American Prairie Reserve - Nothing new

Gila said:
There is no logic to track. It is a study...all good stuff though. The tribes may find that raising buffalo is more profitable than cattle, but the habitat has to be restored before the buffalo arrive. You still need fences and good ones. The tribes have tried it and so far it hasn’t worked out so well. Just because you put buffalo on previously destroyed prairie habitat doesn’t mean that habitat will come back....the opposite is true. The Mortensen Ranch Project proved that the prairie natural habitat must be reseeded over time and to do that the natural water sources must be restored. SDSU has thousands of pages of research and studies about it.
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You mentioned your experience time in western SD, so you are likely familiar with the Triple 7.

I spent some time on the ranch working with the bison, but mostly live trapping prairie dogs (thousands). Seems they have a have a different take on habitat restoration for bison.

777bison.com

Ranching Practices

777bison.com 777bison.com

Scratching my head on what you are referring to when you say "destroyed prairie habitat"? Crossing and ecological threshold? Was this the case on the Mortenson? What was the indicator?

I can tell you the AP lands have not been "previously destroyed".
 
mtmiller said:
You mentioned your experience time in western SD, so you are likely familiar with the Triple 7.

I spent some time on the ranch working with the bison, but mostly live trapping prairie dogs (thousands). Seems they have a have a different take on habitat restoration for bison.

777bison.com

Ranching Practices

777bison.com 777bison.com

Scratching my head on what you are referring to when you say "destroyed prairie habitat"? Crossing and ecological threshold? Was this the case on the Mortenson? What was the indicator?

I can tell you the AP lands have not been "previously destroyed".
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You really need a new sig...
 
Ben Lamb said:
Respectfully, the ITBC & many tribes would disagree with your statements.
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That is for sure....the tribes don’t agree with each other, why would they agree with me? But they are not my concepts and my opinion doesn’t matter anyway. The Mortensen Ranch project received the Aldo Leopold Conservation Award in 2011. Somebody knows something about something!
 
Big Fin said:
Dang, put down the shovel; you've dug a deep enough hole.

Example - You say you were referring to TNC lands as closed to hunting, not APR, as someone attributed to you. I know of many elk, deer, moose, and birds killed on TNC lands in Montana, including some I’ve killed myself. Credibility is hard to come by when you post incorrect statements, such as the statement that TNC does not allow hunting.

Point being, you started a thread and you posted on other threads, explaining how uninformed the masses of Hunt Talk are, how we are getting hoodwinked. You imply that you are here to show us the real truth, to show us how we are missing the real story. Yet, most of what you posted here and in the other APR thread is incorrect.

Many of the aliases you see in Hunt Talk are of people who do this stuff for a daily job. I would put the HT membership up against any forum, any blog, any user group when it comes to knowledge of public land, conservation, policy, and other issues essential for public land hunting. When it comes to those topics, Hunt Talk is not a good place to sling bullshit in hopes it’ll stick.
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Once again, wish I could 😍 and 😂 at the same time….


That is all
 
If native grass and vegetation restoration is needed before bison are grazed, wouldn’t removal of all livestock from those areas be the first step?

Is Gila advocating for eliminating cattle in the west?
 
Please read about the Mortensen Ranch Project. Clarence enhanced his CATTLE ranch by retstoring his land to the way it was before the habitat was destroyed. The opposite is true. The result of his project was a way to a socio-economic and eco-friendly cattle ranch. Some conservationists believe that what AP is doing is feasible yet there are others who do not. Obviously AP is going to pick the research and data that favorably supports their business plan. But there are others who believe that that what AP is doing is not feasible, and there is research and peer reviewed studies to suggest that as well.

All I did was look into it and get as much information that I thought I needed to make up my own mind. I thought that I would share those creditable news sources and peer-reviewed studies with others here so they can come up with an informed opinion for themselves. I am never going to get everything right but who does? I thank everyone for their constructive participation in this thread. At least I was allowed to put forth my opinion without being called a liar, or having nefarious motives like in the other thread.

I have spent more time on this thread than I actually have. I have a ton of work to do here on the ranch so that I don’t feel like I left something undone when I go hunting next month. Please feel free to keep things going on this thread, but I will need to graciously bow out for now.
 
Gila said:
That is for sure....the tribes don’t agree with each other, why would they agree with me? But they are not my concepts and my opinion doesn’t matter anyway. The Mortensen Ranch project received the Aldo Leopold Conservation Award in 2011. Somebody knows something about something!
Click to expand...

Most tribes work together when it comes to bison programs because there's a shared interest in all tribes succeeding. The Blackfoot program is different than Ft Peck's, which is slightly different than Belknap's, which is again different than the Wind River Reservation's nascent program. None of them counter each other however. That's why the ITBC exists - to help provide the best science & data for all tribes. Tokenizing the inter-tribal relationships isn't helpful in this discussion, IMO.

