A Reliable Future for Public, Wild Bison Depends on Only 10 Herds

 

 Recent NEWS items presented two different numbers for plains bison herds with reliable mandates to restore and maintain wild, public bison. March 13 NEWS referred to 13 herds; upon further study, March 27 NEWS referred to only 10 herds. Here we clarify this change.

To qualify, a herd must be managed as public-trust bison, with primary management to develop and maintain natural selection that is preponderant over artificial selection and genetic drift. Only Department of Interior herds, under the Park Service or under Fish & Wildlife Service Refuges qualify under relatively dependable legal mandates for wildness enacted by Congress.

Previous news releases from the Department of Interior claimed as many as 19 federal bison herds with 11,000 bison are managed for biotic diversity and biotic integrity – the equivalent of “wildness”. Subsequent news releases by this and other organizations have reduced this number to 16, 13, and now 10. Nine of the alleged 19 public, wild herds are:

2 herds in Alaska -- Not on native plains bison range.

1 herd on the Bison Range in Montana -- Recently ceded to the Kootenai/Salish Tribes.

2 herds in Utah -- Book Cliffs and Henry Mountains herds: spend some or much time on federal lands; but are managed and limited as state game animals and (Book Cliffs) by the northern Ute Tribe.

1 herd in Wyoming -- Jackson Hole herd: co-managed as state game; recently reduced from 1000 to 500.

1 herd in Arizona -- Has habitat in Grand Canyon National Park: co-managed as state game to limit numbers and consequent damage to Park’s prehistoric relics.

2 herds in Colorado and Kansas -- co-managed with The Nature Conservancy; have some federal habitat, but most habitat is TNC.

Likely, Department of Interior has collaborative agreements to exchange animals between these 9 herds and Interior herds to limit loss of alleles to genetic drift. However, excluding 2 herds in Alaska, the management priorities for these herds include production as game or for sale, limiting competition with private livestock, or other priorities that detract from managing for wildness.

Thus, the future of wild plains bison genomes, south of Canada, depends upon the remaining 10 herds, with approximate herd sizes totaling 7,880 bison and only 2 herds with at least 1000 bison to forestall weakening of natural selection by genetic drift. These herds are:

Yellowstone National Park: 4800 bison, not welcome in surrounding states.

Badlands NP: 1000 bison (new management plan coming).

Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge: 650 bison.

Theodore Roosevelt NP: 525 bison (south herd: 350; north herd: 175).

Wind Cave NP: 400 bison.

Fort Niobrara NWR: 350 bison (includes separate “Sully” herd of 60).

Neal Smith NWR: 70 bison.

Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR: 55 bison.

Whitehorse Hill Nat. Game Preserve: 20 bison.

Chickasaw Nat. Recreation Area: 10 bison.

These 10 herds are critical to preserving examples of genetically wild bison within the public trust. In the long run, they will be inadequate. Herds less than 100 must be enlarged. Additional large herds on large, diverse landscapes are needed.

Three large or growing private herds¹ may contribute some to saving “wild” alleles; but their management today includes some artificial selection, and limited natural selection, and they are not public-trust herds. There is no evidence that any Tribal herds have management priorities to retain wildness of bison. One impressive Tribal attempt was abandoned in 2004².

¹TNC Tallgrass Preserve in OK; TNC Medano Ranch in CO; American Prairie in MT.

²Braun, F. F. 2008. Buffalo, Inc. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK. p. 235.

Wildlife Management Institute Lauds Interior Bison Initiative: Disregards Domestication Threat

 

 A recent news release from the Wildlife Management Institute describes Interior Secretary Haaland’s Order 3410, “Restoring American Bison and the Prairie Grasslands”. (See release on WMI website: wildlifemanagement.institute.) WMI was careful to avoid any limitations or important uncertainties in the Order, or the associated Interior news release. WMI reiterates wordings provided by Interior, with little comment. Important information, buried in an appendix to 3410, was neglected.

Unfortunately, avoiding the uncomfortable issues in public discourse has facilitated persisting domestication of public-trust wild bison for decades.

