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Last Updated on Monday, 27 July 2009 10:26

Written by Christy Hemken

Riverton – In early February the Northern Arapaho tribe called a meeting regarding their desire to reestablish a herd of bison on the Wind River Indian Reservation for cultural, ceremonial, traditional and nutritional purposes.
    Northern Arapaho Bison Manager Ken Troster, who was hired by the tribe to investigate its options with bison, said the herd would be used for traditional ceremonial uses as well as to provide meat for the diabetic on the reservation.
    Although project information says the ultimate goal of the Northern Arapaho tribe is to bring back bison as free-roaming native wildlife, their present focus is to establish a herd on a 32,207-acre unit that composes six percent of the Arapaho Ranch and runs along the western edges of Boysen Reservoir and the Wind River Canyon. Although the unit is partially fenced for cattle the enclosure needs to be upgraded for bison.
    “The plan right now is that we’ll lease a ranch outside of Thermopolis that’s already set up for bison for the next few years until we can build the secure fence,” said Troster of the Red Canyon Ranch, which has housed bison for the last eight years.
    The bison would come from a project in Montana led by the Wildlife Conservation Society, of which project founder Keith Aune is a part. He said the Society established their interest in bison through the American Bison Society.
    “Our interest is in helping people develop projects with bison through our science-based organization,” said Aune.
    Currently the Society has taken bison from the herd in Yellowstone National Park and put them through brucellosis quarantine with the goal of making them available for tribes and conservation interests nationwide.
    “One of our main objectives in capturing these animals was a conservation attempt aimed at genetics,” said Aune, mentioning that North American bison went through a tremendous bottleneck in their history and their gene pool remains limited. “All bison in North America come from five privately-owned source stocks and two public.”
    He said there’s an emerging interest in bison from Yellowstone because they’ve maintained their pure genetics. “Many producers began blending cattle with the bison, and there are a lot of federal and state bison herds that have cattle genes,” said Aune. He said there are only five known existing herds without cattle genes.
    “They’re also important because they come from one of only three known herds that are 1,000 animals or more and that operate in a natural way,” he continued. “They’re unique in environment, management situation and genetics.”
    The issue of primary concern to reservation-area ranchers with the bison reintroduction is brucellosis transmission. A Montana plan 10 years in the making resulted in three options for the excess Yellowstone bison: slaughter, quarantine or research. “That’s what drives Montana to figure out what to do with the surplus from Yellowstone,” said Aune. “It took a long time to come up with a procedure for quarantine, but it was designed and built by a suite of vets, epidemiologists and experts from federal, state and private interests that sat down and constructed the Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis Quarantine Plan.”
    A six-year study from 1995 through 2001 analyzed brucella in bison. “We found the disease in bison is very similar to cattle,” said USDA APHIS veterinarian Jack Rhyan.
    “There is one scientific issue we’ve always been concerned about – latent infection, or ‘heifer syndrome’ in cattle,” said Rhyan. “In cattle a calf can be exposed to brucella and become infected without developing clinical signs. It carries the infection and its blood tests are negative, but when a heifer becomes pregnant she might abort and that’s the first time you know you’ve got brucella.”
    He said the protocol addresses that and requires bison heifers to get through their first calf and remain negative. “This project is a feasibility study designed to look at two groups of 100 animals each and take them all the way through to when we put them on tribal and public lands, after which we’ll survey them for another five years,” he said.
    The bison that remain in the herd today have tested negative for brucellosis anywhere from nine to 15 times, and Rhyan said they’ll all be tested once more before transport. There are currently 21 cows, 16 calves and four bulls that meet the requirements of the protocol and are qualified for movement.
    Wyoming Assistant State Veterinarian Jim Logan said the Wyoming Livestock Board’s (WLSB) concern with the bison importation is not a disease issue. “We’re absolutely not going to import brucellosis-infected livestock or bison into this state. It simply wouldn’t be done,” he said.
    Logan said the bison would have to be imported according to Chapter 8 Import Rules. In this case the bison will be imported as livestock, not wildlife. “The bison will have to be brucellosis vaccinated to come into Wyoming, and most of them have already been vaccinated twice,” he said.
    Once they’re in the state the bison will have to abide by Chapter 2 brucellosis rules and any USDA/APHIS rules regarding the disease.
    “As long as the tribe complies with WLSB and APHIS rules, we don’t have any major concern with this from a disease standpoint,” noted Logan.
    “We’re being extremely cautious, and through an agreement with the bison recipient we’ll test them once more after they calve one more time and then monitor them four years after that,” said Aune.
    Logan suggested the tribe sign a management and animal health agreement with the WLSB and Fremont and Hot Springs counties. “It would have to be voluntary, but the reason to do it would be public relations,” he said. “It would also be an animal health step with a plan to prevent disease and deal with it should any kind arise in the herd.”
    Logan also said that, through an agreement with the Wyoming Game and Fish, the WLSB has authority to lethally remove any escaped bison, whether they come from the reservation or elsewhere. “The Game and Fish does not want wild herds of bison outside the Shoshone, Bridger-Teton or Absaroka national forests, so if they’re outside off the forest zone they’re considered livestock,” he said.
    “We have an interest in working with the tribes to create opportunities for ecologically and culturally sensitive management,” said Aune of the plan. “There are a handful of places in North America where the land and interest are there to consider this kind of a venture and with the Northern Arapahos we’d be matching up their interest in having a cultural herd with the availability of Yellowstone bison.”
    If all goes as planned the Northern Arapaho tribe will receive their first bison at Thermopolis this spring.
    Christy Hemken is assistant editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 August 2009 05:36

