Bison spread as Native American tribes reclaim stewardship
Perched atop a fence at Badlands National Park, Troy Heinert peered from beneath his wide-brimmed hat into a corral where 100 wild bison awaited transfer to the Rosebud Indian Reservation.
Descendants of bison that once roamed North America’s Great Plains by the tens of millions, the animals would soon thunder up a chute, take a truck ride across South Dakota and join one of many burgeoning herds Heinert has helped reestablish on Native American lands.
Heinert nodded in satisfaction to a park service employee as the animals stomped their hooves and kicked up dust in the cold wind. He took a brief call from Iowa about another herd being transferred to tribes in Minnesota and Oklahoma, then spoke with a fellow trucker about yet more bison destined for Wisconsin.
By nightfall, the last of the American buffalo shipped from Badlands were being unloaded at the Rosebud reservation, where Heinert lives. The next day, he was on the road back to Badlands to load 200 bison for another tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux.
Most bison in North America are in commercial herds, treated no differently than cattle.
“Buffalo, they walk in two worlds,” Heinert said. ”Are they commercial or are they wildlife? From the tribal perspective, we’ve always deemed them as wildlife, or to take it a step further, as a relative.”
https://apnews.com/article/science-travel-health-canada-5a7f69c50b4df6a70cf6dbdc40a932b2
Restoring the balance, one animal at a time.
= new reply since forum marked as read
if they wander off the reservation?
Of course they'll be used as food for the Native Americans. If they're not harvested for food they'll start to overrun their grazing grounds and people will get quite irate. Can you imagine crashing into one of those brutes, late at night, with a passenger vehicle? 😵
I should have been more clear. American Buffalo were killed by the millions for their pelts and tongues when the west was opening up to settlers. The meat was left to rot.
Sort of like the Trump boys. They kill wild animals for trophies only. They'd never dirty their delicate palates with lean, wild meat. Sorry I wasn't more clear with my post. 
