Bison, our national mammal deserves protection

Heeding the warning of " . . . for whom the bell tolls."

Photo by Bryce olsen on Unsplash

“For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.”

John Donne, “No Man is an Island”

These famous lines if revised to be reflective of Native American thought would say, “For I am involved in ‘creation’.” (beyond just humankind). The death of any part of nature is part of us.

The Lakota and the Bison are synonomous and the Lakota people consider the bison to be relatives. The Lakota origin story shows the Lakota descended from bison. Their existence is tied to each other,¹ and if one disappears so will the other.² It was this idea that federal policy set out to destroy the Lakota by first destroying the bison.³

“Kill every buffalo you can! Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.”

——Army Colonel to his troops (1867)⁴

From 1820-1880, the great buffalo slaughter persisted and the population went from 30-60 million to around 1,000 by 1890.⁵ During that period around 1860, it seems some U.S citizens (Native Americans could not be citizens until 1923), had some moral and ethical vestiges of souls, so some state laws were passed to protect bison. However, these laws were not enforced and the slaughter continued.

This archival photo was typical of the 1870s where the slaughter of bison led to its near extermination (Photo credit: National Park Service archives).

The Caprock Canyons State Park, just north of Lubbock, Texas where I live, is home to a large bison herd that was established in 1878 by the wisdom of Mary Ann Goodnight who convinced her husband Charles to capture some orphan calves. The couple raised the calves on their ranch, the JA Ranch, and these calves were the foundation stock of a herd that grew to over 200 bison. This herd is now the Texas State Bison Herd, and with four other herds (also saved during this period), comprise the foundation stock for all of the bison in North America.⁶

Our National Mammal

The bison became the first American National Mammal in 2016, when on May 9, 2016, President Obama signed the National Bison Legacy Act.⁷ The Act cites the founding of the American Bison Society by Pres. Roosevelt in 1905, the President with the greatest conservation legacy, which includes the founding of the National Park Service and national parks system. ⁸

The Bald Eagle, the American National Bird, has not fared much better than the bison and remains in a precarious survival status, even with its two statutes that protect it. The bison is not an endangered species. Both have significant spiritual ties with many Native Nations in America, yet even making these two animals our National totems, we fail to use even the statutes we have to protect them.

Endangered, but getting protected status has proven difficult

No one mentions the third subspecies of bison in America, the eastern bison (B. b. pennsylvanicus) sometimes confused with the woods bison but it is a different subspecies. The eastern bison roamed from Pennsylvania to Georgia and has already become extinct since colonization and that might be some solid scientific evidence that the other two subspecies should be protected. George Washington hunted bison in West Virginia but it was not long after that they were completely eliminated by colonists from over hunting and habitat destruction.

There are competing interests, cattle ranchers, who fear the possibility that bison will infect cattle herds with brucellosis, since bison are subject to the same disease as cattle in this case. Efforts to test bison caused so much stress that many died so a plant to test representatives from breeding herds was instituted. This risk of disease is the basis for pointlessly shooting them, as well as wild game hunters who find it sporting to shoot a bison, grazing in a field. The National Forest Service has rented out Yellowstone to cattle ranchers over the summer, and trucked in cattle which means they slaughter bison who are grazing in those lands. The NFS has been repeatedly petitioned to review this action but has persisted.⁹ Native Nations with traditions in bison hunting also kill them in conformance with their treaty rights, but some of this may need to be limited to ceremonies in years of low survival of bison, like these last few years.

The bison is the ultimate survivor. It should have gone extinct during the Pleistocene Era when other large mammals succombed to the change in environment and the advent of homo sapiens and spear hunting, but it survived. The modern species bison bison replaced the two ancestral species, Bison priscus and Bison antiquus, that were bigger and slower than today’s bison, Bison bison.¹⁰ Part of its ability to survive may be because of its cross species ability to breed (introgressive hybridization), which led researchers to see if bison were truly pure genomically in the top three of the seven strains in North America. Of the three top strains, none were found to be pure and were infused with cattle DNA.¹¹

There are about 30,000 bison that are roaming wild while the balance of about 470,000 are farmed. It is important to keep wild bison in order to evolve naturally in their environment. Yellowstone is home to one strain that is the focus of recent regulatory action to preserve.