This is the third Interior Bison Initiative since 2008. It is described as “establishing” a Bison Conservation Working Group; whereas a Working Group has also existed for 14 years. On balance, previous Initiatives and Work Groups have been able to make little on-the-ground progress in restoring wild, public bison on large landscapes. It is easy to be skeptical about another initiative. But hope remains.

WMI mentions Interior’s goals of “wild and healthy” bison, and a “viable” bison species; but does not define these terms. (We define “wild” as a herd influenced by a preponderance of natural selection – equal to Interior’s mandates for biotic diversity and integrity. “Healthy” has different meanings for individuals vs. for herds. With thousands of extant bison, the species is already “viable”.) The word “domestication” is not used, even though the foremost threat to a future with wild plains bison in the USA is domestication of the species.

Success of the Initiative is described as “depending upon” collaboration with states and Tribes. If this is 100% true, Interior is signaling retreat from its obligations to unilaterally manage National Park and Refuge resources, if collaborators supporting federal mandates for wildness are unavailable. History may be repeated.

WMI does not mention the overriding emphasis in 3410, upon Tribal needs and plans for Tribal co-management of public bison on public lands. A significant place for public-trust, wild bison in the Initiative is not assured.

WMI notes that Interior manages or co-manages 16 plains bison herds south of Canada. Only 10 of the 16 are under exclusive management of Interior in Parks and Refuges. In the other 6 herds, efforts to restore wildness according to federal mandates, can be much diluted by existing co-management. And only 2 of the 10 exclusively Interior herds are large enough to forestall random genetics that will weaken natural selection for wildness.

For public-trust, wild bison, the success of the Interior Bison Initiative will depend upon greater public understanding of the domestication vs. wildness issue and public support to fulfill the wildness mandates of federal Parks and Refuges. WMI can help to address this critical problem that has plagued restoration of wild bison for decades.

In that regard, we applaud WMI’s mention of a potential restoration of wild bison on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. It is the largest federal refuge within the historic range of plains bison. Significant restoration of public, wild bison likely cannot be achieved in the USA without a large herd on the CMR Refuge. We urge WMI to join us in aggressively promoting restoration of bison, under the 1997 Wildlife Refuge Act, on the CMR Refuge.

Interior has allocated $25 million to support the Bison Initiative. A two-track program, for Tribal and public bison, will be needed to use the funding fairly. The Biden administration has little time left. Any delay will jeopardize the program.

Interior Department Prioritizes Tribal Bison: Commitment to Maintain Wild Bison Uncertain

Coalition Promotes Two Equal Tracks for Interior Department Bison 

A March 4 Department of Interior News Release, based on Secretary Haaland’s Order 3410, describes a new federal commitment to restore “wild and healthy” populations of bison on American grasslands. It states that Native American led opportunities to establish new large herds owned or managed by Tribes will be centrally prioritized. A “shared stewardship plan” is described in 3410. As presented, shared stewardship implies co-management and some degree of co-control of public bison with Tribes. Unfortunately, “wild and healthy” are not defined, and neither the news release nor 3410 recognize laws mandating Interior to restore truly wild public-trust bison in National Parks and Refuges, and these documents do not acknowledge almost certain conflicts between these obligations and Tribal goals.

As background, a misrepresentation of 19^th century bison history occurs in the news release and in 3410. The complicated eradication and near extinction of bison is presented emphasizing a “U. S. policy” intended to “harm and control” Tribes that depended upon bison. This oversimplification of history is common in today’s media. In reality, bison were near-eradicated for several reasons including commercial harvests as well as to “control” Tribes. Both Euro-Americans and Native Americans participated, though not always equally or for the same purposes. A selective, biased presentation of 19^th century history should not be used to justify exceptional access to public bison for Tribes today. A more complete and authentic history would recognize our common humanity and be less divisive in today’s world. We cannot heal what we do not reveal.