Regardless, the idea that you have to restore the prairie first ignores a lot of other studies out there. I'm not saying anything negative about the Mortenson project, but this 30 year study seems to indicate that bison first is a reasonable way to go about prairie restoration: https://www.anthropocenemagazine.or...ssRw_ukVYiRpkr-_m6Hh2bpC0zoBwf9TeS-G4KD6boK4w

I think it's also important to recognize that the prairies of SD, ND, KS, NE are far different than the sagebrush plains of WY, CO, MT, etc. There is no one-size-fits all approach to bison conservation, and in the case of AP, their bioligy staff is pretty danged good at what they do.
 
“Most tribes work together when it comes to bison programs because there's a shared interest in all tribes succeeding.”

Each tribe is a sovereign nation. They have their own self interests. Those tribes who have tribal lands near a population center have casinos and have been able to make a living from gambling. But there has been problems with that too. Like I said before each tribe may have their “pet herds” but taking the fences down and replacing their cattle ranches, row crops and hay fields with free roaming buffalo will never happen, they know that.

Some of the tribes have some very successful hunting and fishing programs that provide excellent opportunity. Some of them are pricey, but those professionals with a good income don’t seem to care. They are just glad to be able to hunt and fish there. I had my wife look at the Buffalo Treaty of 2014. She said it is not a Treaty but an agreement between Tribes. A Treaty exists only between the US gov’t and the Tribes. Obvisously for the Canadian Tribes a treaty is between the Crown. There is a letter of cooperation from the DOI but it is that. From what I have seen so far, there is no binding contract between ITBC members, just a membership.

I find it interesting to note the Fort Peck Assiniboine, which are one of the original Buffalo Treaty members, is a band of Yanktonai Sioux. Two Yankton tribes in South Dakota are IBTC members. I have been to those reservations dozens of times. The reservation at Wagner boasts of “free roaming” buffalo. The truth is the reservation is only 37,000 acres. Most of the land is in hay, corn and soybeans. The same thing with Flandreau only they have a casino. They have a small herd in a small pasture that the gamblers coming up from Sioux Falls can see from the highway.

They all have to give them cover and feed them hay in the winter. Some researchers say that the reason why they aren’t as resilient to harsh winters as they should be is because of the bovine DNA. And yes that has certainly been a proven factor. But other researchers are saying that DNA is only part of it. They believe that it may be the nutrients from native plants (some of those plants became extinct) that gave the buffalo their resilience, and resistance to disease as well.

Once Clarence seeded with natural plants, he moved the cattle over those plants that were seeded out and tried to simulate (with cattle) how the buffalo moved over the plants during the different seasons. And it was seasonal, because not all of the plants matured at the same time. To his happy surprise, plants that were thought to be extinct grew! The prairie around the Missouri Breaks at Fort Peck is very similar to the breaks around the Mortenson Ranch.

There is a list of plants that Clarence acquired, it would be interesting to compare that list with what AP has, or should have. The big delineation is short grass and tall grass prairie. The tall grass is East of the Missouri River and short grass is west of the river. There is a swath of both habitats. Fort Peck and that area of Montana is short grass as well as the Mortensen Ranch in South Dakota.

Tha last time I saw a “free roaming” buffalo was on I-80. A bull was trying to get the flies away from his face by thrashing a bush, the only one around for miles. There were about a dozen state troopers and police cars there to try and persuade him to go back through the fence where he came from.

I couldn’t figure out why you guys were attacking me as I had not even heard of AP until Ben’s thread. So the BLM gave AP grazing rights for their buffalo in July. Too bad the comment period is up because I have a few of my own.

The Wife just handed me a book: “Scotty Philip, The man who saved the buffalo” - by Wayne C. Lee. Now I’m in trouble 🥸🤠
 
BuzzH said:
You knew nothing about AP, but started spreading a bunch of untrue bullshit about same.

Got called on that BS, but can't quite piece together why you're feeling like you've been "attacked".

It's a real mystery...
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Everything I got was from creditable news sources....I pushed them in your face and you still deny it!

Like what is all this untrue BS you accuse me of?
 
So we are now 6 pages in, and you have so far opined about ferrets, bison, tribal land management, grazing, “extinct” short grass prairie plants (I don’t think that means what you think it means btw), and ranchers. But none of this answers the basic question you continue to dodge…wtf does any of this have to do with a private property owner’s right to do whatever the hell they want on their land? And why is AP demonized for managing their property however they like, no differently than millions of other private landowners in this country manage theirs for their own myriad purposes?

Since you’ve dodged this question repeatedly already, I’m not going to hold my breathe waiting for an answer. I just continue to find this an untenable position…supporting some people’s private property rights but not others.
 
Gila said:
Everything I got was from creditable news sources....I pushed them in your face and you still deny it!

Like what is all this untrue BS you accuse me of?
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AP doesn't allow public elk hunting, that's BS.

AP doesn't increase access to public lands, that's BS.

AP allows only hunting to rich donors, that's BS.

AP only cares about high end safaris, that's BS. (you aren't understand what they're saying or providing).

AP can transplant any species on their land that isn't on the T&E species list, that's BS.

Do I need to go on?
 
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