Saturday fundraiser in Zillah to benefit Yakama Nation’s bison herd

SATUS – A few bison were lingering around a muddy puddle out on the Yakama Nation bison ranch when one got spooked. Suddenly they took off, the smallest working hard to keep up.

They moved surprisingly fast. The sight made Kristi Olney and others smile as they watched from the back of an old Army transport truck on Sept. 12.

“This is our way of letting them be, free-roaming,” said Olney, a Yakama Nation big game biologist who’s worked full-time with the tribe’s herd since 2020. Before that, she worked as a technician since 2012.

Her co-worker Darwin Sockzehigh was driving the truck over the lumpy, scrubby ground. He has worked closely with the herd since the spring of 2018 after learning about their care from his predecessor.

Bison have roamed this reserve near Satus Longhouse Road since 1995 after returning to Yakama lands in 1991, when the tribe bought a dozen from a tribal citizen who had raised them. Since then the herd has topped out at about 200 bison. Today there are around 180 bison, including about 30 calves.

The bison program is self-funded, which includes occasional sales of whole bison. A Saturday fundraiser will benefit the herd, its health and its care. The fundraiser at the Old Warehouse – Perham Hall in Zillah will feature a catered dinner and silent and live auctions. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Supporters hope for a good turnout and more community involvement in the bison program, including local nonprofits and conservation groups. Bison play a key role in the Yakima Valley, said Estakio Beltran, who works for the U.S. Department of the Interior and lives in Yakima. He grew up on the reservation and connects with many tribal and nonprofit programs throughout the Valley, the tribe’s bison program among them.

“To see this many calves is just wonderful,” Beltran said. “It’s a good testament to the work that Kristi and her program is doing.”

Healthy and happy

Joining Beltran at the bison ranch on Sept. 12 were Miss Yakama Nation Analynn Olney and her mom, Marie Jackson. Since Olney graduated from White Swan High School on June 13 after being crowned June 9, she and her mom have been traveling to represent the Yakama Nation.

“There’s been a lot of events they’ve been trying to have her do,” Jackson said.

At the ranch, Analynn Olney blessed the bison herd with sage and spoke in Ichishkíin and English with words of thanks and hope for its continued growth and health. A slight breeze ruffled her purple floral wing dress as she stood facing the bison in elaborate regalia, including her tall beaded crown.

Olney also met a young female bald eagle, one of three raptors in the Yakama Nation Aviary. The aviary is on the land of the bison ranch, which spreads across 1,200 acres amid Lower Yakima Valley hop fields. The bison roam a little more than 500 acres of that, Kristi Olney said.

She and Sockzehigh know the bison better than anyone, but their role is almost exclusively hands-off. They and others must get close for the fall and spring round-ups, when they gather, count and vaccinate the herd. But these bison aren’t domesticated. And though the herd is culled for specific reasons, hunting isn’t allowed.

“All we do is raise them,” Olney said.

They limit their close interactions as much as possible and ease stressful situations when they can. They used to separate the herd for the round-ups “but they’d get stressed,” she said. So they added a chute with a system of gates that are easier for them to use and make round-ups better for the bison.

Bright ear tags of various colors help Olney and Sockzehigh know who’s who in the herd. It includes bison brought from Yellowstone National Park as an effort to keep the park’s bison population in check. Slaughtering them was the only other option. Park bison were transported to various tribes; that helped deepen the genetic pool, which is crucial to a herd’s health and future.

Sockzehigh is pleased with the number of calves of various sizes. Bison mature at about 3 years old. “It’s a better crop than we’ve had in the past,” he said.

“There was one we thought might have had twins,” Olney added.

Female-led society

Bison roamed the Northwest, though not in the numbers like the Great Plains, according to Ken Zontek, author of “Buffalo Nation: American Indian Efforts to Restore the Bison.” Zontek talked about bison in a 2018 Yakima Herald-Republic story about the Yakama Nation herd.

Archaeological records show that prehistorically, people of the intermountain West and Pacific Northwest harvested bison when they could, Zontek notes in his book. People would ride over to the east side of the Rockies and hunt bison. And they traded for bison hides, meat and more at one of the great Native regional trade centers of North America – today’s city of The Dalles, Ore.

With their bulky frames and spindly legs, bison appear neither fast nor flexible. Along with running faster than expected, they can jump up to 6 feet. Bison can live to be 25 years old and comprise a matriarchal society.

The Yakama Nation herd splits off into family groups and comes back together, depending on the weather and who wants to go where. They’ve gotten darker and have added weight, both signs of good health. Along with vaccinating them last spring, staff gave the bison vitamin and mineral supplements.

“That really helped,” Sockzehigh said.

Just like any other group, leaders and characters stand out. Two cows are the overall herd leaders, Sockzehigh said. They dubbed one tricky bull Dennis, and a cow with a curved horn Crab.

The bison move from pasture to pasture much of the year, through land with minimal interior fencing. Olney and Sockzehigh herd them closer to the front of ranch in winter, supplementing their foraging with alfalfa hay grown and harvested on the ranch.

There’s more potential room for the bison to roam, with total acreage about 1,200. “It’s just a matter of getting the resources” to make that happen, Olney said. For example, opening up more room for the bison would require some fencing and efforts to ensure they don’t cross busy railroad tracks in the area.

And considering that bison occasionally push through older fencing and into areas they aren’t supposed to be, that will take some careful planning as usual.

“When they want to go, they’re going to go,” Sockzehigh said.