This story may not be republished without the express consent of the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
FORT PECK — It was the first week of February and the truckers were crunched for time. Buffalo are notoriously wary of new places, even more so in the dark.
Robbie Magnan, director of Fort Peck’s Fish and Game Department, floored his Chevrolet Silverado. Three trailers filled with Yellowstone buffalo followed him, wheels spinning in mud.
In harsher winters, the dirt road is plowed of snow. This year, bare ground dotted with bison excrement abutted a gray sky.
This was the last leg of the buffalo’s 500-mile journey across Montana. Truckers from the Blackfeet Nation had driven the animals more than six hours from Yellowstone National Park to the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes of Fort Peck. The reservation spans 3,200 square miles in northeast Montana.
The trucks stopped as they reached their destination — a 320-acre quarantine pen where the buffalo will stay for a year to ensure they’re free of disease before going to other tribes.
The Fort Peck quarantine is the second phase of a program to get live buffalo out of Yellowstone. The animals are largely confined to park boundaries because they risk spreading brucellosis to cattle.
Since 2019, the Yellowstone Bison Conservation Transfer Program has transferred 414 bison to Fort Peck. A record 116 animals were transferred this February: 108 males, four females and four calves.
With daylight fading, game wardens, federal officials, and leaders from tribes and conservation groups joined Magnan and the truckers to coax the bison outside.
The back of the trailers opened to corrals with fresh hay and water. Using poles with flags on the end, the handlers prodded the buffalo to move.
The corral is like a black hole for them, said Tim Reid, the bison program manager for Yellowstone.
As the sun dipped behind shallow hills, Magnan shone his truck’s headlights on the stock trailer to help the animals see.
These bison aren’t like cattle or farmed bison, which unload from stock trailers with ease, Reid said. They are wild animals that don’t always move how humans want.
Their wild genetics are what make these animals so important. The Yellowstone herd are direct descendants of the last free-roaming buffalo that remained after colonizers almost drove the species to extinction.
Nearly 60 million buffalo used to roam North America. The scientific term “bison” and cultural term “buffalo” are used interchangeably to refer to the same animal.
Once at a low of 27 buffalo, the Yellowstone population has recovered to about 4,800 animals today.
After an hour of coaxing, a few stubborn bulls remained in one truck. The handlers planned to return the next morning.
Inside nearby trailers, elders with the Pté Group had laid out a feast. Stews with green chile, beef and corn steamed in crock pots. Homemade salad, berry pies and thermoses of tea crowded the counter.
Pté means female buffalo in Sioux. The group helps with buffalo restoration and education at Fort Peck.
“To Native Americans, buffalo are very important species to be around. We call them our relatives, because they provided everything that we needed,” Magnan said.
While Fort Peck keeps some of the animals that finish quarantine for their own cultural herd, the rest are transferred to other tribes through the Intertribal Buffalo Council. The group has coordinated transfers to more than 26 tribes across 12 states.
Last month, Fort Peck sent 167 buffalo to rebuild herds on the Northern Cheyenne, Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations.
Troy Heinert, executive director for the Intertribal Buffalo Council, said the transfer program’s growth helps more tribes start herds with valuable Yellowstone genetics. Some of those tribes haven’t had buffalo on their lands in 200 years. To receive the animals is “life changing,” he said.
“It is emotional for me knowing that I have played a small role in this long journey to get buffalo to their new home,” said Heinert, who is also a member of the Rosebud Sioux Nation.
“Reconnecting with the animal is so important. When buffalo were nearly eradicated, that was a terrible, life-changing event for many tribes. And here we are 200 years later, realizing we need to get buffalo back on the landscape,” Heinert said. “Not only to help buffalo and our tribal people, but it also helps other animals. It helps our land. They’re a keystone species, and for far too long, we haven’t had them.”
People are working hard to increase the number of transferred buffalo, which have to be certified brucellosis-free before they leave the park.
Some worry the state of Montana’s ongoing push to reduce the Yellowstone bison population will impact the transfer program’s ability to function. Still, efforts to expand the work continue.
“Reconnecting with the animal is so important. When buffalo were nearly eradicated, that was a terrible, life-changing event for many tribes. And here we are 200 years later, realizing we need to get buffalo back on the landscape.”
Troy Heinert, executive director, Intertribal Buffalo Council
Many partners facilitate the program, including the National Park Service, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the Fort Peck tribes, the Intertribal Buffalo Council, Yellowstone Forever, Defenders of Wildlife and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
Last November, a scientific review by APHIS shortened quarantine for bull bison from three years to 300 days, marking a milestone of growth for the program.
