Restoration and resilience: Discussing buffalo in Yellowstone and beyond
Editor’s Note: The name “bison” comes from the Latin term for “wild ox,” whereas “buffalo” is derived from the French word for beef. While the Western conservation community tends to call the animals “bison,” many Tribes prefer “buffalo.” The Greater Yellowstone Coalition uses the two words interchangeably, but more commonly refers to the animals as “buffalo” in our Tribal work and “bison” in programs and projects with non-tribal partners.
In early June the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, in partnership with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, hosted a gathering on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the creation of Yellowstone National Park. The gathering created a space to elevate Indigenous voices in conservation and advance the conversation on how to improve Tribal inclusion in public land management. The event brought together Indigenous activists, Tribal leaders, federal agency personnel, and nonprofit professionals to discuss the conservation and management of this remarkable region.
Yellowstone National Park biologist Chris Geremia speaks on the Buffalo in Yellowstone and Beyond panel at the Wind River Inter-Tribal Gathering. (Photo GYC/Emmy Reed)
On the first afternoon of the gathering, I participated in a panel discussion titled “Buffalo in Yellowstone and Beyond.” My fellow panelists were an assemblage of heavy hitters in the bison world, gathered to talk about the current Yellowstone bison population, the Indigenous relationship with buffalo, and what the future might hold for these animals across North America. Speakers included Jason Baldes, Tribal buffalo program manager for the National Wildlife Federation and co-leader of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative; Chris Geremia, Yellowstone National Park’s lead bison biologist; Dr. Leroy Little Bear, renowned Blackfoot advocate, researcher, and professor emeritus at the University of Lethbridge; Jordan Thompson, deputy executive officer of special projects and planning with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes; and myself, Shana Drimal, senior wildlife conservation associate with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
There was much to discuss. The extirpation and near extinction of wild bison less than 150 years ago was directly tied to the removal of Indigenous people from their ancestral lands. Returning buffalo to Indigenous cultural lands on reservations and to federal public lands represents much-needed hope and healing for many Native peoples. It also has significant implications for the restoration and revitalization of Tribal sovereignty, food security, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, ecological integrity, and more. At the nexus of conservation and Indigenous justice, there are few things bison do not touch.
(L-R) Dr. Leroy Little Bear, Professor Emeritus University of Lethbridge (Kainai First Nation); Jordan Thompson, deputy executive officer in Special Projects & Planning for Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (Salish and Kootenai); and Shana Drimal, Greater Yellowstone Coalition senior wildlife conservation associate on the Buffalo in Yellowstone and Beyond panel. (Photo GYC/Emmy Reed)
Jason Baldes started his talk with a reminder. “The two Tribes here,” he said, referring to the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho of the Wind River Reservation, “are both buffalo people.” He shared with us that the work of buffalo restoration is also the work of cultural revitalization. The land of Wind River, once rich in opportunities for hunting and fishing, is less well suited to the farming and ranching lifestyle imposed on the Tribes by colonization. “Our way of life eroded when we were forced to live in squares. We used to be able to drink from the river. With livestock on the land, now you cannot.”
To get back to a place where buffalo and culture support each other, Jason is working to restore a Tribal buffalo herd. The Tribes had to start small, with just a few hundred acres and just ten buffalo. Today, the Tribal herd is about 100 buffalo. But Jason has big plans. The goal is to secure 100,000 acres of habitat for bison along the Wind River corridor and grow the herd to at least 1,000 animals managed as wildlife. “My reason for this work is quite simple,” Jason said. “To be able to hunt buffalo with my kids and grandkids. To field harvest a buffalo as you would an elk or deer. To give buffalo that same treatment.”
Chris Geremia shared how Yellowstone National Park manages its iconic, culturally significant, and genetically incomparable bison herd. Yellowstone bison are “the last wild bison, period.” Chris talked about how bison change the landscape, and about how the more bison there are in the park and the more freely they can move across it, the more we begin to see what the park itself is supposed to look like. However, Yellowstone National Park faces many political and legal challenges as it tries to manage its herd.
Though Yellowstone’s jurisdiction over these animals ends at the park boundary, Chris shared that they strive to be the best stewards of bison they can be right up until the animals cross that line. Additionally, the park is working to enhance the ability of wild bison to sustain the Tribes that relied on them for generations. Working together takes trust, Chris said, and reiterated that his door is open. “Tell me what we are doing right. Tell me what we can do better.” He ended by thanking the Tribes for their patience as the park works to turn the “intractable problem” of bison management into an “intractable opportunity.”
