Native Tribes Protest Plan to Cull Wild Bison in Yellowstone

Because of brucellosis, strong resistance to bison reintroductions persists across the West.

NOTE: this article was originally published to TheEpochTimes.com on July 12, 2024. It was written by Karen Weintraub.

The National Park Service says the plan is essential because there are more bison in the park than there is space to accommodate them.

WEST YELLOWSTONE, Mont.—Dean, a tourist from Wisconsin, has been to Yellowstone National Park twice in 25 years. On his first trip, he saw grizzly bears and even gray wolves roaming free among forests of pine and Douglas fir and open ranges of the massive preserve.

On this trip, he could hear the groans and grunts from a herd of buffalo less than 30 yards away in the park’s majestic Hayden Valley.

“I think this is amazing. Up the hill, the sound carries,” he said.

He imagined the bison would be cinnamon-colored, but they were almost black and far bigger than expected.

More than 175 years ago, millions of buffalo roamed the American West. The National Park Service said the bison herds were so immense that they shook the ground and rumbled like thunder in the distance.

For thousands of years, the Native tribes relied on bison for food, tools, shelter, clothing, jewelry, and other necessities for survival. They saw them as spiritual figures central to their way of life.

Many arriving settlers viewed the buffalo as an abundant commodity to be exploited. Hundreds of thousands of wild bison were shot and killed by hunters, adventurers, and U.S. troops to the brink of extinction. Bison carcasses went east by train to make leather machine belts, textiles, and fertilizer.

By 1900, there were fewer than 1,000 bison across the United States and only 23 remaining Yellowstone bison.

Bison Haven, Tourist Heaven

Four million people visit Yellowstone annually to see buffalo and enjoy nature. The park encompasses more land than Rhode Island and Delaware and covers more than 3,500 square miles (2 million acres) in three states—Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

 The government established Yellowstone National Park in 1872 to preserve the forests and keep wild animals safe. In May 2016, the National Bison Legacy Act made the North American buffalo the national mammal of the United States.

The Park Service and environmental groups, such as the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC), cooperate to protect the fewer than 5,000 Yellowstone bison, though they don’t always see “eye to eye,” some observers say.

Mike Mease and Rosalie Little Thunder founded the BFC in 1997. It is the only group working in the field while pushing for legislation to prevent the killing of the last remaining full-blooded buffalo herds.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife estimates that there are 20,500 Plains bison in conservation herds and 420,000 in commercial herds, no longer in danger of extinction. Many have been cross-bred with cattle and are known in the meat industry as “beefalo.”

Mease says that the animals of the Yellowstone herd are the last true buffalo that still have all the instincts of self-survival.

He said that despite their small population and slow recovery, they still “don’t get a fair shake” from the state government.

Montana, for example, “doesn’t even recognize buffalo as a wildlife species,” Mease told The Epoch Times. “They’re listed as an animal in need of disease control.”

Mease said cattle farming is a big business in Montana, politically powerful, and an industry that competes with free-roaming bison for grazing land.

In 2021, Montana’s cattle industry yielded the highest cash receipts of any commodity, following wheat, hay, barley, and lentils.

 That year, Montana produced 52 million pounds of red meat and charged $26.50 per head of cattle to graze.

But in 2024, the federal fee for animals to graze on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service was $1.35 per animal.

The BLM states on its website, “The BLM and Forest Service are committed to strong relationships with the ranching community and work closely with permittees to ensure public rangelands remain healthy, productive working landscapes.”

 “It’s a completely different philosophy,” Mease said of bison management by the government. “The bottom line is the cattle [companies] of the west view the buffalo as direct competition to their cattle.

“We’ve become a huge welfare project that we offer to the cattle industry so they can use grazing allotments on our land—the national land.”

The BFC’s primary goal is to keep bison in Yellowstone healthy and safe year-round while preserving the natural genetic diversity of its three distinct herds. The effort takes into account the bison’s seasonal migration needs as a historically over-hunted species.

Shrinking Habitat

In 2014, the BFC and Western Watersheds Project launched a petition to list the Yellowstone bison as a threatened or endangered species.

