Restoring Native Buffalo
To the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho people of the Wind River Indian Reservation, buffalo represent power. Buffalo strengthen the Tribes spiritually and culturally. They are a reminder of a past where Tribes lived in dynamic balance with nature, and they are the key to the restoration of the Indigenous ways of life.
The arrival of European settlers in North America set the stage for the near extermination of buffalo. The roughly 5,000 bison living in Yellowstone today are descendants of just two dozen individuals that found refuge in the park’s rugged interior while European settlers and the American military systematically killed millions of bison through market hunting and with the intention of eliminating Tribes that depended on the species. Driving this species to near extinction not only erased a vital food source and the ability of Tribes to maintain food sovereignty, but it also severed cultural, spiritual, and life-giving connections and relationships critical to sustaining Indigenous peoples’ ways of life.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition supports the cultural and ecological restoration of buffalo to the Wind River Indian Reservation and other Tribal and appropriate public lands across the country.
Our Bison Restoration News
How the Greater Yellowstone Coalition Supports Native Buffalo Restoration
Alongside our partners, we are working to expand the available habitat to 100,000 acres for buffalo on the Wind River reservation. We are also working to create and secure more opportunities for genetically incomparable wild Yellowstone bison to be rehomed to native lands and boost herd genetics. Reconnecting Tribes with buffalo and buffalo with Tribes not only honors Indigenous sovereignty and strengthens traditional ways of life, but returns buffalo to their rightful place on the landscape of Greater Yellowstone and beyond.
Investing in the Bison Conservation Transfer Program
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition is committed to helping Yellowstone National Park move away from managing wild bison through slaughter. The Bison Conservation Transfer Program takes Yellowstone bison that have tested negative for brucellosis and moves them through a series of testing and holding facilities designed to ensure they remain healthy and disease-free. Once the animals have gone through the program and are certified as brucellosis-free, they are legally allowed to pass through the state of Montana to receiving facilities on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation to complete their remaining year of quarantine.
From there, the InterTribal Buffalo Council facilitates their distribution to Tribal lands across North America. In their new homes, these bison strengthen the genetics of Tribally managed herds and restore the connection between wild bison and the people and communities who have depended on them for millennia.
Bringing Buffalo Home to Wind River
As part of our leadership role within the Wind River Water and Buffalo Alliance, we are working with the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative to support their vision to restore 1,000 buffalo across 100,000 acres of the Wind River Indian Reservation. To advance this vision, GYC is working with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes of the Wind River Indian Reservation to advocate for the repatriation of more than 100,000 acres of federally controlled lands within the reservation. Returning these lands to Tribal control would open more habitat for the growing Wind River Tribal buffalo herds. By January 2026, there were 280 buffalo within the reservation.
Our Wins and Progress for Buffalo Restoration
In 2021, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition successfully raised $250,000 to contribute to the expansion of the Bison Conservation Transfer Program’s quarantine facility. Alongside a $500,000 commitment from the park and another $250,000 raised by our partners at Yellowstone Forever, this funding supported facility upgrades that nearly tripled the capacity of the program so that more bison could be diverted from slaughter and rehomed to Tribal lands
In 2024, the federal Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service and the state of Montana agreed to shorten the duration of time it takes for bull bison to complete the first two phases of quarantine, from 1.5 years to now just 300 days. This, along with the facility expansion in 2021, has nearly quadrupled program capacity since the program began in 2018. This means more bison diverted from slaughter and rehomed to Tribal lands across the continent.
In 2025, the Eastern Shoshone Business Council and Northern Arapaho Business Council voted to support recognizing buffalo as a wildlife species as part of the Tribal Game Code and to manage the species within contained landscapes.
Worked with our Tribal partners to open 17,000 acres of a Bureau of Indian Affairs range unit for future buffalo habitat and installed wildlife-friendly fencing around this area to prepare for the return of buffalo.
As of 2025, there are more than 150 buffalo that now call the Wind River Indian Reservation home.
