Column: Wild bison deserve be restored to tribal lands in Montana

Wednesday, January 26, 2011  

"Few chapters are more tragic than the cultural genocide of the American Indian and the accompanying wanton slaughter of the wild buffalo on which The Peoples' spiritual and physical existence depended.

Today, far too many of Montana's native cultures live in Third World futility on forgotten lands. Meanwhile, the last significant reservoir of genetically pure wild bison - the roughly 5,000 residing in Yellowstone National Park - remains the only wildlife in America largely confined by the boundaries of a park.

The promise of returning wild bison to tribal lands is but one hopeful piece of a growing movement. We are on the threshold of reclaiming a lost part of our heritage with the restoration of one of the most identifiable symbols of the American West, an icon whose likeness appears on money, the U.S. Department of the Interior logo, and Wyoming flag.

The journey began last spring, when 94 Yellowstone bison were successfully relocated to one of Ted Turner's vast ranches near Bozeman, where an expanding wild herd grazes on an endless horizon of grass. It's the first time in at least four decades that a group of wild Yellowstone bison was allowed to leave the park alive."

Get the Story:
Jeff Welsch: Icon of the West: Bison deserve homes on the Montana range (The Bozeman Daily Chronicle 1/25)