The Yellowstone Bison Herds

There are two distinct herds distinct population segment (DPS) for the Yellowstone bison.of bison in Yellowstone National Park, and there are two subspecies: the Plains bison [ Bison bison bison ] and the wood bison [ Bison bison athabascae ].¹² Both had devastating losses this year the worst since 2008.¹³ On Decemberr 22, 2022 thirteen bison were killed just outside Yellowstone National Park by a freight truck, some of the herd needing to be euthanized.¹⁴ The lack of food drove them out of the park to areas where they are subject to being shot where it is legal to shoot them.

Although advocacy groups were successful in extending the protected range beyond the borders of Yellowstone National Park, it did not prove broad enough. So the petitions of non-profit advocacy organizations to the U.S. Department of Interior triggered a response from DOI to undergo a status review to see if the plains Bison should be protected as an endangered species. The US DOI has recommended that it be protected but whether it is threatened or endangered, two different standards under the Endangered Species Act, should be the questions resolved in the review currently underway until June 4. 2023.¹⁵

A plea was made to Native Nations with bison hunting traditions to step forward to protect the bison, saying they have always provided for us, and an agreement was made long ago that when they needed us we would protect them. This stirring letter was written by Jaedin Medicine Elk, a Northern Cheyenne citizen.¹⁶ Particularly powerful is her story of what the bison bull sees every season:

In reality, a bull’s story will tell you how he, in the summertime, got many female buffalo pregnant during the rut as a proud big buffalo bull. Then in the winter, the snow gets too deep in the Park, so he travels to a lower elevation where family groups are already getting hunted/slaughtered in the Gardiner Basin at Beattie Gulch. The females he got pregnant are killed, with his babies left in gut piles. That’s the sad reality of his life: Seeing a creek of blood from his own people and children, knowing he would be hunted after leaving the Park trying to find food just like his family.¹⁷

The truth, she acknowledges is that it has to be everyone working together, and even if Native people stop hunting, it will not stop the slaughter from the sanctioned federal and state governments. So the Yellowstone bison herds are the last of the wild bison and the U.S. DOI has an opportunity to designate it appropriately as “endangered”.

Solutions?

Repatriating the bison under NAGPRA is a creative proposal from a law student who envisioned management of bison being returned to Native Nations as “objects of cultural patrimony”.¹⁸ This is a creative solution and would be the first time repatriating a living animal would be found within the scope of NAGPRA. Traditional seeds considered sacred have been proposed for repatriation to Native Nations using NAGPRA, but as of yet, there are no cases where this has been done.

Co-management of all distinct bison herds with Native Nations is long overdue and Yellowstone National Park should be currently consulting with Native Nations with bison traditions, in accordance with Pres. Biden’s Executive Order on Jan 21, 2021, and specific consultation protocols developed under that guidance.

Some practical solutions already underway include farming bison. Commercializing bison meat has ensured the continuity of many bison herds. (You can now buy ground bison by the pound in most grocery store chains.) Like elk, it was also commercialized and a market was created for elk meat, which Maurine survival of elk.

As domesticated farm stock, bison and elk are regulated by USDA. Meat inspection is voluntary, done by FDA. However, if it is sold commercially it has to be inspected in accordance with the Federal Meat Inspection Act, as an exotic, or “non-amenable species,” ¹⁹ Regulating bison falls to the FWS and USDA and FDA depending upon their status.²⁰

Both elk and bison that are wild are regulated as “wildlife” which falls under the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, when wild, or equivalent state agencies. In 2000, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service petitioned to classify bison as a wildlife species in need of conservation.²¹ The US Fish & Wildlife Service can provide bison through a surplus distribution program for tribal and intertribal requests, based on several statutory authorities including the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act.²²

Finally, protecting the remaining wild bison with the Endangered Species Act is critical now, and we would all be better as a nation to do the right thing, despite the powerful industry lobbies for the cattle industry. They can adapt without destroying an entire species.

