If there is one issue that is divisive in the state of Montana it is the reintroduction of bison to parts of the state that have not seen the animals for over 100 years and the New York Times recently did a great job in explaining the many issues both pro and con that go along with bringing bison back to the American West.
As Bison Return to Prairie, Some Rejoice, Others Worry, Nate Schweber, New York Times
“Sioux and Assiniboine tribe members wailed a welcome song last month as around 60 bison from Yellowstone National Park stormed onto a prairie pasture that had not felt a bison’s hoof for almost 140 years.
That historic homecoming came just 11 days after 71 pureblood bison, descended from one of Montana’s last wild herds, were released nearby onto untilled grassland owned by a charity with a vision of building a haven for prairie wildlife. Some hunters and conservationists are now calling for bison to be reintroduced to a million-acre wildlife refuge spanning this remote region.
“Populations of all native Montana wildlife have been allowed to rebound except bison; it’s time to take care of them like they once took care of us,” said Robert Magnan, 58, director of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation’s Fish and Game Department, who will oversee the transplanted Yellowstone bison program.
But with several groups now navigating a complex and contentious path to return bison to these plains, agribusiness is fighting back. Many farmers and ranchers fear that bison, particularly those from Yellowstone, might be mismanaged and damage private property, and worry that they would compete for grass with their own herds.”
As all lovers of the American West know Lewis & Clark encountered large herds of bison in their trek up the Missouri River through North Dakota and Missouri (1804 – 1806) which France Hunters describes very well in a blog entry:
Lewis & Clark and the American Bison
“For many people, the Lewis and Clark Expedition is forever linked with the American bison as a symbol of the great, unspoiled American west. Lewis and Clark encountered numerous herds of buffalo on their travels, some of which numbered thousands of animals. Yet it is surprising to realize that when the Corps of Discovery set out from St. Louis in 1804, the buffalo was already a species in retreat.
The American plains bison (or buffalo) originally had a range that encompassed most of the continental United States, from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Appalachian Mountains in the east. In his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, author Charles C. Mann theorized that early Native Americans in the east not only lived off the bison, but kept the herds regulated. Mann suggested that decades of heavier-than average rainfall, and the devastation of Native populations by the arrival of European diseases, enabled the bison herds to flourish in artificially large numbers.
However, this didn’t last long. As European populations got established on the East Coast and hunters and frontiersmen pushed west over the Appalachian mountains, they drove the buffalo before them. By the time Lewis and Clark were born, buffalo had already disappeared from western Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas. William Clark, who grew up in Kentucky and served in the militia in the Ohio River Valley, had no doubt seen and perhaps hunted buffalo as a youth. But the animals had all but disappeared from these places by the 1790?s. By the time the Corps of Discovery set out from St. Louis in 1804, a buffalo sighting east of the Mississippi River was an increasingly rare sight.
Still, Lewis and Clark knew that vast herds were out there to the west, and were on the lookout. On June 6, 1804, Clark noted in his journal, “Some buffalow Sign to day.” The first buffalo were spotted by the Corps’ hunters at the Kansas River on June 28.
August 23, 1804, was a red-letter day for the Corps. Joseph Fields shot and killed a large buffalo bull. It took Lewis and about a dozen men to butcher and carry the buffalo meat to a bend in the river so it could be picked up by the Corps’ boats. The Corps salted two barrels of buffalo meat that day. Sergeant John Ordway, a native of New Hampshire, was in Lewis’s party and was especially excited because he had never seen a buffalo before. Ordway wrote in his journal, “I walked about 1 mile & ½ in it when I went for the abo. ment. Buffelow, I Saw the beds & Signs of a great many more Buffelow But this was the first I ever Saw & as great a curiousity to me.”
Yes, that must have been something to be ascending the Missouri River in the early part of the 19 th century and seeing not only large herds of bison but massive numbers of all kinds of animals that must have been fascinating and dangerous at the same time!
It’s hard to say what the future of the bison is on the plains and valleys of the American West but with more and more people taking an interest in reestablishing the bison in the West it seems the future is positive and that 100 years from now there very well may be large herds of bison in America just like there was 200 years ago when Lewis & Clark began their Corps of Discovery Expedition.
In the meantime Americans that would like to see what bison tastes like can visit their local Ted’s Montana Grill where one will find Bison Nachos, Bison Meatloaf, Bison Pot Roast, Bison Hamburgers and our favorite….Bison BBQ Short Ribs!
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