Coming to the Rocky Mountain Front near you...

[katqanna]

Bison treaty signed by Alberta, Montana tribes

Leaders of 11 tribes from Montana and Alberta signed the pact during a daylong ceremony on Montana's Blackfeet Reservation, organizers said...Ranchers and landowners near two Montana reservations over the past several years fought unsuccessfully against the relocation of dozens of Yellowstone National Park bison due to concerns about disease and bison competing with cattle for grass.

The tribes involved — the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation and the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes of the Fort Belknap Reservations — were among those signing Tuesday's treaty..."We're recreating history, but this time on (the tribes') terms."

The treaty signatories collectively control more than 6 million acres of prairie habitat in the U.S. and Canada, an area roughly the size of Vermont, according to Aune's group.

Among the first sites eyed for bison reintroduction is along the Rocky Mountain Front, which includes Montana's Blackfeet Reservation bordering Glacier National Park and several smaller First Nation reserves.

 

[Big Fin]

Should we start a pool as to when the first threat is made to close access for public hunters for the tribes exercising their rights?

 

[katqanna]

Randy, that made me laugh. Having sat through so many of these meetings, including Lewistown, I dont know that those objecting to wild bison being restored to Public Lands will understand that the Tribes are Sovereign Nations. They would not differentiate between public and private land, or between a Federal National Park (Yellowstone) jurisdiction and Montana FWP jurisdiction or between a wild bison and a domestic cow on a ranch for hunting, regardless of FWP Pat Flowers or Sen Mike Phillips or others making statements. So at the Billings meeting, Ginny Tribe laid out ground rules for comments and had to bring a couple of these points up and state they did not want any comments on Yellowstone National Park, that it was outside Montana and especially FWP's jurisdiction.

With that said, I wish the Tribes well in their bison restoration efforts, but that does not help bison on Montana Public Lands for public hunting and wildlife restoration.

BTW, the next FWP bison working group meeting is Oct 9th in Great Falls.

 

[Eric Albus]

Hopefully the Natives will treat bison with the same respect they have deer/elk/bighorn sheep & moose when seen within the confines of the Res..

 

[MTBirdhunter]

Hopefully the Natives will treat bison with the same respect they have deer/elk/bighorn sheep & moose when seen within the confines of the Res..

I about doubled over laughing when reading your post, wonder how many heads it went over.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Ah the soft bigotry of low expectations.

http://womwe.blogspot.com/2013/04/montanas-senator-john-brendens-heathen.html

Good for the tribes.

 

[JLS]

Hopefully the Natives will treat bison with the same respect they have deer/elk/bighorn sheep & moose when seen within the confines of the Res..

Having spent several years in the Rosebud Creek and Tongue River countyr, I found that absolutely hilarious. Sad, but hilarious.

 

[katqanna]

Not mine. I am under no illusions that all Native Americans have respect for wildlife. I have some Native friends that do and then I have documentation on some that dont, especially where bison and their commercialization are concerned.

I dont remember if I saw this here or on my news feed, State game warden detained for 5 ½ hours by tribal officials outside Hays about the recent FWP Game Warden that was detained by Fort Belknap.

"A Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden was detained by Fort Belknap tribal officers Saturday for 5½ hours and threatened with a citation for criminal trespass and the impoundment of his state vehicle before the heated incident was defused...Paulsen has been an FWP warden for seven years. During the past three years he has investigated four incidents of elk poaching near where he was stopped by tribal officials."

There's ethical and unethical people everywhere.

 

[HSi-ESi]

I about doubled over laughing when reading your post, wonder how many heads it went over.

Bigotry is much more transparent than you would like to believe.

Bison reintroduction on the tribes terms will have a much greater chance of success. Smaller game animals are seen as a means of immediate sustenance.

The Crow have managed a small population of Bison for a long time. I think that this movement will only grow over time for the tribes.

 

[MTBirdhunter]

Bigotry is much more transparent than you would like to believe.