Roughly one-third of Yellowstone’s interior currently serves as bison habitat, the petition states. A significant portion of the winter range for the bison sits west and north outside park boundaries.

As stated in the petition, Yellowstone bison “frequently migrate to these ranges when snowpack within the park’s interior increases the energetic costs of foraging, often before either breeding herd has exceeded its food-limited carrying capacity.”

The petition adds that the relocation of Yellowstone bison to seasonal ranges outside the park represents an attempt to naturally re-colonize former ranges.

Moreover, the brucellosis risk management operations that involve “hazing, shooting, capturing, and slaughtering” of Yellowstone bison promote the “loss of critical range and create a dispersal sink,” preventing access to these critical areas.

These ranges are now under threat from “habitat destruction, disturbance, and degradation,” the petition states.

The U.S. Department of the Interior oversees Yellowstone National Park through the Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in compliance with the 1973 Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Fish and Wildlife finalized changes to the ESA on April 11 to boost participation in its voluntary conservation initiatives.

Fish and Wildlife Director Martha Williams said in a statement that the revisions reflect years of environmental learning to ensure the ESA stays relevant for the next 50 years.

The rule changes will encourage more landowners to engage in conservation for declining, candidate, and listed species, she said.

Through this type of stewardship, “we are investing in the future, creating a legacy of resilient habitats that can withstand environmental challenges and changes,” Williams said.

In 2024, the NPS created a new plan determining how the agency will manage bison within the park. The plan seeks a “sustainable” population of 3,500 to 6,000 wild bison.

The plan states that Yellowstone’s bison are the “closest resemblance left today of the vast herds that once roamed the continent.” They act as “ecosystem engineers fundamentally designing grassland ecosystems.”

And, it states, they hold significant cultural importance to native people, “with a connection spanning thousands of years.”

The Park Service said the plan is essential because there are more bison in the park than there is space to accommodate them.

“Like other wildlife, bison migrate out of the park to find food in winter, but unlike other wildlife, there is limited tolerance for them outside the park,” the plan adds.

“Yellowstone works with its partners to control numbers, limit bison migrating out of the park, and help tribes restore Yellowstone bison to their livelihoods.”

‘Challenging’ Dilemma

Evidence suggests that bison have lived in the Greater Yellowstone Area for more than 10,000 years. As the population recovered, bison started to move out of the park into Montana.

The Park Service said this created one of the most challenging wildlife management problems in recent history.

The 2024 plan seeks to identify bison that do not carry the brucella bacteria and transfer them to native tribes.

According to the Park Service, about 60 percent of adult female bison in Yellowstone test positive for exposure to brucella. The agency further notes that testing for the bacteria does not mean an animal can transmit the disease to bison, cattle, or people.

 (Top) Tourists drive past an adult bison. (Bottom) Tourists enjoying a view of one of Yellowstone's hot springs. Four million people visit Yellowstone annually. Watts/CC BY 2.0, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times  

Brucellosis is a bacterial infection caused by brucella exposure that spreads from animals to humans, often through the consumption of raw or unpasteurized dairy products.

Antibiotics treat the disease and its flu-like symptoms, but recovery can take weeks or months. Long-term effects may include chronic fever, fatigue, as well as heart and nerve damage.

Mease said that management efforts have either removed or culled more than 14,000 buffalo from the Yellowstone region since 1985.

“Of course, not much in the world has changed. They’re still killing buffalo,” he said.

“We don’t see eye to eye on everything [but] nobody joined the Park Service to kill wildlife. They joined because they care and want to preserve it.”

The Park Service looks at indigenous groups as partners in managing the bison herd in Yellowstone. Many tribal members, however, are opposed to limiting population growth below 10,000 bison.

“The hypocrisy is the elk have [brucellosis exposure],” Mease told The Epoch Times. “The elk spread the disease every year out in the Paradise Valley and Madison Valley. There’s no consequence for them.

“It’s an extreme prejudice solely placed on one species. For some reason, we treat this last wild [bison] herd like rodents.” 

Native Prophecy Fulfilled

The government’s new management plan coincides with the birth of a rare white buffalo calf in Yellowstone on June 4.

