-scoured, treeless hills tumbling out to the horizon. But in a land where 30 million American bison once roamed in herds that would rival the wildebeest of the African Serengeti, we now have to go out of our way to find one.

The Great Plains spread eastward from the foothills of Wyoming (Photo by Sarah Pizzo)

If you want to know where all the bison went, ask Jason Baldes. Jason is an expert on the history of the bison, and as a Shoshone tribal member, he understands this history in a way most of us can’t.

Jason explains that the plants, animals and humans of the American prairie have been evolving together for millennia. Bison were an integral part of the prairie ecosystem: their hooves broke up the soil so seeds could germinate and their wallows – the depressions left when they rolled in the dirt – gathered rain which fed medicinal plants.

The lives of Native Americans were also inextricably tied to the bison. They followed the herds across the plains, relying on the great creatures for food, shelter and tools. They worshipped bison, performing religious ceremonies to promote its abundance and express gratitude for its ultimate sacrifice to them in the hunt.

The U.S. Army recognized this reliance in the late 19th century, when the westward movement of miners and homesteaders led to clashes with the resident Sioux, Cheyenne, Shoshone, and Arapaho. To defeat the tribes and clear the way for “Manifest Destiny,” the U.S. Army used the following tactic: eliminate the tribes’ main food source.

A herd of wild bison approach the author’s car in Yellowstone National Park (Photo by Sarah Pizzo)

A few hundred bison survived the slaughter. Some took shelter in what later became Yellowstone National Park, where they thrive today as the last source of free-roaming, genetically pure bison (i.e. not interbred with domestic cattle). When I visited the Park on a crisp autumn day last week, a small herd sauntered along the road through a flat valley of steaming geysers. I was thrilled to see a healthy group with many young. As the herd slowly swarmed my car and I rolled down the window, sounds and smells wafted in: musky damp fur, the clip-clop of hooves on pavement, grunting males and bleating calves. The raw power in their thick, swinging necks sent chills down my spine and I felt blessed to be in the presence of these rare and wonderful beings.

NWF has been working for two decades to transfer some of these Yellowstone bison – whose numbers now overwhelm the Park’s capacity – back to their native lands. Our first major victory came last spring when we helped the Fort Peck Tribes move 61 Yellowstone bison to their reservation in northeast Montana. The tribes are thrilled to have these “tatanka” home. The bison and their 21 new calves are enjoying thousands of acres of wild prairie.

Today, NWF is working with Jason and other members of the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes to move a herd of Yellowstone bison to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. A group of bison awaits transfer on a Montana ranch. The land and the tribes are ready to receive them. Standing in the way is a complex web of legal and political hurdles that we are working to overcome.

Late in the day on my visit to Yellowstone, I came upon a lone buffalo walking the center line of the Park’s loop road. I pulled to the shoulder to give him space to pass and he paused long enough to make eye contact. I stared with a sense of wonder and respect. His return gaze was fearless and unconcerned. And at that moment I knew: we are beginning to restore the balance.

A Yellowstone bison wanders along the Park road (Photo by Sarah Pizzo)

Please donate to the National Wildlife Federation Tribal Lands Partnerships Program to help return bison back to tribal lands.

Wind River Tribes Unite to Return Yellowstone Bison to Their Native Homeland

Guest Author — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:54:22 +0000

This is a guest post by Jason Baldes, a member of NWF’s Tribal Lands Advisory Council.

Yellowstone Bison in the quarantine pasture in Gardiner, Montana – Photo by Ted Wood

This week, a huge step was taken in the decades-long effort to restore Yellowstone bison to tribal lands. On the heels of the recent success of the restoration of 61 Yellowstone bison to the Fort Peck Reservation in north central Montana earlier this year, the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes passed a joint tribal council resolution calling for restoration of wild, genetically pure bison to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. As an Eastern Shoshone tribal member, I am extremely proud that the Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes have united in requesting the return of Yellowstone bison back to our reservation.

Over the past few decades, the tribes have restored six of the seven ungulate species that were historically present on our tribal lands. With today’s resolution, we are taking a huge step to restoring the last of those seven species, the bison. The resolution and an accompanying letter have been delivered to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar requesting that Yellowstone bison, currently being held on Ted Turner’s Green Ranch in Montana, be relocated to Wind River and formally asking for government-to-government consultation to make their request a reality.

Priority landscapes for bison

Yellowstone bison return to Fort Peck Reservation in Montana – Photo by Ted Wood

In May, Salazar issued a directive to Interior Department agencies instructing them to identify the priority landscapes where the bison could be restored, and it highlighted Wind River as a top option. Since the mid-1980s, we have had the opportunity to work with the National Wildlife Federation’s Tribal Lands Partnerships Program (NWF) on a variety of natural resource and wildlife conservation efforts.“The Wind River Tribes have a vast land base well-suited for bison, and they have deep historical, cultural, and ecological connections to bison,” said Garrit Voggesser, National Director of Tribal Partnerships for NWF. “They are now expressing to those that have authority over Yellowstone bison that they are ready to employ their wildlife management expertise to welcome the bison home.”

The Yellowstone bison are among the few in North America with no cattle genes. The Yellowstone area is the only place where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times. Two centuries ago, there were more than thirty million buffalo roaming North American, but by the turn of the 19th-century, less than one hundred remained. Tribal peoples rounded up some of those bison to save them, and some of those bison became seed animals for the Yellowstone herd. Today’s decision by the Shoshone and Arapaho Tribes provides an opportunity for the historical relationship between buffalo and American Indians to come full circle, and is a huge stride toward achieving the return of bison to their Wind River homeland.

Help us get the Yellowstone Bison to Wind River

Please donate to the National Wildlife Federation Tribal Lands Partnerships Program to help get these 140 bison back to tribal lands.

For more information on NWF’s efforts to restore Yellowstone bison to tribal lands, please check out NWF’s Tribal Lands Partnerships webpage.

Shoshone Tribal Bison Representative – Jason Baldes – Photo courtesy Kelly Gorham, Montana State University

Jason Baldes is an Eastern Shoshone member, Bison Spokesperson for the Shoshone Tribe and Montana State University-Bozeman graduate student in Land Resource Sciences. Jason is a member of NWF’s Tribal Lands Advisory Council. His efforts focus on restoring genetically reputable, disease-free buffalo, managed as wildlife by tribes to tribal lands. Baldes earned a bachelor of science degree in Land Resource Analysis and Management from MSU, 2010. In addition, he is recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation scholarship; STAR Fellowship, 2011 to 2013; and Native Science Fellowship, Hopa Mountain, 2011, and has been recognized by the American Indian Research Opportunities Consortium. In 2010, he was researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Bozeman.

Baldes, a sought after speaker, is currently an officer of the Society of American Indian Graduate Students.