Today, plains bison exist in private commercial herds, in Tribal herds, and in “conservations herds” owned by government agencies, The Nature Conservancy or by American Prairie. Only 13 herds are fully controlled by the Department of Interior. For plains bison in the USA, the most important conservation issue is the long-practiced and continuing domestication of bison with loss of wild genetics. Restoration and maintenance of wildness in bison requires a large herd to forestall effects of genetic drift, minimizing artificial selection practices, and maximizing natural selective forces, to the extent practicable. (See elsewhere on this website under the toolbar “Why Wildness”.) Most bison herds are small and subject to some, usually a lot of, artificial selection. Domestication is most pronounced in commercial herds containing the vast majority of plains bison. For bison in the USA, only 13 federal herds within National Parks and Wildlife Refuges have a reliable mandate, in the law, to restore and maintain wildness. These herds are critical to the future wildness of our plains bison.

The Department of Interior has dual obligations for bison management – centered in its Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service. Tribal goals vary among tribes and have varied with time, as indicated by the limited but consistent information available for current Tribally-owned herds. Tribal goals appropriately emphasize Tribal nutrition and economic development, with management for abundant production. This emphasizes artificial selection that is not compatible with National Park and Federal Refuge mandates for wildness.

Today, 63 Tribes own over 20,000 bison (Intertribal Buffalo Council website). Almost all these herds are small such that genetic drift augments preponderant artificial selection. This compares to only 13 federal herds with about 10,000 bison. Only 2 of these federal herds have at least 1000 bison, possibly sufficient to forestall effects of genetic drift in weakening natural selection.

Despite the above disparity and the overwhelming threat of domestication to plains bison, Haaland’s news release and 3410 emphasize support for more Tribal bison, including “shared stewardship” and “prioritizing Tribal led opportunities” to enhance bison on federal lands. Mandates of the Department of Interior emphasizing natural selection that is not compatible with major Tribal goals requiring artificial management are relegated largely to an appendix of 3410. The stark inadequacy of Interior’s few, mostly small, bison herds to avoid further domestication is not mentioned.

The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge lies in the center of this disparity. It is the largest federal refuge within the historic range of plains bison. It has no bison, despite decades of efforts to promote restoration. It is the most obvious federal opportunity to establish a “large, wide-ranging bison herd subject to the forces of natural selection, where their role as ecosystem engineers shapes healthy and diverse ecological communities (Section 3,f; appendix to 4310). The Refuge Improvement Act (1997) provides a clear mandate for this important goal. Tribal co-management may be illegal and would threaten the necessity to minimize artificial management for bison production on the CMR.

The Bison Coalition has supported a two-track approach to achieving the goals of Haaland’s bison initiative. (See NEWS, August 11 and 21, 2021, this website.) We should support Tribal bison for Tribal needs on Tribal lands; but the critical status of federal bison, with but 2 large herds to save wild bison genomes, and Congressional mandates for the Park Service and for Federal Refuges, dictate a separate management track focused on bison wildness.

(Possible introduction of wild bison on BLM or Forest Service lands, likely under state management, is not addressed here. It will be politically difficult; but could occur based on Tribal political support. The subject of Tribal co-management of such bison on federal multiple-use lands is beyond the scope of these comments. Any devil would be in the details to be negotiated.)

Recognizing the Threat of Bison Domestication: 75 Years Ago

 

Elsewhere, we have noted historic recommendations to restore public, wild bison in Montana – from Hornaday in 1910 and Murie in 1937. To these, we add a 75-year old recommendation using the ominous “D” word!

In 1947, Victor Cahalane published “Mammals of North America” (Macmillan Co., NY), with general descriptions of 94 “species”. He devoted 11 pages to American buffalo. On page 74 we find:

“A big national monument should be established in the Great Plains area where a moderate sized herd could live under primitive conditions, together with other plains species. This would ensure the perpetuation of the animals as a wild species, free from the danger of domestication.”

Our cause is far from novel. It has persisted, but not yet prevailed. The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge is, by far, today’s best location to fulfill Cahalane’s recommendation.

Please see a new website article on the diversity of bison management practices that weaken natural selection and hasten domestication. Click on the “Why Wildness” toolbar.  

