September 15, 1999

To Native communities across the Great Plains, the buffalo is the elder brother, the teacher, the life giver. Just as there are two sides to the buffalo head nickel, indigenous peoples have an ongoing spiritual relationship to the great buffalo, whom the Lakota refer to as Tatanka, or Pte… He Who Owns Us.

It is that relationship that motivated a woman like Rosalie Little Thunder, a Sicangu Lakota grandmother, to stand up for the Buffalo Nation. Rosalie and a group of fifty courageous men and women traveled 507 miles by foot and horseback on a spiritual journey this past winter from the Black Hills of South Dakota to the entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

The Walk for the Buffalo, Tatanka Oyate Mani, honored our slain and living buffalo relatives. For 20 days in February, prayers were murmured through mid winter winds, amidst barreling semi trailers and seemingly endless yellow lines of highway across the great prairie, prayers for the restoration of the Buffalo Nation, the restoration of ourselves, our humanity and the earth.

The Walk garnered national press attention for the plight of Yellowstone buffalo. More than two thirds of this last remaining wild herd have been killed at the hands of the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) in the past three years as part of the state's 'interim' bison management plan. The stated reason for the slaughter is to prevent buffalo from transmitting the disease brucellosis to cattle. Yet there is not one single documented case of a buffalo transmitting the disease to a cow in the wild.

The unsubstantiated premise that buffalo pose a disease threat to cattle is also the basis of a long-term bison management plan released by the National Park Service in June of 1998. That plan, when finalized, will set bison management policy for fifteen years. Each of the options proposed includes "lethal controls" in managing buffalo.

Indigenous Buffalo Commons Initiative

Honor the Earth's Indigenous Buffalo Commons Initiative is an innovative program that advocates for the protection and restoration of buffalo on the Great Plains, encouraging the dream of the buffaloes return. To learn more, order Pte Oyate: Buffalo Nations, Buffalo Peoples, a new Honor the Earth booklet by our Program Director Winona LaDuke (see order form inside). The booklet documents the relationship between buffalo, cultural and ecological restoration on the prairie and offers a compelling vision for a sustainable future based on the concrete concept of establishing a "Buffalo Commons."

A record 67,000 citizens from every state in the nation submitted comments to the National Park Service on their draft long-term plan, making the bison issue one of the most visible wildlife issues of our times.

The magnitude of citizen comments coupled with increased media attention appears to have changed the tactics of the Montana Department of Livestock. The DOL is now spending tax payers money on a Public Relations firm (the agency will not reveal how much) and instead of shooting buffalo out in the field, which caused such bad press, spent $500,000 to build a buffalo capture facility adjacent to the park. The capture facility is on federal land, land designated for wildlife. Instead of upholding this use designation, the Park Service leases the land as a grazing allotment to a rancher with 300 cows. "The state is spending half a million dollars to capture and kill buffalo on federal land that brings in about $800.00 in grazing lease fees," said Sarah Chalmers of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a direct action group based in West Yellowstone. Fifteen of Sarah's colleagues were arrested in an effort to stop the Horse Butte capture facility from being built.

Another 90 buffalo were killed outside Yellowstone this past winter, and four more died from the harsh conditions of capture. Once the buffalo are hazed into capture they are shipped to slaughterhouses, and the meat auctioned off, with the money filling the coffers of the Department of Livestock. Many of those killed were bulls, yearlings and non-pregnant females, which even the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Team says did not need to die, as brucellosis can only be transmitted through fetal material. In fact, when the first 19 slain buffalo underwent further testing, it turned out that 17 of them did not even have the disease.

Tribal Consultation And The Future Of Yellowstone Buffalo

Honor the Earth and Buffalo Nations have been organizing jointly over the past year for meaningful Tribal participation in determining the future management of Yellowstone buffalo. We got results. As we go to press with this newsletter, the National Park Service is holding an official Tribal consultation meeting in Yellowstone on their draft bison management proposal. Tribal consultation is required by law, and sovereignty could weight in heavily in determining the fate of this last wild herd. Please check back at our web site at for reports from this meeting and to view a sample resolution for use by Tribes in submitting official comment.

Slain buffalo mothers have left orphaned calves, at least one of which starved to death, and the deaths of pregnant mothers has significantly endangered the viability of the herd. "It's an attack on the next generation of buffalo, all because cows have a stronghold on buffalo land," said Sarah. "It's the frontier mentality all over again. The DOL is laughing, shooting off cracker barrels. It's really appalling, but they have the power of the Governor and the state behind them.

"As it turns out, Presidential hopeful George W. Bush said he would consider Montana Governor Racicot for a cabinet position and suggested the Department of the Interior as a likely post. It seems Bush hasn't spent much time at the Department or he would have noticed it's symbol is the bison.