Range could return to tribal management

More than a century after the federal government removed more than 18,000 acres of land on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana to establish the National Bison Range, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are working to return the wildlife refuge to tribal management.

Such an action would require federal action, and last month the tribes released a legislative proposal that would remove the range from the National Wildlife Refuge System and place it back into federal trust ownership for the tribes.

Nearly 150 people attended a recent meeting at the Salish Kootenai College in Pablo, where representatives from the tribes’ natural resources and legal departments were on hand to discuss the proposal with community members and explain the draft legislation.

Tribal attorney Brian Upton explained the bill’s language specifically addresses two main concerns voiced by skeptics of the proposal: whether public access to the land will be maintained, and whether the land will continue to be managed for preserving the American bison. Both requirements are included in the proposed bill.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an organization that has in the past opposed tribal management at the refuge and in May filed a lawsuit to stop the latest proposal from moving forward, has also suggested that action on the bison range could lead to other wildlife refuges transferring out of federal ownership.

Upton said that even though he believes the situation at the bison range is a unique one, the tribes’ legislation aims to put that concern to rest by including language specifically preventing the bison range from being used as a precedent in other cases.

“This history, these facts, the relationship between the tribes, this land and this population doesn’t lend itself to any situation analogous to this,” Upton said. “We don’t know of a more direct way to deal with this issue.”

Members of Montana’s congressional delegation have yet to state whether they would sponsor the bill. Upton said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which currently manages the bison range, has given its support to the measure.

While the range would still remain a refuge for bison, tribal wildlife program manager Dale Becker said the specifics of the management plan have yet to be fully ironed out.

“There’s a good template in place there already,” Becker said, adding that little will change in how the range is operated. “The basic things you’re trying to do are maintain good habitat, address disease concerns and maintain genetic diversity.”

The tribes’ natural resource department will also be responsible for other management activities, including thinning of conifer forest encroaching on grassland habitat and controlling invasive weeds.

Rich Janssen, head of the tribes’ natural resources department, said that the tribes are no strangers to managing a diverse portfolio of land and resources. In addition to the Ninepipes and Pablo wildlife management areas, his department also oversees the strict environmental protections of the nearly 92,000-acre Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness.

“We have more than enough capacity of educated professionals to do the job right,” Janssen said. “The majority have master’s degrees and frankly, I’d put them up against any state or federal wildlife agency, given our size.”

One of his employees, wildlife biologist Whisper Camel-Means, said she hasn’t actively worked on the proposal, but attended the meeting as a supporter of the bison range’s return to tribal hands and to learn more about the draft legislation.

She noted that the federally operated bison range currently has some recognition of tribal culture, but very little pertaining to the tribes on the reservation.

“You go to the bison range now and the tribal name for bison is in Sioux and other tribes’ languages,” Camel-Means said, adding that a local travel guide had described the refuge as “adjacent to” the reservation, which in reality surrounds it. “That’s what bothers me — people that come and don’t realize they’re on an Indian reservation.”

She pointed to a portrait hanging on the wall of the theater lobby, depicting Walking Coyote, the Pend d’Oreilles man who first brought several of the few remaining American bison to the reservation in the late 1800s. Along with herds that were later purchased to augment the range’s growing bison population, Walking Coyote’s bison became the ancestors of the 300 to 400 animals that now roam the refuge.

“That picture, that pastoral rendition of the first bison coming to the refuge, that should be part of the story we tell,” she said.

Sanders County Commissioner Glen Magera of Hot Springs was one of the few attendees at the meeting who doesn’t support the proposal. While he respected the tribes’ efforts, Magera noted that his county would ultimately lose about $12,000 per year in federal funding, currently paid in lieu of property taxes where the federal refuge extends beyond the Sanders County line.

Those payments wouldn’t stop overnight, but would be phased out over five years after the bill becomes law.

At the end of the meeting, Tribal Council Chairman Vernon Finley said he believes most of the community is supportive of the tribes’ efforts, but is less sure about the state’s congressional representative and two senators who have the power to bring those efforts to fruition.

The group will use feedback to tweak language in the draft, if necessary, before working to get it introduced in Congress.

To view the full draft legislation and to submit comments online, visit www.bisonrangeworkinggroup.org.