It tolls for thee. . .

If you think that the extinction of the bison does not effect you, you would be wrong. Humans are part of the ecological web of life and destroying an entire species in that system will eventually affect all of the system. Even more deeply the spiritual value of the bison reaches beyond the Native Nations with bison traditions and we will be poorer and weaker for our failed stewardship as a Nation.

We have made the bison our national mammal yet we resist protecting it. Once it is gone, we collapse its place in the ecology and we will not get that complex balance back even with genetic engineering.

Return of the Tatanka

The Lakota word for bison is “tatanka” and it is a word that you will hear often in the northern plains where Native Nations are acquiring herds to restock the plains for the first time in 150-200 years. In November 2022, the Cheyenne River Sioux and the Rosebud Sioux Nations both welcomed back at least 200 bison, shipped from Iowa and Minnesota where foundation herds are established.²³ Some 82 tribes across the U.S. have established 65 herds with more than 20,000 bison.²⁴

The unintended consequences of restoring and reestablishing bison herds in America and protecting the remaining wild herds may be a step along the path toward restitution of the violent taking of the lives and spiritual life of people and animals and restoring our honor as a nation.

1. https://www.mankatofreepress.com/news/local_news/lakota-group-harvests-bison-passing-on-spiritual-and-practical-knowledge/article_8e77641c-562b-11ec-b423-3f0a3879b91f.html

2. https://www.biohabitats.com/newsletter/ecology-culture-and-economy-lessons-from-indigenous-traditions-and-innovation/bringing-back-the-buffalo/

3. https://nsew.carnegiemnh.org/lakota-nation-of-the-plains/the-great-plains/

4. Carolyn Merchant, American Environmental History. An Introduction. (2007) p. 20 at https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Environmental_History/pVGrAgAAQBAJ?q=Kill+every+buffalo+you+can!+Every+buffalo+dead+is+an+Indian+gone&gbpv=1#f=false

5. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/bison/people.htm

6. https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/caprock-canyons/bison/story

7. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-114hr2908enr/pdf/BILLS-114hr2908enr.pdf Pub. L. 114-152, 36 USC Ch. 3: Front Matter.

8. https://www.doi.gov/blog/conservation-legacy-theodore-roosevelt

9. https://earthjustice.org/press/2001/groups-ask-judge-to-prevent-buffalo-slaughter

10. https://www.nature.com/articles/457950a.epd

11. https://www.nature.com/articles/457950a.epd

12. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2022/06/06/2022-12054/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-90-day-finding-for-three-petitions-to-list-the

13. https://nativenewsonline.net/environment/yellowstone-bison-see-deadliest-season-since-2008

14. https://www.npr.org/2023/01/02/1146543806/bison-killed-yellowstone-national-park

15. https://www.regulations.gov/document/FWS-R6-ES-2022-0028-0001

16. https://nativenewsonline.net/opinion/an-open-letter-to-tribes-participating-in-the-yellowstone-buffalo-hunt

17. https://nativenewsonline.net/opinion/an-open-letter-to-tribes-participating-in-the-yellowstone-buffalo-hunt

18. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4390955

19. Nonamenable or non-amenable species are exotic species under voluntary inspection. Examples include bison, domestic rabbits, domestic deer, pheasant, quail, and captive raised waterfowl. Effective September 13, 2021, “exotic animal" means any reindeer, elk, deer, antelope, water buffalo, bison, buffalo, or yak (9 CFR 352.1(k)) at https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/What-are-nonamenable-species

20. https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/Is-bison-under-mandatory-inspection

21. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-03091/p-35

22. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/14/2023-03091/agency-information-collection-activities-submission-to-the-office-of-management-and-budget-for

23. https://www.kare11.com/article/tech/science/environment/bison-herds-native-american-badlands-national-park

24. https://www.kare11.com/article/tech/science/environment/bison-herds-native-american-badlands-national-park