Bison resolution stirs debate about Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge
BRETT FRENCH Mar 1, 2023 Updated Mar 2, 2023 0
Sen. Mike Lang has suggested yet another way to convey the message that a majority of Montana’s Republican politicians are against wild bison reintroduction in the state.
On Tuesday, the Malta legislator introduced Senate Joint Resolution 14 opposing bison reintroduction at the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. The resolution argues reintroducing bison to the 1.1 million acres in Eastern Montana would “jeopardize critical grazing land for livestock, greatly increase the threat of disease transmission between livestock and wildlife, threaten the livelihoods of ranching families, and impair the State of Montana's management of state trust land.”
In proposing the measure to the Senate Fish and Game Committee, Lang called the region “one of the wonders of the world,” extolled the vast wildlands that he’s hiked and hunted since he was a child and referred glowingly to a painting by artist Charles M. Russell of bison crossing the Missouri River, which runs through the refuge. He added he’s not against bison as long as they have a place to go and the resources to sustain them.
Testifying in support of the measure, Shelby DeMars, representing United Property Owners of Montana, said bison have “direct and severe” impacts on rangeland and may transmit disease.
Several livestock interests testified in opposition to the bill, including Calli Michaels representing the Montana Wool Growers Association. Michaels said her group isn’t against bison, it’s against improper management of animals on public lands. She compared the issue to wild horses. Every time a proposal is made to reduce the populations, wild horse advocates intervene, she said. As a result, Michaels said public lands have become damaged by overgrazing and weed infestations.
The resolution is the latest volley fired in what has been a long-running battle against bison in Montana.
Most recently in 2021, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced a settlement with UPOM after it filed suit over the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks' release of a bison management plan. Under the settlement, Gianforte said the state wouldn’t undertake bison reintroduction on the refuge for 10 years.
The same year, Gianforte signed a bill giving county commissions the power to approve or deny state transplants of wild bison in their counties.
Yet at a national level, the Department of Interior has been working since 2008 to implement a Bison Conservation Initiative.
“The DOI is committed to establishing and maintaining large, wide-ranging bison herds, subject to the forces of natural selection, on appropriate large landscapes where their role as ecosystem engineers shape healthy and diverse ecological communities,” the agency stated on its website.
The Department of Interior, which oversees the CMR National Wildlife Refuge, already manages about 11,000 bison on 4.6 million acres of public land in 19 herds across 12 states. Last year, the agency’s Bison Working Group was supposed to begin to implement a work plan to establish new state-managed, wild, huntable bison herds.
A request for comment from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding plans for the CMR was not returned in time for this story.
Several conservation groups spoke against the resolution and in favor of wild bison restoration. Chamois Andersen, of Defenders of Wildlife, said the CMR’s 20,800-acre UL Bend Wilderness provides an easy location to fence off to experiment with bison reintroduction. The area has no cattle grazing and is all federally owned land. Should the DOI move ahead with a plan to put bison on the refuge, Andersen said the environmental process would allow everyone a chance to review and comment on the project.
Although not on tribal lands, the Rocky Mountain Tribal Leaders Council drafted a plan in 2020 in support of an intertribal bison herd on Montana public lands.
“In its findings, the drafters noted the region of the CMR was historically known as the ‘Buffalo Commons’ in treaties between several Tribes and the U.S. Government,” the Missoulian reported in 2021. ”Those treaties and other court decisions ‘supports the concept of a partnership between the Department of Interior and a confederation of Tribes to establish a bison herd on public lands in Montana.’”
Then in 2021, the “Montana American Indian Caucus sent a letter to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland proposing a multi-tribal plan to restore large herds of wild bison on the Russell refuge,” the Missoulian reported.
Darrell Geist, habitat coordinator for the Buffalo Field Campaign, said the refuge belongs to all Americans. “But it’s also the territory of the Blackfeet, the Gros Ventre, the Assiniboine and the Crow,” he added. “And SJ 14 does not recognize any of these tribes with ancestral ties to the region."
“And it’s our position Montana has a responsibility and duty for caretaking wildlife for future generations,” he added. “Wildlife jurisdiction is not a one-way ratchet of state supremacy as SJ 14 wrongly claims.”
It is estimated that 30 million bison once roamed the Great Plains. Hide hunters and a push to drive Plains Indians to reservations prompted their wholesale slaughter. By 1884, the animals were gone from Montana except for a few in captive private herds. By 1895, roughly 800 bison remained worldwide.
“Here on the same landscape where the most egregious wildlife slaughter in history occurred, we have the opportunity to put the last piece on the pyramid of wildlife recovery,” said the late Montana conservationist Jim Posewitz in 2011. “Not only can we do this for buffalo, but given what we’ve done to this place, we are obligated to return them.”
https://mtstandard.com/news/state-and-regional/bison-resolution-stirs-debate-about-charles-m-russell-national-wildlife-refuge/article_1913eb96-a8cd-5214-b806-06b444e942b5.html |
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