Bison reintroduction on the tribes terms will have a much greater chance of success. Smaller game animals are seen as a means of immediate sustenance.

The Crow have managed a small population of Bison for a long time. I think that this movement will only grow over time for the tribes.

LOL, the truth hurts. If stating the truth makes me a bigot, so be it.

 

[HighWildFree]

Neat. I really hope it works out smoothly. A lot of people think tribal wildlife agencies are just some half-cocked, circus. A lot of that is racism that I've seen first hand. Many tribal wildlife agencies have PhDs on staff and I've seen more accurate and complete data produced from tribes than their state counterparts. Like Katqanna said, this doesn't do much for Bison on Public lands in Montana unfortunately

 

[katqanna]

HSi-ESi, I agree about the success of bison reintroduction with the Tribes coming sooner. At the last FWP Bison Working Group meeting they broke into 4 groups to discuss options. Irvin Carlson with the ITBC was there to represent a Native American stakeholder presence and Keith Aune (retired FWP) with the The Wildlife Conservation Society was there for conservation. They were both part of the group that came up with the option that any bison in Montana go to the Tribes for reservation conservation. Which pissed me off. Not that any Tribes would seek to restore bison herds to their reservations (which I advocate for), but this should not be the objective of our Fish, Wildlife & Parks. The Tribes are Sovereign Nations, not our public lands.

Prior to that, where some of the ag/rancher legislators had been adamant about no bison in Montana, I started hearing some of them say at meetings, bison could be brought in to Montana - BUT not to Public Lands, to the Tribes. It shouldnt be an either/or.

My thinking is that our sportsmens dollars should not be spent on bison quarantine that then gets sent to the Tribes, but should be used for wild bison on Montana public lands where Montana hunters will be able to hunt.

Anyway, about two weeks after that Billings bison meeting I saw an article that the Blackfoot Confederacy (Carlson is Blackfoot) partnered with Keith Aune to help them in their efforts at bison restoration on reservations the Iinnii Initiative, which he is doing and thus we see this treaty. As Sovereign Nations, they can probably achieve some things that the Montana public cannot on our Public Lands because they can bypass our legislative issues.

 

[belly-deep]

Hopefully the Natives will treat bison with the same respect they have deer/elk/bighorn sheep & moose when seen within the confines of the Res..

You mean shoot on sight and leave to rot?

One thing I do like about driving through a rez is NOT having to worry about hitting a deer...

 

[ERSS]

Hopefully the Natives will treat bison with the same respect they have deer/elk/bighorn sheep & moose when seen within the confines of the Res..

Always amazed at the abundance of game when I drive through the Lame Deer area.

 

[Eric Albus]

kat, "to your thinking bison should be placed on Montana's public lands"....what about those of us w/ a claim to the surface right on the grass? What difference is there in a bison trespassing vs. a neighbors cattle? How about when the bison waltz thru the fence and come onto private property? This is the reason that Montana ranchers do not want the moniker "wild" placed upon said shaggy beasties.

As to Montana hunters being able to hunt. How many years would it take to establish a "wild bison" herd that was huntable and viable? Just look how well the last "re-introduction of a non-native species" has gone.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Montana law is pretty clear on what remedies landowners have in terms of protecting their property against bison.

As for the grass, well, you have to share. After all, that's only neighborly.

 

[katqanna]

kat, "to your thinking bison should be placed on Montana's public lands"....what about those of us w/ a claim to the surface right on the grass? What difference is there in a bison trespassing vs. a neighbors cattle? How about when the bison waltz thru the fence and come onto private property? This is the reason that Montana ranchers do not want the moniker "wild" placed upon said shaggy beasties.

As to Montana hunters being able to hunt. How many years would it take to establish a "wild bison" herd that was huntable and viable? Just look how well the last "re-introduction of a non-native species" has gone.

Eric, First and foremost, those Public Lands belong to the Public, they are not anyone's private lands. Anyone that leases is just that, a leasee of our Public Lands.