The 108 bulls transferred in February are the first cohort under the shortened quarantine, Reid said. If not for the change, the bulls, captured last winter, would have remained in Yellowstone for six more months.
To enter the program, bison must initially test negative for brucellosis. They’re tested every 30 to 45 days at Yellowstone’s Stephens Creek and APHIS’s Corwin Springs facilities until all animals test negative for two consecutive testing periods.
Then, after additional testing based on age and sex, they’re sent to Fort Peck for another year of quarantine and one assurance test.
Elk have historically spread brucellosis to cattle, but are not similarly contained.
Rebecca Bigelow, a wildlife disease specialist for APHIS Veterinary Services, helped develop the quarantine process. Bison are quarantined to ensure brucellosis is not brought to areas where it’s been eradicated, she said.
The disease can cause abortions and stillbirths. It’s transmitted to cattle through infected birthing tissue.
The loss of Montana’s brucellosis-free status would impact interstate and international trade agreements, costing the livestock industry millions, Bigelow said.
Current management stems from a lawsuit filed by Montana officials in 1995 that forced Yellowstone to keep bison inside park boundaries because of threats to livestock. If they leave, the animals can be hunted or are captured and sent to slaughter. Last winter, more than 1,500 animals were culled from the herd.
But the transfer program provides another ending for the buffalo.
In 2022, partners helped expand the quarantine facility at Stephens Creek to hold more animals.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Yellowstone Forever raised $500,000 for the expansion, which the Park Service matched.
The $1 million investment bumped the facility’s capacity from 100 to 200 animals, adding two more pens, water infrastructure, and a low-stress handling area.
Shana Drimal, who leads the Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s bison program, said the program is a win-win that avoids sending Yellowstone buffalo to slaughter while returning them to tribal lands.
“Bison have faced such tremendous loss at the hands of people. They were nearly exterminated and they deserve better,” Drimal said. “Very simply, it’s the right thing to do.”
Still, other groups have protested what they see as mistreatment and domestication of wild animals. In 2018, protesters used bolt cutters to cut the fence at Stephens Creek, freeing more than 50 bison scheduled for transfer to Fort Peck. Officials decided to not recapture the animals.
The park has since increased security for the facility, Reid said. He didn’t disclose details.
Reid rejected the idea that quarantine domesticates bison, which have a lifespan of about 20 years. They are wild animals, and while some people want bison to roam free and unmanaged outside Yellowstone, park officials are working within the bounds of regulation as the law requires, he said.
As dawn broke the next morning, Magnan drove out to check on the cultural herd.
Silhouettes of buffalo lurked in morning fog, the shapes of snouts and horns slowly materializing.
The air was silent except for occasional grunting by the buffalo. That’s the mothers telling their calves where to graze, Magnan said.
“Some days I just sit here in the summer and park my vehicle, turn off the engine and soon all the buffalo come up and rub on the truck,” Magnan said.
In addition to the quarantine program, the reservation has a cultural herd of about 370 buffalo and a smaller “business” herd of 310 for guided hunts to generate revenue.
In time, Magnan wants the herds to grow to 1,500 animals. The business herd started with just 100 buffalo from Fort Belknap in 1991.
The cultural herd, sourced entirely from Yellowstone, started with 67 animals in 2012 as part of a feasibility study for the quarantine program, Magnan said.
Magnan pointed to the only buffalo with a name — a smaller bull with mismatched horns jutting out at different angles. Inkdushá. Drunken one, in Sioux.
Wildlife-friendly fencing surrounds the 17,000 acres of the free-roaming herd — a smooth wire a foot off the ground and a smooth top wire, with barbed wire in between.
Defenders of Wildlife helped secure Fort Peck a grant to pay for the fencing, which costs about $6,000 a mile, said Chamois Andersen, senior representative for the group’s Rockies and Plains program.
The area was used for cattle grazing until a fire burned down miles of internal fencing in 2008.
The impacted rancher retired their lease, making room for buffalo to graze there instead, Magnan said.
The buffalo area has grown over time as more cattle leases were retired. He’s removed miles of cross fencing so the wild animals can roam.
It’s hard to see forage through the fog, but the buffalo are healing the land and soil with their grazing, Andersen said.
Buffalo manure fertilizes the soil, and the trampling of hooves followed by long periods of rest stimulates plant growth, creating niches of water and habitat for birds.