A white bison calf is estimated to be born in the wild only once in 1 million births.

Tribal groups see the calf’s arrival as a sacred blessing, a warning, and a fulfillment of a 3,000-year-old tribal prophecy.

The prediction is that the world will experience immense trouble and suffering if people don’t work together to protect the environment.

“On the white bison calf, there has not been a confirmed sighting since June 4,” the Park Service told The Epoch Times in an email.

“It is unknown if it is still alive or what might have happened to it. Prior to the June 4 sighting, there has not been a confirmed report of a white bison calf born in Yellowstone.”

The Park Service confirmed that the white calf with black eyes, hooves, and nose was born in the Lamar Valley, based on reliable sightings and photographs.

Based on available scientific data, the Park Service said the iconic birth of a white bison calf “could be a reflection of a natural genetic legacy” preserved in Yellowstone’s bison.

The organization acknowledged the cultural and spiritual significance of a white bison calf for native tribes. But tribal groups feel the language in the Park Service message acknowledging the calf’s birth only highlights the cultural “contradiction” in the organization’s relations with First Nations.

“I am offended by the Park Service when their press release reads for me that me and my people, and our long relationship with the buffalo, is a footnote,” BFC board vice president J. Dallas Gudgell wrote.

“That they somehow should be credited for the miracle. I get to be offended, and not everyone needs to like that.”

A June gathering of 500 tribal members named the calf Wakan Gli, which means “Returns Sacred” or “Comes Holy” in the Lakota language. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Bundle, led the ceremony.

Tradition teaches that the pipe and bundle were a gift to the Oceti Sakowin (Sioux nations) by “White Buffalo Calf Woman,” a leading figure in Sioux religious beliefs and practices.

Chief Arvol, 70, said the pipe and bundle represent the importance of keeping a connection with the Great Spirit. Without it, the world will become chaotic and poor.

He said the white calf is a universal symbol of purity, and the prophesy is “a warning for us to do something” about the collapsing environment.

“The blessing is we are going to unite as nations spiritually” in world peace, Chief Arvol told The Epoch Times.

“People should find peace within themselves now more than ever and know that there’s a higher power—a Great Spirit sending these messages about the white calf prophesy and its fulfillment that is now happening.”

Healing Mother Earth

Legend has it that White Buffalo Calf Woman promised the Oceti Sakowin that the Great Spirit would hear their prayers if they remained faithful.

“She told the people the next time I come back and stand upon the Earth, there will be great changes.”

 (Top) A herd of bison graze in Lamar Valley in Northern Yellowstone. (Bottom) Nature photographers snap pictures of buffalo in Yellowstone's Hayden Valley in Wyoming on Aug. 10, 2024. Freepik, Allan Stein/The Epoch Times  

“That’s the fulfillment of prophecy today. It’s happening in our generation and in our time.”

“Mother Earth is sick.”

In 1966, Chief Arvol, then 12 years old, became the youngest tribal member to keep the sacred pipe and bundle.

As his grandmother was dying, he received a more disturbing prophecy.

“My grandmother told the elders that if [the world] doesn’t straighten up, you'll be the last bundle keeper,” he said.

Chief Arvol said he feels confident that Wakan Gli is still alive and doing well in the forests of Yellowstone and that another sighting will happen.

But the future of the wild Yellowstone bison depends on building harmony between conservation and business—natural balance and balance sheet, Meese said.

He said it would be an immeasurable loss if the Yellowstone bison became another extinct species, like the Passenger Pigeon as another “failure of humanity.”

“We’ve taken away the natural and replaced it with domesticated animals from all over the world that we can control. We don’t like wild things because we don’t control them.”

The desire to control the natural world in the modern age is at the root of the problem, Mease said. The solution is to view and appreciate nature as a source of inspiration and life.

Each morning, Mease steps onto his cabin deck in West Yellowstone and sees blue mountains, trees, a clear lake, and breathes fresh air.

It is the kind of natural beauty that makes his heart rejoice, he said.

In Yellowstone, said Mease, “You are not on the Nature Channel. You aren’t watching Discovery. You’re living it. It’s real.”