“Eco-cultural Restoration” of Bison: A Euphemism Disguising Incompatible Goals

 

 

“Eco-cultural restoration” has been suggested for returning plains bison to the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana. The term can be a slogan for proposed co-management of a Refuge bison herd by an Intertribal Council with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Such attractive slogans can develop public support without revealing conflicts inherent in the proposal.

We interpret ecological restoration of bison as fulfilling the mandates of the Refuge Improvement Act (1997) to restore biodiversity and biological integrity of the Refuge’s biotic community. More, we consider this mandate to be a restoration of “wildness”. Wildness is the opposite, in a continuum, from domestication. Here, wildness includes bison and their genome, and their relationships with their surrounding biota.

Cultural restoration refers to bison management focused on needs and goals of Tribal nations. Tribes would influence to what extent such needs and goals would be emphasized in co-management on the Refuge. However, recent history indicates that nutrition and economic benefits are overriding needs of the Tribes. A current publication (Shamon et al. 2022) concurs and suggests that management practices for wildness and for Tribal needs are not mutually exclusive and can be merged on federal lands.

However, restoring and maintaining wildness of a bison herd requires maximizing natural selection (to the extent practicable, a standard in the Refuge Improvement Act). This requires minimizing genetic drift and artificial selection that weaken and replace natural selection. Minimizing genetic drift requires a large herd. Minimizing artificial selection requires foregoing most management activities that increase annual production of animals. (Only human harvest of bison facilitates both production and natural selection. Human predation has been a major selective force in the evolution of the modern bison species, as discussed elsewhere on this website.)

Across existing Tribal bison herds, numerous management interventions constitute artificial selection. These are: much constrained bison mobility on monotonous ranges; pasture rotations; frequent capture and handling; selective culling; a skewed herd sex/age structure; forced weaning, frequent or emergency feeding; vaccinations and other disease management; lack or control of predators; and maintaining a stable herd at only a moderate ecological density. These diminish restoration and maintenance of wildness, for both the bison genome and its associated biota.

Co-management of federal bison is a false panacea. Efforts to enhance overriding Tribal goals will diminish achievement of “ecological” goals, as interpreted here. Efforts to achieve ecological goals will diminish attainment of important Tribal goals.

In contrast, Tribal goals for bison should be maximized on numerous Tribal lands; whereas biological diversity and integrity – wildness – is reliably mandated only on National Parks and Federal Refuges. Currently, there are only 13 such federal bison herds, and only 2 of these have at least 1000 animals to effectively limit genetic drift. The few opportunities to achieve these mandates on federal lands should not be compromised.

Shamon et al. The potential of bison restoration as an ecological approach to future Tribal food sovereignty on the northern Great Plains. Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution. 28 January 2022. 

 

 

Interior Department’s Bison Conservation Initiative May Accept Defeat Redefining “Wildness”

 This decade of the 2020’s, with a focus on endangered species, has brought what environmentalists describe as a “war on wildlife”. Centered in this war are two Department of Interior agencies, the Park Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service. The battles are politically difficult. Rather than lamenting defeat, and informing Americans of our continuing demise, the Department of Interior may simply redefine “victory”.

The Park Service is mandated to save ecosystems and species “unimpaired”. The federal Refuge System is mandated to preserve biodiversity and biological integrity on refuge lands. These mandates were generated by an American interest and passion for “wildness”.

But as our human population grows, requiring occupation and conversion of ever-more landscape, many components of the natural world either disappear or adapt to and become dependent upon domesticated environments. Wilderness and wildlife are disappearing. In public dialogue, failing to reveal and emphasize this trend fosters public indifference, allowing an ever-faster demise of natural resources.

We define “wild” as one extreme in a continuum from the other extreme of domestication. Wildness requires a preponderance of natural selection over the forces of artificial selection and genetic drift. As preponderance of natural selection declines, wildness is lost by degrees. “Wild” is a qualitative, not absolute, condition. The decline of wildness is a gradual, insidious process.

