Tribes sign international free bison treaty

Leaders of 11 native tribes from Montana and Alberta signed a treaty intended to restore bison to areas of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains where millions once roamed.

The Buffalo Treaty’s signatories collectively control more than 6 million acres of prairie habitat in the U.S. and Canada, an area about the size of Vermont, according to Aune’s group.

Among the first sites eyed for bison reintroduction is along the Rocky Mountain Front, which includes the Blackfeet Reservation bordering Glacier National Park and several smaller First Nation reserves in Canada.

The inter-tribal alliance signed Sept. 23 during a day long ceremony on the Blackfeet Reservation marks the first treaty among the tribes since a series of agreements governing hunting rights were made in the 1800s.

The long-term goal of the Buffalo Treaty is to allow the free flow of bison across the international border and to restore the bison’s central role in the food, spirituality and economies of many American and Canadian native tribes.

Achieving that goal could take many years, particularly in the face of potential opposition from the livestock industry. But supporters want to restore a cultural tie with bison that largely disappeared when they driven to near-extinction in the late 19th century.

Leroy Little Bear, a member of southern Alberta Blood Tribe and professor at the University of Lethbridge, helped lead the signing ceremony.

“Hunting practices, ceremonies, songs — those things revolved around the buffalo. Sacred societies used the buffalo as a totem,” Little Bear said. “All of these things are going to be revised, revitalized, renewed with the presence of buffalo.”

Bison numbered in the tens of millions across North America before the West was settled. By the 1880s, unchecked commercial hunting to feed the bison hide market had reduced the population to about 325 animals in the U.S. and fewer than 1,000 in Canada, according to wildlife officials and bison trade groups in Canada.

Around the same time, tribes were relocated to reservations and forced to end their nomadic traditions. There are about 20,000 wild bison in North America today.

Ranchers and landowners near two Montana reservations fought unsuccessfully in recent years to stop the relocation of dozens of Yellowstone National Park bison. The private landowners cited concerns about disease and bison competing with cattle for grass.

The tribes involved in that case, the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation and the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre Tribes of the Fort Belknap Reservations, were among those signing the Buffalo Treaty.

Keith Aune, a bison expert with the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the agreement has parallels with the 1855 Lame Bull Treaty, a peace deal brokered by the U.S. government that established hunting rights for native tribes.

“They shared a common hunting ground, and that enabled them to live in the buffalo way,” Aune said. “We’re recreating history, but this time on (the tribes’) terms.”

Ervin Carlson a Blackfeet member and president of the 56-tribe InterTribal buffalo council, couldn’t say how long the process would take, but he expressed optimism.

“It’s going to be a while, and of course there’s such big resistance in Montana against buffalo,” he said. “But within our territory, hopefully, someday.”