Action / Event reports

A small group of us with Buffalo Allies of Bozeman went down to volunteer with Buffalo Field Campaign on Saturday. I'm going to share a little here so that you know how easy it is to do and how much fun besides.

On January 5, 2009, I was a participant in a march on behalf of the wild buffalo population in Yellowstone National Park, animals who have been denied year round habitat in the state of Montana. The action, sponsored by Buffalo Field Campaign and Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, was in Helena and was targeted at the swearing in of the state legislature and Gov. Brian Schweitzer, under whose watch the greatest wild buffalo slaughter since the 19th century has happened. It was in support of the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery & Conservation Act of 2009, which calls for shifting management of wild bison from the Montana Department of Livestock to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks so that bison are managed as wildlife instead of as animals in need of disease control.

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman, Buffalo Field Campaign, and the InterTribal Bison Cooperative sponsored a two-day workshop at the Northern Rockies Bioneers Conference in Bozeman.

We want to thank everyone who helped us, presented, and sat in on our presentations about the buffalo, about the history of buffalo and native peoples, and what's being now about Yellowstone's buffalo both in the park region and with native tribes.

We now have three of the five slide presentations available for download (see below).

Below also is a brief synopsis of the speakers and what they talked about.

Saturday

Buffalo Allies of Bozeman (BAB) will be hosting a two-part workshop at the 2008 Northern Rockies Bioneers Conference on October 16-19. The workshops, entitled "Plight of the Yellowstone Buffalo" will include talks from Mike Mease of the Buffalo Field Campaign, Kristine Reed from the InterTribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC) Jason Baldes from Montana State University, and BAB members Jim Macdonald and Chris Klatt.

The first workshop session will take place on Saturday, October 18th from 4:45 to 6pm in the Down to Earth Yoga Studio at the Emerson Cultural Center. This session will focus on the "Past, Present, and Future" of Yellowstone's bison herd and how the history of these animals is inexorably linked to the history of people that have depended on them for their cultural survival. Jim Macdonald and Mike Mease will also discuss the current obstacles that face the Yellowstone buffalo herds today, especially in light of last winter's government-sponsored slaughter of more than 1600 buffalo, which is the largest slaughter since the 19th century.

editors's note: Darrell Geist of Buffalo Field Campaign took extensive notes from the meeting of the partners of the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP) in Bozeman on August 6 and 7, 2008. He has given us permission to publish the notes here.

August 6, 2008

For what they are worth, sending these notes along to you all.

I used my 3 minutes to formally request that a management alternative that designates Horse Butte as wild buffalo habitat be placed on the agenda at one of their planned Interagency Bison Management Plan meetings for public deliberation and decision making. The clearly definable objective: allow wild buffalo to roam and occupy Horse Butte without government harassment and harm. My two cents in three minutes time.