The mountains rained Buffalo today all over this land 
to the home they can not roam!
~Mike Mease, In the Field with the Buffalo, March 2025

In less than a week, over 440 wild Buffalo have been captured and will be wild no more…

The National Park Service has baited and captured Buffalo for three decades and years like this one every Buffalo that has migrated are captured and lost from the wild.

When part of a Buffalo herd is hazed into the capture facility, the act I call “visitors day at the penitentiary” unfolds.  Other herd members come to visit their family held inside the trap.  Then park rangers on horseback run the “visitors” into the trap as well. Over and over again we watch this ritual, essentially taking advantage of the closeness of the herd to capture more and more.  

Buffalo depend on each other to survive these Yellowstone winters.  All are important in their world.  When any are in trouble the others come to help.  This family herd mentality is something  we two legged can learn from.

I am in the field, yet another year. As I witnessed the migration here in Gardiner this week, I watched as a family herd of 42 Buffalo plus 2 lone bulls made it past the trap and walked the mile and a half to Beattie Gulch outside of the Park.  All of the tribal members that were there on their ceded lands to exercise their treaty purpose to hunt and harvest had left as they had seen the Park capture all but these Buffalo survivors.

One elder veteran & tribal member was still waiting for any opportunity to reconnect with his Buffalo lifeways harvest and feed his family with his aboriginal food source.  The two big bulls approached and walked right up to his truck.  After waiting for a while, the elder man tried to convince the bulls to go up the hill to the hunt zone but the Buffalo were having none of it.  Soon the herd of 42 came to join them and they started moving up the hill together.  Once they were close to the “firing line” or “hunt zone”, the hunter came up the hill and the Buffalo crossed that line.  The hunter shot one bull and then the circus began; reporters, locals and activists arrived and invaded his sacred moment. 

This was the first and only Buffalo hunted in Gardiner thus far.  Yet over 400 remain - a stone's throw away from where these folks interrogated this one native man - in Yellowstone's and the IBMP's trap, awaiting transport to slaughter.  

As all this was going on, the Buffalo tried to teach us all a lesson.  The remaining 43 Buffalo surrounded their dead brother and one by one nudged their brother and circled him in what I interpret as a prayer ceremony.  This ceremony went on for over 20 minutes.  Then the hunter walked up to the bull to start work of processing and the herd moved away but stayed for hours around the hunter from a short distance.

I know this is hard for some to understand but people that hunt and harvest Buffalo, love them too.  We the people who love the Buffalo need to unite to fight the true villain in this issue; the State of Montana, the Montana Department of Agriculture, and their corporate livestock industry that have captured both and directed the policy and process for the jailing and killing of our public trust, wild Buffalo.  When we learn from the Buffalo and love each other, then we can hope to represent the sacred Buffalo.

In the field,
Mike

Stephen's Creek Capture Facility, inside Yellowstone National Park, Gardiner, MT

Field Notes; West Yellowstone

By Jules V, BFC Field Patrol & Volunteer Coordinator

Weather recap and location conditions

Base Camp (W. Yellowstone); warming temps have begun to affect trail conditions leaving old snowmobile and ski trails as the primary bison thoroughfares.  With high atmospheric pressures with limited cloud cover, this week brought increased melting, softening and the retreating of the snowpack.

 These additional foraging opportunities are opening as we are finding large movements from frequented areas outside of the park line. We expect cooling with intermittent snow this week, projecting to allow for snow consolidation and snow accumulations. The persistent warming trend has buffalo moving into new areas afforded by high solar gains, this allowed for additional movements as these temperatures give memory of the spring to come. 

Patrol incident event report

We observed and interacted with a treaty hunting party as they had been hunting near the Madison River bluffs near Hwy 191.  As a migrating group of 32 had made its way into the dangerous Hwy 191 corridor, patrols were on scene with road safety signs as the fleeing groups made their way down the busy highway, with no destination ahead.  With presence and patience, road safety patrols were able to allow safe passage for the majority of the herd before nightfall. 

After the first disruption, the following day brought additional tribal hunting parties, which focused on a group of 5 females and 2 calves that had been separated from the larger herd.  This group had at least one additional female taken and disrupted the ability for a return to the park boundary.

The following morning’s patrol reported what we had hoped would not be the outcome; of the group, the two calves were displaced and found refuge on Hwy 191 without the guidance of their family group.  We reported these two were killed on the highway from a vehicle strike in the early morning.

 2 yearling Buffalo were struck by a vehicle on Hwy 191 bringing the total killed by collision to 4: 1 momma & 3 yearlings