On rolling hills in a sprawling part of northeastern Montana known as the Old Whitcomb Place, bison roam the grasslands, much like they did before the guns and appetites of western settlers nearly rendered them extinct by the late 19th century.
The herd here is small, just a few hundred animals, with expectations that calving season will swell its numbers by 60 over the coming months. Its importance lies in its very existence, an attempt to restore an iconic species whose presence can alter the grasses that grow here and sculpt the landscape into more favourable habitat for grouse and prairie dogs.
But the keepers of the Old Whitcomb herd are now preparing to winnow its ranks. These bison graze on a mix of private and public land managed by American Prairie, a conservation group. The Trump administration has proposed reserving federally owned lands for domestic livestock − animals that are “the opposite of wild” − thus preventing bison kept for conservation purposes from grazing on those lands.
American Prairie, which at last count had 940 bison in Montana, has formally challenged the proposal. Losing access to federal land will force the group to reduce the herd to just 300 animals, said Pedro Calderon-Dominguez, the senior bison manager for American Prairie. “We are one of the last hopes to restore bison” to their natural ecological role, he said. If the Trump administration does not change course, “it is going to be lost.”
Billboards on the road to Old Whitcomb Place speak to the tensions between the conservation group and ranchers, many of whom want to restrict public land to domestic livestock only.
The looming depopulation of the herd − the animals could be culled through hunting or shipped elsewhere − comes alongside other efforts by the Trump administration to halt or stymie attempts to reintroduce cornerstone species to Western landscapes. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service blocked a plan by Colorado to import grey wolves from British Columbia. A decades-long effort to restore grizzlies to the North Cascades region in Washington State has also stalled.
Conservation groups say the administration is not merely undermining the efforts of its Democratic predecessors. It is instead seeking to turn back the clock on the American West, favouring ranchers over preservationists in a return to the priorities of the cowboy age.
Over the past few decades, the return of small bison herds in the western United States has, little by little, staged a repudiation of the slaughter of tens of millions of bison, a 19th-century effort partly driven by a desire to annihilate a dietary and cultural cornerstone of western Native American tribes. Many of the modern herds are kept by those very same tribes.
But the ranchers demanding grazing land for their cattle “have a cultural cachet that is undeniable in America,” said Patrick Kelly, Montana director with Western Watersheds Project − and that cachet has held sway over the country’s current Republican leadership.
“We’re being told that a non-native species belongs on public lands, but bison do not,” Mr. Kelly said, decrying the decision to favour cattle over bison as a “bizarre attempt to save what is essentially a lifestyle choice” and pointing out that ranchers who raise beef cattle on public lands make up a small fraction of the country’s cattle industry.
The irony, Mr. Kelly noted, is that the seal of the U.S. Department of the Interior prominently features a bison.
But opponents of bison restoration have argued that the country decided nearly a century ago that its vast grasslands were for the use of cattle. A landmark act passed in 1934 gave the federal government the power to create grazing districts and oversee permits that would enable “the free grazing within such districts of livestock kept for domestic purposes” – although it does not define what constitutes “livestock” or specify what “domestic purposes” means.
In a letter sent to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last year, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte and all four members of the state’s federal delegation said they opposed allowing American Prairie’s animals on federal lands, calling them a “non-production, ‘rewilded’ conservation bison herd.” Converting historic ranchland into a wildlife refuge “would remove immense swaths of land from production agriculture with far reaching implications and undermine the proud heritage of these small, agriculture-focused communities,” they wrote.
The Montana Stockgrowers Association, in a statement earlier this year, said keeping American Prairie’s bison off grazing grounds was a “win for public lands ranching in Montana.” Grazing allotments, the group said, should be restored “to their intended usage for production livestock.”
Zachary Wirth, a Montana state legislator and rancher, rejects the argument that bison have a claim to the land based on their historical tenure. It’s clear, he said, that consumers prefer beef over bison. Why would federal lands not be used to support the more marketable product?
“If you look through history, there’s always been winners and losers,” he said. It’s better for ranchers, he added, if there is less competition for the acres they want for their cattle.
But mostly, he said, in the debate around bison on public lands, “it’s a lot of fear.”
Ranchers worry that bison, powerful and driven by migratory instincts, will break out of fences and pilfer hay meant for cattle. They worry they will spread brucellosis, a contagious bacteria that can cause cattle to abort calves and even render them infertile. Wild bison and elk in the area around Yellowstone Park, which reaches into southern Montana, comprise the last remaining reservoir of brucellosis in the country. There is no treatment for the disease, which can spread to cattle.
