Tribes vying for quarantined bison herd

BILLINGS – Five American Indian groups from Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota are in the running to receive a small herd of bison spared from a capture and slaughter program at Yellowstone National Park.

The herd of 40 bison has been kept under quarantine for almost three years to ensure the animals don’t have the livestock disease brucellosis.

Most bison attempting to migrate outside the park are slaughtered to prevent the disease’s spread to cattle. The quarantined herd is part of an experimental program to keep some of those bison alive and restore the animals across parts of the West where they once flourished.

The program is jointly run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Montana officials will have final say over where the bison are relocated.

The five groups seeking the animals are Montana’s Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Reservations, Sinte Gleska University on South Dakota’s Rosebud Sioux Reservation, Wyoming’s Northern Arapaho Tribe and a Blackfeet Tribe member in Montana.

“There’s a lot of interest with all the tribes,” said Ervin Carlson, president of the InterTribal Bison Cooperative, which submitted a preliminary application for the bison program on behalf of the Northern Arapaho and Fort Peck tribes.

“They want to see them come out of there (Yellowstone) and not be slaughtered,” Carlson said.

Because Yellowstone’s bison are considered among the most genetically pure in the country, Carlson said tribes could use them to bolster the genetics in existing herds that have intermingled with cattle.

Ken MacDonald, a division administrator with Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said the tribal groups have until the end of November to submit detailed plans to accept the bison.

A decision on where the bison will go will be made in January and the animals could be moved in February or March, MacDonald said.