Saving the Bison Range genome: Replicate it on the CMR!

Montana Senators Daines and Tester have submitted a bill, S3019, intended primarily to settle complex water-rights issues with the Kootenai/Salish tribes on the Flathead Reservation. However, the bill includes transferring the National Bison Range and its historic bison into control by the Tribes.

Being formally limited by its two stated goals, the Montana Wild Bison Restoration Coalition will not comment on transfer of the Bison Range to the Tribes. However, preservation of the bison is related to our goal of restoring bison on and near the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.

We have submitted a letter to the senators noting the unique genetic values of Bison Range bison and the need to replicate that genome, for security, in a second herd. Moreover, the CMR Refuge is the best place for replicating the Bison Range herd. Please see our letter and register your support for saving the Bison Range herd with Senators Daines and Tester by logging on to their websites and using the “contact us” button. 

 

Former FWP Biologists Promote Bison Restoration on CMR

Former FWP Biologists Promote Bison Restoration

Recently, nine former employees of Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, averaging over 25 years of service each, cosigned a letter toGovernor Steve Bullock to support restoring a public, wild bison herdon the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.

Biologists thanked Governor Bullock for vetoing, in 2017 and 2019, anti-bison legislation that would have ended any future for wild bison in Montana; but noted: “These efforts could come to naught with a new governor in 2021.” They said, “We have failed to preserve public, wild bison as anything more than seasonal, abused visitors to our state.”

“The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge is the largest federal refuge within the historic range of plains bison. Elsewhere in the Great Plains, bison herds on federal and state lands do not provide herd sizes, range sizes, or habitat quality and diversity necessary for long-term preservation of truly wild bison and their wild-adapted genomes.”

Biologists noted several political and biological issues of bison restoration that indicate the CMR Refuge is the best possible location for restoring public wild bison, leaving a “long-lasting legacy of the Bullock administration for future generations of Montanans and the nation.”