400 Held at Stephens Creek in Montana
For Immediate Release:
March 10, 2025
Contacts:
Mike Mease
Campaign Coordinator, Buffalo Field Campaign
Justine Sanchez
Media Coordination, Buffalo Field Campaign,
Gardiner, MT – BFC Campaign Coordinator, Mike Mease, confirmed that 26 of America's last wild bison were sent to slaughter today. These were the first Buffalo to migrate into the Gardiner basin out of the North entrance of Yellowstone this season and this is how they were greeted by the managing agencies of the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) and specifically the National Park Service, i.e. Yellowstone National Park.
Mease stated that the 26 Buffalo were shipped to a Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes facility for slaughter per IBMP protocol. Meanwhile, tribal members have been unable to exercise their treaty reserved purposes to gather and harvest in usual and accustomed territories based on treaty rights, due to the Park's capture of approximately 400 Buffalo as of this posting.
The current Bison Management Plan (IBMP) continues to fail wild Buffalo, tribal people, community members and the American people who watch Our National Mammal, America’s public trust, be slaughtered each year. It is apparent this management structure is broken and Buffalo Field Campaign is not seeing anyone offering solutions.
Buffalo Field Campaign offers a simple and constructive solution - engage associated tribes and tribal governments of the Greater Yellowstone decision-making in on-the-ground science-based management of the premier and last remaining continuously wild herds. “It’s astounding to me that blindly continuing the failed status quo management structure of Yellowstone wild Buffalo is the best we can do to preserve and restore our Buffalo,” says Dallas Gudgell, Vice-President of the Buffalo Field Campaign.
Tribal Co-stewardship has proven successful in other federal land and species initiatives. “Rather than continually teetering on the brink of extinction we could allow tribes to bring traditional ideas of managing for abundance.” Gudgell said. He adds, “I’m hopeful that adding the real decision making authority and wisdom of our tribal leaders can stop this persecution cycle of our Buffalo relatives.”
Buffalo Field Campaign is calling for Tribal Co-stewardship of the Greater Yellowstone Bison.
Buffalo Field Campaign is a nonprofit group based in West Yellowstone, Montana working to protect America’s last wild bison in Yellowstone.
