Buffalo Fill Indians’ Food Needs

Criticism continues over the slaughter of buffaloes that wander out of Yellowstone National Park, but some workers with Indian groups say a lot of people are grateful for the food the killing has provided.

Bob Black Bull, who lives near Browning, Mont., said the 24 bison that he and others took back to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation were divided among 200 people, including elderly shut-ins and the homeless. When he delivered a side of buffalo to one family, he recalled, its food stock was one package of hamburger and one can of condensed milk.

“There is so much need, and people don’t know that,” Black Bull said.

Gloria Wells-Norlin of Bozeman, Mont., a member of the Little Shell Tribe, said she has helped distribute the meat of some 200 bison to people from Seattle to Minnesota.

More than 1,000 of the Yellowstone bison have been shot to death or trapped and shipped to slaughter this winter.

The Montana state Livestock Department reports 532 bison carcasses have been given to 30 Indian tribes around the West.

Animals that were shipped to slaughter were sold at auction for $154,500. Those funds will be applied to the costs of capturing, shipping and shooting the buffaloes.

Many of the buffaloes carry brucellosis, and the state kills them to keep them from infecting domestic cattle.