“That is a real issue,” Mr. Wirth said.
It is an issue that has been addressed at great cost and effort by groups who have spent years attempting to bring back bison.
Founded in 2004 and backed by groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, American Prairie set out to reconstitute a functional grassland ecosystem in Montana, much of which is divided into a patchwork of ownership types − picture a chess board, where black is private land and white is public.
By buying private parcels, the group set out to stitch together a broad landscape in a bid to “glue together a vast mosaic of existing public lands” free of fences and No Trespassing signs. Its ambitions were lofty, with a vision to assemble more than three million acres, more than twice the size of Prince Edward Island.
To date, the group has purchased 168,832 acres and leased an additional 436,907.
Watching the herd from a distance, Mr. Calderon-Dominguez has a satellite map to follow them more closely. Low, electrified fencing keeps them from wandering too far.
The Old Whitcomb Place comprises roughly 7,000 acres of that private land. In its efforts to bring bison here, American Prairie agreed with local conservation authorities to test 350 of their animals over a half-decade, screening for nine diseases that could affect cattle. They reached that number years ahead of schedule, but plan to continue testing.
“We are very thorough,” Mr. Calderon-Dominguez said.
He grew up in northern Mexico, the son of a doctor who loved the outdoors. He studied ecology and was introduced to bison by an academic adviser during his graduate studies. His titles with American Prairie include “lead buffalero,” but his colleagues call him a bison whisperer − a man who has come to admire the stout-headed creatures, which he likens to beavers as natural landscape engineers.
Their hooves and wallows break up crusted earth, creating openings for grasses that can provide vital winter forage − not just for bison but for all sorts of local wildlife, including the mule deer and pronghorn that also inhabit the area. They naturally thin sagebrush, making it better habitat for sharptail grouse. They graze grasses to an ideal height for prairie dogs, who rely on their vision to spot predators. The manure they deposit improves the soil.
On federal lands where the bison have already been grazing for three years, “it’s incredible, the restoration they have been doing there by themselves,” Mr. Calderon-Dominguez said.
‘We don’t contain the animals. We manage the habitat, and the animals stay here happy,’ Mr. Calderon-Dominguez says.
Part of what has made American Prairie unique is its commitment to allowing bison to graze on large parcels of land with minimal human intervention.
It takes care to maintain the structure of the herd, culling in such a way that generational strata remain intact. Commercial operators, “if they have a really old, ornery bull, they’re going to harvest that one,” Mr. Calderon-Dominguez said. “But here, we also consider the culture the bison have between them as a species. They need those animals to teach the young ones how to behave and survive.”
Unlike commercial operations that surround their animals with fences that might not look out of place on the set of Jurassic Park, American Prairie uses low, electrified fencing.
“We don’t contain the animals. We manage the habitat, and the animals stay here happy,” Mr. Calderon-Dominguez said.
Some of that will be lost if the animals are limited to smaller, privately owned plots of land. What bison remain will have less room to be wild.
Among those who oppose the Trump administration’s decision are Native American leaders, many of whom have spent recent decades establishing and growing their own bison herds − more than 20,000 head are now managed by tribal groups across the U.S.
In a letter to the Interior Secretary, the Coalition of Large Tribes called bison “central to our survival,” saying that under the proposed grazing decision, Indigenous bison would also be barred from federal lands. That is an “impermissible regulation,” they wrote, citing 19th-century treaty commitments granting tribes the right to hunt bison outside their reservation lands.
Bison “are our relatives,” they noted. “Their value cannot be measured by mere Western commodification.”
Bison restoration is a years-long project for Tyson Running Wolf of the Blackfeet Nation.
Tyson Running Wolf, a state legislator and member of the Blackfeet Nation, has spent a decade working to bring bison to Montana, including a 2016 transfer of 87 calves from the Elk Island herd in Alberta.
If the Trump administration succeeds in keeping bison off public lands, he said, it will undoubtedly slow efforts to bring back those animals.
“But tribal nations have still got to be diligent in going ahead and putting herds on their lands,” he said.
More importantly, he said, history has taught the value of patience. Starvation in the late 19th century left fewer Blackfeet people on the reservation than there are bison today. Today, the nation has a population of more than 15,000.
“All we had to do was wait and start flourishing,” he said.
“The same will be with the buffalo,” he added. “They are going to keep coming back.”
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