Yellowstone Bison: Do we have the vision for a solution?

7/28/2019 Yellowstone Bison: Do we have the vision for a solution?

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ViSiOnS

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P h o t o G r a P h y b y

william CamPbell

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A bull bison in the Hayden Valley, Yellowstone National Park.

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M o n t a n a Q u a r t e r l y 19


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A bison shot by the Montana Department o Livestock near West Yellowstone when it let

Yellowstone National Park during the winter o 19961997. Some o Yellowstones bison are

inected with brucellosis. About 1,100 bison were killed that winter.

Campaign coordinator Mike Mease, right, listens during an evening meeting at the Bualo Field Campaign house near West Yellowstone, Montana.

20 M o n t a n a Q u a r t e r l y 21


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ViSiOnS

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A Bualo Field Campaign ski patrol prepares to head out to look or

bualo in the Horse Butte area near West Yellowstone, Montana.

Wild bison in the Stevens Creek capture acility in Yellowstone National Park await processing in March, 2003. In the frst week o that month,

231 bison were shipped to slaughter as part o a brucellosis eradication program.

22 M o n t a n a Q u a r t e r l y 23


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thing for his son or anyone. As

a young mana boy, really,

he quit school after the eighth

grademy grandfather lived

wild as well, cowboying all week

and slicking his hair back come

Saturday night. After he started

a family, though, he took steady

work managing grain eleva-

tors. And when he finally had a

grubstake, he bought a piece of

Montana to call his own.

He ran the ranch on Willow Creek for 40-odd years. He

loved the work, was up early every morning with a cup of tar-

black coffee, sketching and figuring with a pad and pen, ready

any moment to fire up Old Blue, his flatbed Ford, and drive out

onto the Big Dry. Even with the days work behind him, he walked

the dry creek beds and rode the windswept ridges and mapped

this country in his own mind, his own bones. He didnt drink

much, he quit smoking when my grandmother told him to, his only

luxuries were an easy chair and a shelf of books. It was the work

that mattered, the hours on t he plains. To my grandfather ranch-

ing was more than a way to make a l iving. It was a love affair with

the land, the one way hea former hard-living cowpuncher

had found of being whole in t he world.

I imagine with the passing years he began to think the land

was his, that he had cared for it and would hand it over to his

own, that it would be always ours. But then my father died, and

my heartbroken grandfather reckoned up the latest drought, the

price of winter feed, his bookish grandson. As always, here in the

West, change is the way of things. When I was 12, my grandfather

sold all but a little pastureland.Once, on our way out to fix fence on that last section, my

grandfather told me how he had pulled a buffalo skull from a

sandy hill east of Willow Creek. When it hit the light, it went to

dust in his hands.

VISIONS

The Buffalo Field Campaign:

Buffalo belong on the land-

scape. They are attempting to

heal the injuries that more than

a hundred years of intense live-

stock production have caused.

One example has been play-

ing out on the south side of the

Madison River, where agents

have been repeatedly harassing

and harming the buffalo; since

the wildfires that burned the area two summers ago, this area

has become favored habitat. The bison aretaking advantage of

the new areas of green, nutritious grassand by gently grazing,

tilling and fertilizing the area with their critical presence, the

buffalo will help restore this section of forest.

From my interview with Roger Knapp, a longtime Montana

rancher: I was there when those folks came over to Jordan and

talked about their idea for the Buffalo Commons. I didnt break

any windows or anything, like some did, but I sure didnt like the

idea. It was plain mean is what it was. It didnt t ake into account

that there are people here, people who make their living here, who

love the land, who love getting up early and feeding stock and

fixing fence. But nownow I sometimes get to thinking that the

best idea for the land might be to pull up the fences and let the

buffalo have it back.

ORIGINS

Between bites of pancake and elk sausage, Chip tells me he

loves the workfilming in the morning, cutting wood or cooking

dinner in the afternoon. Hes 40 years old and has never felt soalive, so energized. He was a middle school math teacher, but he

burned out. The land is healing him.

T. C. says a lot of people love it. But its been hard for him, t he

not knowing if hes making a difference. Back home, in Seattle,

he works for a place that salvages material

for green construction; hes also done a lot

of tutoring and mentoring with at-risk kids.

But here, here he has t rouble seeing where

it ends. Hell keep at it, though, because

he thinks we have a responsibility, espe-

cially those of us born and raised in the

West. We have a responsibility to our

history, he says.

A Montana Department of Livestockhelicopter hazes bison back into

Yellowstone National Park from

the Horse Butte area near West

Yellowstone. Helicopter hazing has

since been halted by court order.

We are sittingElizabeth, Laura, Roman, Sweeny, and I

in the Suburban. We have been following a DOL agent, have

trailed him into West Yellowstone. He is filling up, cleaning his

windshield, and we are pulled over a half a block away, watching

him and waiting. Sweeny turns in the drivers seat and calls out:

State of origin check! Michigan!

Delaware, Elizabeth calls.

New York, says Roman.

Connecticut, says Laura.

Montana, I say, as the agent hangs up the hose and climbs

back into his pickup, as Sweeny fires the Suburban and swings

the wheel, as we begin following again the muddy shine of that

Montana plate.

VISIONS

We follow the agents truck to McDonalds and pull in

a few spots away. The agent, his cowboy hat high enough on

his head that we can see his face, steps out of his pickup. Its

Bridger, Sweeny says.

Oh! Laura shouts. Hes the only cute one! W hen you see him,

and see how round and cute he is, you can almost forgive him!

Hey, Bridger, Sweeny calls out the window. You guys done

for the day?

Bridger looks down at his feet, then back up, as if he didnt

expect to see us and is both pleased and embarrassed that he

did. Hes maybe 21 or 22. His beard is, like Sweenys, thin and

dark, and the way he hooks his thumbs in his front pockets

makes him look all the more abashed. I know this Bridger, know

the places and people of his life: I imagine his old man lost the

family ranch some years back, that he was looking for some kind

of horseback work to get by when this thing with the DOL came

up. I imagine he married that girl he met up at the Big Timber

rodeo when he was still roping, that theyve got two kids now and

a single wide near Ennisbut theyre saving, always saving, for

a spread of land.

Yeah, were done, he says, sort of half-smiling. Have a

good one.

VISIONS

Mike saves the video hes editing and shoos out a couple

of volunteers kids. He leans forward, his long hair hangingabout his full, weathered face. He nods and listens, considers

my every question, and when he speaks, his voice is soft and

genuine, his ideas philosophical, even theological. Yet when

he starts speaking of his vision for wild buffalo his ideas take

a practical turn. To listen to his focus on and excitement for

He had pulled a buffalo

skull from a sandy hill east

of Willow Creek. When it

hit the light, it went to dust

in his hands.

24 M O N T A N A Q U A R T E R L Y 25


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Documents

Yellowstone Bison: Do we have the vision for a solution?