I wont go into great depth about all the aspects of socialized subsidies issues of Public Land leasing, but would like to point out a typical conversation I hear, this one was at the Statewide Elk Brucellosis Working Group meeting in July. A few of the ranchers were discussing what would happen should they get a positive in their herd and had to quarantine for a period of time feeding them instead of being able to turn them out to graze, part of the conversation included Public Lands. They stated they could not afford to do that and stay in business.

Now my thinking is, that if I did not outright own enough land to run my business and had to lease additional land from someone to conduct business, I sure as hell would not be so uppity/entitled as to dictate terms, especially when the majority of the leases are robbing the American taxpayers and actually costing them more money to manage those Public Lands than they take in for the leases. Its not like the US government is so well off they need a tax write off to offset their profits.

Wildlife come with the land, our Public Lands. And wild bison are wildlife, not your neighbors cattle, regardless of the campaign efforts of special interest groups to have them designated otherwise, like Brendans wild bison Christian conversion to livestock. Makes me envision wild bison lined up at a stock tank with Senator Brendan baptizing them, emerging as branded, ear tagged, domesticated livestock. I need to do a cartoon on that.

Understanding that wild bison strike fear into the hearts and minds of these land poor leasees, there are wild bison restoration advocates that have 1. bought up grazing leases, and 2. worked to find contiguous Public Lands that do not have grazing leases on them. Thereby removing anyone's objections to our wildlife stealing "their" subsidized grass. I think that awfully conciliatory, dont you think?

Now, should we eventually be able to proceed with a Public Lands wild bison restoration effort, it would have to include some form of containment, due to these special interest groups pushing their fear agenda through the legislature and making it law. This is part of the discussion of the FWP bison working group, that "containment" could include natural geographic barriers. Until an area is defined, the particulars cannot be fully worked out. Also discussed at these meetings, is the protection of any nearby private landowners property and compensation should damage occur, again very conciliatory considering that they are wildlife which are being discussed differently than other wildlife. There are NGO's that already work on the west and north side of YNP to provide bison proof fencing for private landowners to help facilitate the social acceptability of wild bison on the landscape.

As to hunting, applying some YNP population numbers to this situation - lets say we get the 1000 minimum genetic herd population on the grazing lease free area of the CMR section that has been proposed. Now the YNP herd is 4600 and that involves some brucellsosis causing a small percentage of first exposure abortion events. The proposal from the bison experts there is that to maintain zero population growth, they would need to remove 900 bison this year. So lets quarter these numbers to approximate a minimum genetic restoration population. Population YNP 4600/restoration 1150 and the removal to maintain zero growth, or in the FWP and North American Model of Wildlife Conservation Model - hunting - 900/225. It may take a couple years of adjusting to the land and setting up their social dynamics and this herd would be brucellosis free so more prolific than YNP. Not sure, but I think last year Montana issued 40 tags. This year is was increased to 80. Lets say we applied 80 tags to the restoration herd, it would still allow for population growth and provide a huntable population that would double what Montana's currently has available this year. And, this is important, the bison would actually be available during the hunting season. To hunt bison now, you are dependent on bison exiting the YNP in HD 395 or 385.

Just put a call in to the APR to find out what their calf recruitment figures on the 300+ herd was this spring, to get a frame of reference for that local. As soon as they call back with the biology information I will post.

Bison are a Montana native wildlife species, the only one that has not been restored.

 

[katqanna]

APR called back. This spring they had 329 bison in their herd. They had 50 calves born this spring. So if that 329 was 1000, we could estimate about 150 calves the first season. Female bison reproduce when they are 2-3 years old. Assuming your original herd is of mixed ages, I would think that by the second-third year of restoration you could be hunting about 70 in the first couple of years, then increase as the herd grows. After this dinner I am meeting with a biologist to model some numbers and see what a huntable population might be like beyond my dinking around.

 

[poco]

Any fence that will contain buffalo effectively will also stop travel of other big game. very counter productive.

 

[Big Foot]

Good for the tribes! Funny hearing a buffalo being called non-native.