In its Bison Conservation Initiative, the Department of Interior commits to maintaining the wild character of bison, allowing forces of natural selection to operate – to the extent possible. But a recent Department release (Foundations for Recognizing Bison as Wildlife) emphasizes that “not all forces of natural selection” are necessary for bison wildness. It provides little discussion of how human-caused artificial selection and genetic drift diminish and replace natural selection, of the many management practices that comprise artificial selection, that loss of natural selection leads to domestication of the species, or that possibilities for natural selection are “impossible” only because of economic or political constraints. A commitment to maximizing biological wildness, to the extent practicable, is not emphasized. Gradual depletion of wildness is not recognized. The Foundations document allows federal bison managers to rationalize and accept artificially maintained bison as “wild”.

The Foundations document implies that what is politically possible in preserving wildness is “good enough”. We see too many non-government conservation organizations embracing this idea. The public, often unwittingly, gives government agencies mandates while also providing little decision-space for their fulfillment. The legacy of wildness to future generations is at stake.   

Article Recognizes Limitations of Tribal Herds for Rewilding Bison

 

 

A January article in Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution (cited below) reviews the potential of bison restoration for Tribal food sovereignty on the Northern Great Plains. Authored by Hila Shamon of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, the article has 30 co-authors representing numerous Native American Tribes and three major public conservation organizations (Defenders of Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund).

Diverse values of Tribal bison herds are emphasized: nutritional, economic/commercial, spiritual/cultural/educational values, and the ability of bison herds to ecologically restore native ecosystems on the Plains. These values are emphasized due to overriding and vital needs for nutritional and economic benefits to Tribal communities.

Authors barely, and indirectly, recognize the ongoing domestication and genetic deterioration of wild plains bison.

Moreover, the article injects a semantic complication into the social/political issue of bison domestication vs. recovery of wildness. We have always defined “rewilding” as a condition in which the genome-effects of natural selection are predominant over combined effects of human-caused artificial selection and genetic drift. This article defines this condition as “true restoration”. It defines “rewilding” as an imperfect version of true restoration: “the reorganization and redevelopment of the species and its ecosystem under new environmental conditions”. This justifies the continuing domestication of American plains bison, branding it with a misleading euphemism.

The article offers three Tribal herds in Montana and one in South Dakota as examples in which “overarching goals are to enhance the cultural, economic and ecological health of the Tribes and their lands”. Presented data on sizes of herds and “pastures”, and other management practices, demonstrate the contribution of these herds to plains bison domestication.

We do not criticize Tribal emphasis on nutritional, economic and cultural values in their bison management and agree these are overriding needs. They are exacerbated by limits of available Tribal lands, intermingling of non-Tribal lands within reservations, and by social aspects of competition from Tribal cattle operations on reservations.

Looking to the future, the article suggests allowing bison on large federal lands under Tribal/federal co-management. It is stated that rewilding and Tribal economic/nutritional/cultural benefits from bison “are not mutually exclusive”, implying that each can be produced to a satisfactory degree within one large herd. We disagree and have suggested that wildness, forestalling domestication of bison, will only be adequately maintained in a few large National Parks and Refuges suitable for large bison herds, according to the mandated missions of these agencies. The future of these bison and Tribal bison should proceed on different parallel tracks.

While the article describes Tribal efforts as “leading the way” in overall bison restoration, it clearly demonstrates that restoring wildness of bison and of their grassland ecosystem is not occurring in Tribal herds – and makes the contention that this wildness can be achieved with Tribal/government co-management on federal lands dubious.

Lasting political constraints, generated by the livestock industry and involving perceived states’ rights, prevent the wider USA population from counteracting domestication of plains bison and their habitats. The continued success of this political opposition to bison restoration on federal lands depends a great deal on the indifference of major non-government conservation organizations, including those co-authoring this article.

It is past time for major non-government conservation organizations to work both sides of the bison conservation fence!

