Treaty allows tribe to kill bison in ceremonial hunt

BILLINGS – An 1855 treaty between the United States and the Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho allows tribal members to hunt bison on public land near Yellowstone National Park, and that right will be honored, Montana officials say.

Youth from the tribe plan to kill up to five bison on the Gallatin National Forest as part of a “ceremonial, subsistence” hunt set for this week, said Adam Villavicencio, chief of conservation enforcement for the tribe.

As part of that treaty, he said, the tribe reserved the right to hunt and fish in “usual and accustomed areas.” The tribe asserts that their rights reserved under the treaty include bison hunting in Montana and on the Western Plains.

“We trust that you can understand the significance of maintaining the Nez Perce Tribe’s culture and our way of life,” Rebecca A. Miles, chair of the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, told Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer in a letter dated Jan. 25.

In November, Montana opened its first hunt in 15 years of bison that leave Yellowstone. Initially, 50 hunting licenses were made available for the three-month hunt, including 16 set aside for Native American tribes in the state. At least one tribe, the Crow, formally rejected theirs, citing their own burgeoning bison herd.

Ron Aasheim, an administrator for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said the Nez Perce hunters do not need state licenses and don’t have to take a training course required of other hunters before taking to the field. But, he said, they will have to follow tribal regulations.

“This is a completely different issue,” he said. “Some tribes have treaty rights allowing them to hunt in open, unclaimed lands. That’s the instance here with the Nez Perce.”

Attorney General Mike McGrath concluded that the state was not granting the Nez Perce special rights but was instead “pre-empted by superior federal law from interfering with the rights certain tribes have from their treaties with the United States.”

McGrath said that right did not extend to lands “withdrawn from the public domain,” such as Yellowstone and Glacier national parks. But he and Villavicencio said it does include the national forests around Yellowstone.

Villavicencio said hunting bison is a way for the tribe to get back to traditions that he believes have been somewhat eroded over time.

“We’re trying to gain that back and instruct and teach our youth,” he said. “Our children are everything, and it’s important that tradition continues and does not die.”