“Trinity” Act Would Support America’s Bison and Other Keystone Species

For more than a quarter of a century, the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) has been working in the Greater Yellowstone Bioregion to protect the last wild, free-ranging herd of bison in the United States. Although the nearly 3500 square miles of Yellowstone National Park offer some protections, even that expanse is not enough to offer sufficient winter forage for the Park’s herds of deer, elk, moose, and a bison population that ranges between 3,000 and 6,000 animals.  

If that sounds like a lot of ungulates, consider that prior to the arrival of foreign explorers, conquerors and colonizers, the North American continent supported an estimated 30 million bison or more at any given time. The bison population plummeted in the 19th century as the notion of Manifest Destiny encouraged white settlers to cross the continent – the domestic livestock they brought with them introduced new diseases into the bison herds and competition for the lands the buffalo had historically foraged on. Railroads, fences and towns disrupted traditional seasonal migration patterns. The enthusiasm for “exotic” Western animals gave rise to an international market for “buffalo” hides at the same time that bison were being subjected to an extermination campaign conducted by the U.S. Army in order to deprive Indigenous tribes of a traditional source of sustenance and spiritual meaning. Even after Yellowstone became the United States’ first national park in 1872 and the Lacey Act of 1894 further strove to protect Yellowstone’s wildlife, egregious poaching continued, and by the time the National Park Service was established in 1916, only 23 bison remained within the park.

While the increase of the Yellowstone bison population more than 100 times over in the last century is good news, and the American bison was even designated America’s national mammal in 2016 and touted as “one of the greatest conservation success stories of all time,” that doesn’t mean that the rebound has not faced stiff challenges. 

For example, the historical range of the Yellowstone herd was double the size of the current park, so when bison now roam outside of the National Park boundaries to look for food in the winter, they’re instinctively moving along ages-old routes that lead to reliable sustenance. But many of those traditional winter grazing areas beyond park borders have been appropriated by ranchers for their beef cattle, and for the last couple of decades both State of Montana and federal officials have often resorted to the default solution of shooting the “trespassing” bison to protect the domesticated cattle.

That’s what prompted a group of Native American activists and wildlife advocates to mobilize in the 1990s. They began conducting daily patrols of the bison’s winter migration movements and they bore witness to the systematic massacres that were occurring as soon as bison crossed the invisible National Park boundary. 

Out of that initial grassroots response, the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) was organized as a nonprofit to protect the creatures – not only physically, but also by pressing for more environmentally and culturally attuned policies at both state and federal levels.

Finally, that’s beginning to happen. Much of this has to do with insistent grassroots pressure. It also helps that during President Joe Biden’s administration, the Department of the Interior has been led by Deb Haaland, the first-ever Native American to head this department that manages the nation’s natural resources, cultural heritage, and national parks.

In July of this year, the National Park Service announced a decision about the future management of bison at Yellowstone National Park. The plan, which went into effect immediately, should reduce the wholesale slaughter of bison that move outside of the park this winter, prioritizing instead a Bison Conservation Transfer Program (BCTP) that will facilitate the expansion of wild bison throughout the national landscape by delivering them into the stewardship of tribes in at least 12 different states. The management plan also includes a Tribal Food Transfer Program and Tribal harvests and state hunts.

These changes were initiated after litigation challenged the flaws of an interagency bison management plan that had been in place since 2000.

"We have come a very long way since the last bison management plan,” Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in July when the new direction was announced. "This new plan solidifies much of the progress made over the past two decades and provides a foundation for future decision making. We appreciate the significant engagement on this plan by our affiliated Tribes, partners, and the general public."

The National Park Service received more than 27,000 responses during the public comment period.

Over the years, Congress also has become increasingly involved in establishing wildlife protections. Just last month U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Tribal Heritage and American Bison, Grizzly Bear, and Wolf Restoration and Coexistence Act, dubbed the Trinity Act for short. Booker noted that all three of the species included in the legislation are regarded as “timeless symbols of America’s heritage, yet these animals were driven to the brink of extinction.” 

And to this day, all three continue to face varying challenges from ranching interests, poachers or human-built development overall.

But the legislation has been met with enthusiasm and relief by the many different field organizations that have been working to ensure the continued viability of these big mammals throughout the North American landscape. 

Co-sponsoring the bill in the House of Representatives, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) asserted that the failure of previous government policies to honor rights guaranteed in treaties, has brought on significant ecological damage as well as cultural harm.

Congress has a responsibility, Grijalva said, “to move forward from past injustices and craft policies for the future that are based on respect and recognition of Tribal Nations’ leadership in recovering these iconic species and their habitats.”

To that end, the bill’s language includes specific directives to work in close consultation with the nation’s Indigenous communities that for millennia had stewarded land and water resources and coexisted with these keystone animals. The legislation would also create intra-tribal, species-specific committees to implement coexistence and restoration projects on lands.

Dallas Gudgell (Yankton Dakota) is the Board vice president of the Buffalo Field Campaign. He praised the legislation for challenging “the current doom narrative.”

Instead, Gudgell said, the proposal offers a fresh approach, combining traditional ecological practices with western science that could have positive effects in many ways: “restoration and protection of our 4-leg relatives, their habitat, and their natural active role in maintaining overall ecological health.” 

The legislation could also move “humans to right relationship with the natural world,” Gudgell said.

Of course, the reality is that this legislation has little chance of moving forward this autumn, due to an obstreperous Congress, a divisive political climate, and a consequential election. 

But the seed has been planted and, depending on the decisions made by voters in November, it may germinate next spring – or wither on the vine.        

Barbara Lloyd McMichael is a freelance writer living in the Pacific Northwest. 

Photo Credits:
In 1892, a pile of American bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer. Photo courtesy of Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library via Wikimedia   

Bison herd grazing as a storm rolls in – photo by Jacob W. Frank, courtesy of National Park Service