Shamon, H. et al. 2022. The Potential of Bison Restoration as an Ecological Approach to Future Tribal Food Sovereignty on the Northern Great Plains. frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.826282/full

 

 

Federal Herds Critical To Preserve Wild Bison

 

Domestication is a major threat to wildness of plains bison. To retain wild genetics, a bison herd must be influenced by a preponderance of natural selection. However, herds are also subjected to genetic drift and artificial selection that replace or weaken natural selection, fostering domestication – a simplification and disorganization of the wild genome.

Genetic drift, the random transfer of genes across generations, is significant in herds <1,000 bison. Artificial selection includes interventions such as selective culling, vaccinations, and emergency feeding, and less recognized indirect effects from maintaining an unnatural herd sex-age composition, and a stable herd size at a relatively low ecological density on a small, uniform range.

In the USA, there are about 300,000 plains bison in private, public and Tribal herds, inciting beliefs that a future for wild bison is secure. But most herds are small with significant genetic drift; and are subject to many forms of artificial selection.

With over 250,000 bison, private commercial herds of livestock bison will contribute little to retaining the wild bison genome. Native American herds (about 20,000 animals) are touted as saving wild bison; but most are managed much like livestock. Tribes have important nutritional and economic needs for their bison. Intra-tribal support for wildness of bison has been uncommon or unclear, and inconsistent. Recently, the largest Tribal herd was cut from 2,000 to 200 bison.

About 30 “conservation herds” of bison owned by the Nature Conservancy or state or local governments are mostly small and subject to much artificial selection. Among these, only the American Prairie herd in Montana has goals for several thousand bison exposed to much natural selection. But these are legally private livestock and plans for American Prairie bison have been delayed and jeopardized by political opposition based in the livestock industry.

Consequently, only 15 plains bison herds in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges are managed under reliable, legal mandates to preserve wildness. The Park Service and federal refuges are mandated to retain the genetic integrity and natural ecological relations of wild bison. However, most these herds have only 300-500 bison. Only 2 herds have at least 1000 bison. These 15 herds will not suffice, in the long term, to provide a diversity of natural selection and retain the full suite of wild characteristics imbedded in bison genomes.

This emphasizes the need to restore public, wild bison on the Charles M. Russell Wildlife Refuge. It is the largest federal refuge within the historic range of plains bison. Unsuccessful efforts to reintroduce bison in this area go back to 1910. Bold federal action is needed to develop a truly wild bison herd in this, the best available location for reestablishing wild plains bison in the USA.

 

 

 

Ancient DNA Documents Lost Bison Genetics

 Before and during the 1800s, North American plains bison barely survived a severe population bottleneck, declining from about 30 million bison spread across much of the continent to a few hundred animals saved from 5 or 6 local populations. While the remaining bison seemed to contain considerable genetic diversity, the amount of diversity lost with the bottleneck remained largely unknown.

However, a recent Park Service study, in cooperation with the University of North Dakota, suggests, not surprisingly, that abundant genetic diversity has been lost. The incomplete study has not been peer reviewed. Preliminary results are available on the Theodore Roosevelt National Park website. Non-nuclear mitochondrial DNA was analyzed from 67 extant bison and from bones of 73 bison recovered from archeological sites, representing pre- and post-bottleneck bison from across the country.

Researchers identified 43 different genetic groups of bison. Of these, only 10 were represented in today’s bison. The indicated loss of 76 percent of genetic diversity will compromise the ability of plains bison to adapt to changing environmental conditions, and to respond effectively to future disease challenges.

For the past 140 years, plains bison have been living in relatively small, genetically isolated herds. Small herds have continued to slowly lose genetic diversity through a process called genetic drift. Recently elevated awareness of this dilemma has prompted much official concern for the management, not just of bison, but of bison genetics. Maintaining the remaining genetic diversity of plains bison will require restoration of some large bison herds on large, diverse and wild landscapes.

Restoration of bison on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, a goal of our Coalition, will greatly improve the national management and preservation of plains bison genetics. This National Park Service study demonstrates the urgency of that restoration.

Thank you,

Jim Bailey, Montana Wild Bison Restoration Coalition