(L-R) Jason Baldes, Tribal buffalo program manager for the National Wildlife Federation (Eastern Shoshone); Chris Geremia, biologist for Yellowstone National Park; and Shana Drimal, Greater Yellowstone Coalition senior wildlife conservation associate on the Buffalo in Yellowstone and Beyond panel. (Photo GYC/Emmy Reed)
Leroy Little Bear kicked off his talk with a joke. “What did the buffalo father say to his child as he dropped him off for college? Bye, son!” As we witnessed throughout the gathering, Dr. Little Bear has a way of putting his audience at ease right before sharing a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight. For this panel, he talked about what we can learn from buffalo about relationships and resilience. He started by asking us to reconsider the Western notion that if something cannot be measured, it cannot be scientific. Native cultures, by contrast, believe that if something is not about relationship, it is not scientific.
To further illustrate this idea, he then asked us to consider the power of generalists in a world of specialists. “I am a generalist. I will last longer in the water than a fish does on land.” As eco-engineers, buffalo touch every part of the ecosystem. That is precisely what makes them so important to the land and all its inhabitants. Indigenous people are also generalists, said Dr. Little Bear. “The reason we are still here, against all odds, is because we are generalists.” The buffalo, he added, show us how to bring balance to the environment.
Jordan Thompson joined us to talk about the significance of buffalo to the Salish and Kootenai Tribes and their efforts to reclaim stewardship of the buffalo herd first cultivated by their ancestors. He shared a story with us about how, in the late 18th century, a Tribal hunting party noticed that plains buffalo were starting to disappear from the landscape. They had the foresight to bring six calves back to their homeland to start a free-roaming herd. The Flathead Allotment Act, which began to systematically dismantle the land base of the Flathead Indian Reservation, catalyzed a series of events that resulted in the federal government taking over management of the herd—putting a fence up in the middle of the reservation that simultaneously enclosed the bison and excluded the Tribes. After decades of advocacy and amidst rampant racism and numerous setbacks, the Tribes finally reclaimed oversight of the National Bison Range in 2020. He encouraged us to watch this video to learn more about the story.
When we took questions from the audience, brucellosis was at the forefront. Brucellosis is a cattle-born disease that infects over half of Yellowstone bison. Because the disease causes spontaneous miscarriages, it is perceived to pose a great risk to the beef industry, despite there never having been a confirmed transmission from wild bison to domestic cattle on the landscape. Audience members expressed frustration with how cattle, which originally transmitted the disease to bison, are now protected from it at great cost to bison—vastly limiting the latter’s ability to live a wild, natural existence on their native range.
There is general agreement that brucellosis itself has become something of a scapegoat – a tool for masking more deeply rooted intolerance for wild bison. As long as wild bison are perceived as competition for cattle, as a symbol for the resilience of Native cultures, or even simply as wild animals that can be potentially dangerous to humans, brucellosis makes for an easy—and oversimplified—excuse for not advocating for their rightful restoration.
The “Buffalo in Yellowstone and Beyond” panel was powerful beyond measure. I felt honored and humbled to participate in the discussion alongside people I deeply respect and revere. What a gift to hear their stories, learn more about their work, and—from the Indigenous panelists—learn more about what the cultural and ecological restoration of buffalo would mean to them and their people. It was also an opportunity to glimpse life through a different lens: one of interconnectedness and reciprocity with the natural world.
I left the Inter-Tribal Gathering with immense gratitude and a new sense of hope. There are so many people who not only care deeply about creating a better world, but are actively working to build one. Together, we can elevate Tribal rights and interests, build Indigenous capacity to strengthen conservation and cultural outcomes, and create a world that is more just and more understanding.
We have come a long way from 1902, when only 23 wild bison remained. But we have much work to do and challenges ahead before we’ll see wild buffalo restored to Tribal and public ancestral lands across the west, and wild Yellowstone bison roaming freely outside the park. We face incomprehensible opposition from the current administration in Montana, which is doing everything in its power to ensure wild bison are essentially outlawed in the state. These attempts to undo decades of collaborative progress send us backwards. But what I learned from this gathering is that there is a powerful movement taking place, and that all of us working together—Tribes, NGOs, federal agencies, the public—creates a force that is unstoppable.
—Shana Drimal, Senior Wildlife Conservation Associate
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is the land of 49+ Indigenous Tribes who maintain current and ancestral connections to the lands, waters, wildlife, plants, and more.
