Free Range Bison...Landowners concerned

M

Montana Husker

Banned
It seems their is a growing movement amongest landowners here in north east Montana to close their land to hunting in regards to the state of Montana and the federal govt. efforts to transplant a herd of free ranging bison to this area. Recently, the state of Montana, under directions from our Gov. and the FWP, transported a number of bison to the Ft. Peck tribal lands. These bison were involved in a court battle at the time and were waiting to here a decision from a judge when the state of Montana moved them at night across the state. I spoke with ranchers in the Hinsdale area, and what I heard what not good, especially for those non-resident hunters. It seems landowners are spearheading an effort to not only close their land to hunting, but those with land in the Block Management program are taking it out. The landowners I spoke with stated that the purpose of this is to draw attention to the governments future plans with bison relocation and their shady methods of doing so. These are families that homesteaded this area many generations ago and who have seen many hardships in this time. This is just the latest. Landowners are hoping to hit the FWP where it hurts the most, their pocketbook. They figure if they do not allow hunting, non-residents will refuse to buy tags if they have no place to hunt, which makes sense. They are asking outdoorsman to call the FWP, state reps., even senators and congressman to voice their opinion.
 
What the landowners are afraid of is that the Bison relocated to the holding pens at the Ft Peck reservation WILL become free range. The agreement to the Reservation is to quarantine the Bison for a period of time then let them go into a larger buffalo proof fence on tribal land. The plan is to NEVER have the Buffalo roaming free. That JUST would not work, and won't happen.
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There already is a large herd of Bison [about 200] on the American Prairie Reserve some 50 miles South of Malta. [Bison proof fence]
The FT Peck tribe feels if the APR is allowed to have Bison they should have the right also. Yep, they have an argument.

Yeah I know, landowners are in a uproar. I don't think there is much worry for nearby ranchers, MAN! there are a lot of fences say, between FT Peck Res and Hinsdale.:)
 
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Not exactly. They are not concerned about the bison at Ft. Peck so much, as the tribe has had bison for quite awhile and has always did a pretty good job of maintaining them. But rather the method and underhandedness the State of Montana used to get them over there. Ranchers here are worried their will be a Federal land grab and then the re-establishment of bison on those existing and taken federal lands.
 
That's true Husker. Things are changing in that country. With deeded land comes grazing rights, water rights etc on public land. Private land is being bought up to get rights to the public land. As this happens cattle will be replaced by Bison.

Bison are classified as livestock in Montana and almost everywhere. The only free ranging Bison are in Yellowstone and there they are very limited. There are dozens of private bison ranches in MT including The Turner property.

I mentioned the American Prairie Reserve. [talking about a federal land grab] The goal is to put 3 1/2 million acres of rangeland into the reserve. They seem to be getting it done. Ranchers all around the state hate the whole idea. But then old ranchers are selling to APR right along. More $$$$$$$$$ then these guys have ever dreamed the land would bring. No more cattle, just Bison and other native stuff.

You folks google up "American Prairie Reserve" Lots of stuff going on.
Be interesting to hear your opinions.:)
 
Well in general when the federal government tries to do something good in usually ends up in a mess. They reintroduced wolves with devastating results. But they keep on doing it. I am not sure how but this will end up a mess in the end. Where is the money coming from, China? If it is private money that is one thing but we cannot afford to do these kind of things with borrowed money.
 
haymaker said:
Well in general when the federal government tries to do something good in usually ends up in a mess. They reintroduced wolves with devastating results. But they keep on doing it. I am not sure how but this will end up a mess in the end. Where is the money coming from, China? If it is private money that is one thing but we cannot afford to do these kind of things with borrowed money.
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Not sure I agree with any of these statements. The wolf issue is mostly emotional on both sides and based on few facts. Interesting editorial in the Butte Standard somes up a lot of it for me
http://mtstandard.com/news/local/ha...cle_3e418c46-47ba-11e1-b87a-0019bb2963f4.html Not sure I would qualify that as devastating. It has been a big fundraiser for both sides.

Regarding bison, I hate to see any issue that is going to reduce access, that much I think we can agree on.
 