Native plants — a patchwork of crested wheatgrass, blue gamma, and sudangrasses — have key nutrients for the buffalo. Echinacea, or purple coneflower, provides zinc. Mineral blocks rich in copper dot the pastures.
This year, Magnan has been supplementing their winter diet with hay due to a lack of forage. He’s only had to do so twice in 23 years, driven by extreme weather like fire, heavy snow and drought.
“Native Americans know how to take care of these animals. They know how to manage their lands for wildlife,” Andersen said. “They’re experts at it.”
The continued growth of the transfer program is dependent on Yellowstone’s bison management plan.
related
Yellowstone presents alternative bison strategies in draft plan
Yellowstone National Park is soliciting feedback on a proposal outlining strategies for managing bison, a long-awaited document that will guide how the park manages the animals in coordination with state and tribal wildlife officials. The plan has implications for population objectives and where bison will be tolerated outside of park boundaries.
The guiding document is being updated for the first time in 24 years. The park outlines three management alternatives for a stable or increasing bison population, which currently hovers around 4,800.
Yellowstone aims to release the new plan later this year.
Montana officials oppose any plan with a herd size greater than 3,000, the original threshold agreed upon in the Interagency Bison Management Plan from 2000.
But some fear reducing the population would impact the transfer program’s ability to function.
Andersen said the 3,000 number is outdated because new tolerance zones and tribal hunting mean the park can support a bigger population. Much has changed since 2000, which is why Yellowstone needs an updated plan, she said.
Yellowstone’s own guidance says there need to be more than 3,500 bison to maintain genetic diversity.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has repeatedly threatened to sue the Park Service over bison numbers. In October, the state sent a scathing 17-page letter to Yellowstone outlining its concerns with the draft plan.
At the annual IBMP meeting in November, Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly said the park will will evaluate Montana’s stance alongside other public comment, but the Park Service is not planning to change its approach.
Yellowstone’s final decision “will guide what happens here,” Sholly said. “Not the other way around.”
To capture buffalo, there needs to be a winter migration where animals leave the park in search of forage, said Yellowstone’s Reid.
On average, park officials need to capture 300 bison to enter 100 in the program, Reid said. That’s because there are age and sex requirements to enter quarantine and bison need to initially test negative for brucellosis to be eligible. About 20% of bison will first test negative, then start testing positive.
If the herd size is reduced, bison could stop leaving the park in significant numbers, Drimal said, impacting the transfer program and treaty hunts for tribes.
Andersen said the move “would roll back two decades’ worth of conservation, cooperation and restoration of the species.”
It would devalue support for the program and Fort Peck’s own investment of $800,000 to build the quarantine facility, Andersen said.
Magnan drove back to the quarantine pen and parked next to a bison skull perched atop the electric fence.
There was another skull in the bed of his truck, a massive ivory-colored fixture with patches of dirt and wet grass.
“Every ceremony that we do is centered around buffalo,” Magnan said. “Catholic people pray to the Bible. Native Americans’ bible is the buffalo skull.”
The buffalo are used in ceremonies and summer powwows at Fort Peck.
The Pté group, which brought the feast for those who helped with the transfer, coordinates cultural connection and education about the animal.
Buffalo meat is donated to the reservation’s homeless shelters, programs for diabetics and the elderly. Grade schools and tribal colleges visit the herd for educational purposes, and harvesting demonstrations are shown to children at a young age.
“Every ceremony that we do is centered around buffalo. Catholic people pray to the Bible. Native Americans’ Bible is the buffalo skull.”
Robbie Magnan, director, Fort Peck Fish and Game Department
Buffalo were Native Americans’ entire economy, providing tribes with food sovereignty, security and shelter, Magnan said.
But after decades without the sacred buffalo, “our elders were concerned that we were losing our culture. And they knew that the main part of our culture was our buffalo,” Magnan said.
He recalled the wonder of a buffalo named Elvis who died on spring range a few years ago. On game cameras, Magnan watched the herd surround the bull’s carcass for days, apparently mourning its spirit. It reminded him of the Assiniboine belief that when you die, your soul roams the Earth for four days until your spirit can join the family who left before you.
“Now my grandchildren and my children get to enjoy what my ancestors enjoyed, and that’s being around the buffalo,” Magnan said. “That’s something I missed out on, my mother and father and grandparents missed, because they weren’t around. But by bringing them back, we can enjoy them.”
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