Indigenous Restoration of Bison

Fitzsimmons 1 Emily Fitzsimmons Dr. Gina Stuart-Richard NAS 3313 995 18 December 2020 Indigenous Restoration of the Bison Based on my own observations as a lifetime Oklahoman, the closest relationship that non-Indigenous people have with bison is via the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team, whose mascot is a bison named Rumble. By contrast, bison serve as a cultural keystone species for many Indigenous tribes, especially those who live in this region. Many Native American tribes have depended on the bison for thousands of years for food, clothing, building materials, tools, and ceremonial traditions, but since colonization, the bison population has dramatically decreased, much like the Indigenous peoples of America, due to the genocide against Native Americans. Within the past few decades, however, the hard work put in by the Plains Tribes to restore the bison to the biological and social ecosystem has come to fruition.

When Europeans colonized the Americas, they obliterated the Indigenous populations in irreversible ways. In the following 500 years, the United States government consistently abused the remaining tribes into submission through displacement, forced assimilation, murder, rape, and a total disregard for Indigenous safety and well-being; this country is built on the genocide of Native Americans. As part of this warpath, the government encouraged the hunting of the bison by settlers moving westward in order to eradicate the Indigenous populations who depended on the animal. During this time, millions of bison died from diseases as well as prolific hunting. In fact, many white people would pay to go on railroad hunting excursions in which the people on board the train would shoot mercilessly at the bison herds while the train passed; they

Fitzsimmons 2 would not even go back to retrieve the bodies for meat (“InterTribal” 2).

Even in the last century, the United States government has continued to subjugate the tribes through similar methods to rob them of physical safety, food sovereignty, basic nutrition, education, upward mobility, and political autonomy. Because of this, Indigenous people have faced many obstacles in advancing overall tribal sovereignty; despite much hard work, systemic racism at governmental levels and a lack of resources makes it nearly impossible for anyone to make progress. Even so, the tribes have accomplished amazing feats in restoring the bison in the past few decades.

In the 1990s, the InterTribal Buffalo Council (ITBC) was formed to stop the stillcontinuing slaughter of bison that wandered out of the protection of Yellowstone National Park.

Following their traditional ways of thinking about the bison, this group deeply felt for the bison and wanted to reestablish their connection with bison. As the years passed, the council grew to include sixty-three tribes from around the United States, and through a uniquely Indigenous response, they have restored thousands of bison to tribal lands (“Return”; “InterTribal” 2). The ITBC and other advocates for the bison faced many legal challenges in achieving this.

In particular, once the tribes were finally allowed to transfer some of the wild bison from Yellowstone National Park to the Fort Peck Reservation in 2012, legal action stopped them from taking half of the herd to the Fort Belknap reservation, as originally planned. A year and half passed before the case reached the Montana supreme court, in which the court ruled in favor of the tribes. Directly after this, however, the state legislature drafted a series of bills that would effectively nip the bison restoration in the bud; after another six months, the bills were dismissed. Even after this, the state government required that the tribes undergo a careful testing process of the bison for brucellosis, despite the fact that they had been repeatedly tested and gone

Fitzsimmons 3 through several generations without the disease. This movement against the bison was largely fueled by non-Indigenous ranchers and farmers in the area who feared property damage and spreading of diseases to their cattle (“The Buffalo”).

The ITBC and fellow advocates were able to defeat this barrage of opposition by combining the power of many tribes to protest and insert their voices into the discussion.

Additionally, they educated non-Indigenous people about the cultural and basic importance of the bison to the tribes, the need to restore the plains ecosystem, as well as the unfounded concerns about brucellosis in order to gain wider support (“Return”). By utilizing the tools of connection and Native science, the tribes were able to finally transfer a herd of bison to the Fort Belknap reservation (“The Buffalo”). Since then, the ITBC has funded the expansion and ecological restoration of land for the bison herds; this will help reestablish the native ecosystem and ensure the ongoing sustainability of the area (“Return”). Additionally, in 2018, the Fort Peck tribes finished constructing a quarantine and testing facility for the bison in order to aid in the restoration efforts. In the following two years, this facility has saved 200 bison from Yellowstone National Park through its brucellosis quarantining and testing (“InterTribal” 2). This year, the ITBC also transferred forty more bison to sixteen different Native American tribes across the United States (“InterTribal” 1).

To conclude, despite incredible obstacles – including generational impacts caused by genocide as well as modern legal offensive in the past few decades – the Native American tribes have made leaps and bounds in the ecological and cultural restoration of the bison to Indigenous peoples. As the ITBC and its affiliates persist in advocating for the bison and the tribes, they will undoubtedly continue to accomplish great steps toward reestablishing this cultural and ecological keystone species. Their rigorous efforts in restoring the bison will help the tribes regain political

Fitzsimmons 4 autonomy, food sovereignty, fiscal sustainability, historical preservation, identity, and spiritual reconnection with the bison that was devastated by the US government.

Fitzsimmons 5 Works Cited “InterTribal Buffalo Council Ships 40 Yellowstone Buffalo to 16 Native Nations in First Transfer of its Kind.” Press Release, InterTribal Buffalo Council, 6 Aug. 2020. PDF. “Return of the Native: The 25 Year Story of the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council.” Youtube, uploaded by InterTribal Buffalo Council, 24 Aug. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeZ4lrb4-hs. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.

“The Buffalo People.” Youtube, uploaded by High Plains Films, 1 Nov. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfT5YcRNUWc. Accessed 18 Dec. 2020.