BrowningCitori said:
Not sure I agree with any of these statements. The wolf issue is mostly emotional on both sides and based on few facts. Interesting editorial in the Butte Standard somes up a lot of it for me
http://mtstandard.com/news/local/ha...cle_3e418c46-47ba-11e1-b87a-0019bb2963f4.html Not sure I would qualify that as devastating. It has been a big fundraiser for both sides.

Regarding bison, I hate to see any issue that is going to reduce access, that much I think we can agree on.
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I defend your right to disagree with me. I look at the snow goose management as an example. The mountain lion situation in South Dakota is another. The number of elk tags has been drastically reduced. The original point of the thread was talking about the federal government buying land to eventually run buffalo on. I think that a country 15 trillion in debt has better things to do with what money it has. We are getting wolves around here. And I don't want them and I don't believe any government has the right to reinfest this area with them. We used to have a state trapper the flew our area to keep the coyotes in check. Then the federal government came in and said that they were going to take over coyote control. They put one plane in the west end of the state. They spent most of their money on admistration and two pilots. They don't have enough money left to actually do any good. So a couple of us local cattlemen organized a predator control district, got several cattlemen in the county to throw a few hundred dollars in a kitty and we hired a plane to shoot coyotes. So far we have shot in the area of 200 coyotes. We have picked up the ball that the feds and the state dropped. I am not trying to make anything exticnt but I remember when we did not have coyotes. It was better then. I would think getting rid of 200 coyotes should help the pheasant hunting. If half of those coyotes were females and they had an average of 4 pups in their litters that would be another 400 coyotes. I don't know if 100 females actually raise 400 coyotes to adulthood or not but you get the idea.
 
haymaker said:
I defend your right to disagree with me. I look at the snow goose management as an example. The mountain lion situation in South Dakota is another. The number of elk tags has been drastically reduced. The original point of the thread was talking about the federal government buying land to eventually run buffalo on. I think that a country 15 trillion in debt has better things to do with what money it has. We are getting wolves around here. And I don't want them and I don't believe any government has the right to reinfest this area with them. We used to have a state trapper the flew our area to keep the coyotes in check. Then the federal government came in and said that they were going to take over coyote control. They put one plane in the west end of the state. They spent most of their money on admistration and two pilots. They don't have enough money left to actually do any good. So a couple of us local cattlemen organized a predator control district, got several cattlemen in the county to throw a few hundred dollars in a kitty and we hired a plane to shoot coyotes. So far we have shot in the area of 200 coyotes. We have picked up the ball that the feds and the state dropped. I am not trying to make anything exticnt but I remember when we did not have coyotes. It was better then. I would think getting rid of 200 coyotes should help the pheasant hunting. If half of those coyotes were females and they had an average of 4 pups in their litters that would be another 400 coyotes. I don't know if 100 females actually raise 400 coyotes to adulthood or not but you get the idea.
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I reread your original post and I don't see anything in it about the feds buying land for buffalo. As for shooting coyotes and helping the pheasant population, the science won't back that up either. Not that coyotes won't kill pheasants but the research from many studies related to ground nesting birds (ducks, pheasants,etc), tend to show coyote dominated areas as a good thing compared to red fox. As you kill coyotes, red fox tend to increase, red fox can be a significant predator of ground nesting birds and tend to occur at higher densities then coyotes (3:1). I have two questions, about the feds killing coyotes, first, why should we have socialized predator control ? Second, after spending your hard earned money to kill 200 coyotes, will you will have less livestock loss? Hopefully, you have good records and this is a worthwhile use of funds for you.

I could dive into the elk tags but this is a pheasant forum. I will just say the cow tags have been reduced in some areas (we can agree on that). However, many landowners complained before wolves that there we too many elk (and parts of western MT are still over population objectives). If you ever saw the northern Yellowstone range in the mid-1990s, it was very overgrazed and the late season hunt was to reduce the population (the habitat finally got a break). Hard to make everyone happy.

I have probably said to much. I appreciate that we can have a civil discussion.
 
BrowningCitori said:
I reread your original post and I don't see anything in it about the feds buying land for buffalo. As for shooting coyotes and helping the pheasant population, the science won't back that up either. Not that coyotes won't kill pheasants but the research from many studies related to ground nesting birds (ducks, pheasants,etc), tend to show coyote dominated areas as a good thing compared to red fox. As you kill coyotes, red fox tend to increase, red fox can be a significant predator of ground nesting birds and tend to occur at higher densities then coyotes (3:1). I have two questions, about the feds killing coyotes, first, why should we have socialized predator control ? Second, after spending your hard earned money to kill 200 coyotes, will you will have less livestock loss? Hopefully, you have good records and this is a worthwhile use of funds for you.

