Trump's Interior Department Preparing To Ban Bison From Federal Grazing Lands, And To Choke Out Tribal Bison Herds
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Now, in the MAGA era, with Interior reversing the Biden administration’s determination that conservation is a use of BLM land on par with grazing and resource extraction, Burgum has ruled that since bison here in north-central Montana are not being raised for “production-oriented purposes,” they have no legal right to roam, wallow or munch grass on land leased from the bureau. If the ruling becomes final, which may occur this spring, more than 950 buffalo will be evicted from tens of thousands of acres of federal land, some of which they have been grazing on, behind stout electric fences and without major incident, for 20 years.
Cows will then mosey on in, and their owners will benefit from the hugely discounted grazing leases available from the BLM. It charges a per-animal fee that is about 90 percent cheaper than fees charged for grazing livestock on privately owned land in this state. Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, a friend of Secretary Burgum and a fellow Trump-supporting tech multimillionaire, gave voice to the joy that the prospect of buffalo banishment has generated among cattle ranchers who drive Montana’s agricultural economy and Republicans who dominate politics in the state.
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The anti-buffalo wording of Bergum’s proposed decision, however, is resounding far beyond this lonesome precinct of Montana. It is raising alarm and outrage from the Great Plains to California, where there are about half a million bison, many of which are raised for conservation and human consumption. Buffalo are grazing behind fences on scores of Indian reservations and on BLM allotments in Colorado, New Mexico, the Dakotas and elsewhere in Montana—and have been doing so without legal objection from Interior for more than four decades, until this year’s order overturning BLM’s 2022 decision to allow American Prairie to graze bison on seven allotments in Phillips County.
Particularly alarmed is the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), which manages 25,000 buffalo and represents more than 50 tribes, accounting for about 95 percent of Indian Country and half the Native American population in the U.S.“Interior’s proposed ruling would put a chokehold on us being able to increase our buffalo herds,” said OJ Semans Sr., executive director of the tribal coalition and a member of the Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota. “We should not have the federal government saying only cattle get affordable BLM leases. It is just so stupid the way they are doing this. It is DEI for cows.” Coalition tribes run bison on reservation land but plan to shift some of their growing herds to BLM grazing lands, which total about 155 million acres. Much of this land is threaded through and around large reservations. Tribes raise buffalo for spiritual, ecological and nutritional purposes—and sell buffalo meat (about 25 percent leaner than beef) for profit. Two tribes in California, the Pit River Tribe and the Fort Bidwell Indian Community, are actively seeking BLM grazing leases for their bison.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05042026/trump-interior-proposal-cancels-bison-grazing-leases-public-land/
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