I could dive into the elk tags but this is a pheasant forum. I will just say the cow tags have been reduced in some areas (we can agree on that). However, many landowners complained before wolves that there we too many elk (and parts of western MT are still over population objectives). If you ever saw the northern Yellowstone range in the mid-1990s, it was very overgrazed and the late season hunt was to reduce the population (the habitat finally got a break). Hard to make everyone happy.

I have probably said to much. I appreciate that we can have a civil discussion.
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If we can't have a civil discussion, I want no discussion at all. Read the fourth post in this thread. Well the purpose of the predator district is to reduce livestock kills. The county to the south of us that has had a predator distirct for many years has had no calf kills as of the last time I talked to the state trapper. We have had 4 as of the same time. The county to the north of us that has no predator district was in the 20s as of that time. We had no trouble raising the money before and I believe that we will have less trouble raising money next year. I am assuming that however many coyotes less that we have will increase the pheasant numbers to some extent. That is just a bonus. I see about one fox a year now. At this point we have instructed the pilot not to shoot fox because some of the land owners have requested that, myself included. If fox become a problem we can lift that protection. In the 50s, the soil bank days, we had lots of fox and pheasants. If you have enough of the right kind of habitat I don't think predators make that much difference to pheasants. Obviously they make some difference. I talked to a friend of mine yesterday that told me he has 16 years preference for an elk tag in the hills but they have reduced the number so much that he does not think he will ever get one. I don't remember exactly what he told me but I think it was like 10% of the tag numbers they used to issue. You are right that there is a balance. We don't have elk here but I have wintered 150 deer and that isn't much fun. So I am getting rid of the coyotes that eat the fawns to control deer herd. That seems counter productive I know. If I have to I can get rid of a lot of deer for the value of one calf. Getting back to wolves, Now that they are delisted maybe we can control them too. With calves being worth what they are now I don't want any within 500 mile of here. And that is true of MT. Lions too. As for socialized predator control. I am not sure who came up with that idea. The state provided us with some help and did a pretty good job for quite awhile. Why the feds came in I have no idea. Why do they think they need to tell me what kind of light bulbs I can buy. Medeling is what they do now days. I like it much better when we take care of it ourselves. Last year I lost a calf, this year I have not so far. That savings will fund my part of this for several years. Sorry that I wrote a book.
 
On wolves, fact is wolves have devastated Western MT Elk, deer and moose populations. Same thing in NE MN.

If you want to talk wolves, do a wolf thread.

The American Prairie Reserve is a Non Profit Corporation. Getting millions of dollars from individuals throughout the world. No government involvement. The deeded land APR is buying is small compared to the Federal lands that comes with these ranches as grazing allotments. The public lands within the APR are open to the public same as all BLM lands that have access, you cannot cross private property to get to the public lands.
 
The Bison being relocated to the Ft Peck Res are from the Yellowstone herd.
Tested to be Brucellosis free, quarantined a couple years and retested.
Every caution seems to be taken. All this has cost tax payers millions. Probably part of what riles folks up so much:confused:
Tribe gets the Buffalo, Buffalo are livestock, lots of Bison ranches would love to have a chance at that.:)
I've been in cattle ranching most all my life, never got a free cow.:(

Anyway so what, all Reservations are subsidized.
My best friends are Montana Ranchers, don't see where the tribe getting these Bison is a big deal. Same as always, a small vocal bunch gets the attention.
 
Hmmm....I guess your right, a small vocal group does get the attention, sounds fair to me. Afterall, this is happening in their back yard! Most of these families have been farming and ranching for four or more generations having homesteaded in the early 1900's. I bet if something were to impact your way of life or your families and was happening in your back yard, you might make a fuss too.....
 
Husker, there are 2 Bison ranches within a few miles of my cattle ranch, one ranch has several hundred head. I don't feel threatened a bit.

So why do some Ranchers in Montana feel threatened?
Just trying to understand.:confused:
 
I spend a lot of time in Montana, and talk lots with ranchers.:)
 
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