Written by Christy Hemken

Wind River Indian Reservation – In 1990 the InterTribal Bison Cooperative was formed to coordinate and assist tribes with the return of bison to Indian country.
    The Northern Arapaho Tribe of Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation has been a part of that effort and this spring held public meetings and created a plan to bring Yellowstone bison to a part of the reservation from an area in Montana where they’ve been quarantined for several years and tested multiple times for brucellosis.
    The ITBC now has a membership of 57 tribes, with a collective herd of over 15,000 bison.
    In a recent General Council meeting of the Northern Arapaho, however, Ken Trosper, who’s worked closely with the issue, says the tribe ultimately voted against bringing bison onto their Arapaho Ranch land.
    “The tribe wasn’t presented facts regarding brucellosis transmission, and that’s why the effort was voted down,” says Trosper. “They were being told our ranch would have to kill all its cows if we brought bison onto the reservation because of brucellosis, which isn’t true at all.”
    “I don’t know how we’re going to move forward from here, but we’re going to do something,” he explains. “There’s a lot of contention right now among the people because of the way the resolution was presented in the Council. They didn’t understand it.”
    Trosper says the resolution’s wording wasn’t very clear, and many people thought they were voting for the bison when, in fact, they voted against.
    Work had already begun on fencing for a 650-acre pasture within the larger area, which runs along the west side of Wind River Canyon, designated for use by the bison.
    Trosper says the tribe generally holds three General Councils each year, and he says the bison issue is ongoing. He hopes to bring the issue back to one of the two remaining Councils.
    “The resolution that failed only pertained to ranch property, so that doesn’t exclude the rest of the reservation,” he explains.  
    Of maintaining their hold on the Yellowstone bison currently available, he says they can only be held for so long before they’re available to any federal or public agency.
    “What’s sad about it is we went through all the hoops and won the bison, but we lost the chance because some guys that didn’t know the facts about brucellosis were saying things like cattle could pick up the disease from bison manure,” says Trosper, adding that none of those who protested the idea in General Council had been present at any of the planning meetings.
    By not voting to bring bison back to the Northern Arapaho Tribe, Trosper says, “We’re turning our back on thousands of years of culture, and a lifestyle built on bison.”
    Christy Hemken is assistant editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 July 2009 04:19

Written by Christy Hemken

Cody – Although the Northern Arapaho tribe’s effort to move Yellowstone bison onto the Wind River Indian Reservation hasn’t moved ahead as quickly as they hoped, Wyoming Assistant State Veterinarian Jim Logan says they are still moving forward with the plan.
    At the April 16 meeting of the Wyoming Brucellosis Coordination Team Logan gave an update on where the situation now sits.
    “The Arapaho tribe and two others had applied with APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) to receive the bison from a brucellosis quarantine facility, and the Arapaho were the only tribe deemed ‘ready’ to take bison,” said Logan. “Legally, the tribe can go anyplace and buy bison free of brucellosis and import them as long as they meet the Wyoming Livestock Board’s (WLSB) import requirements.”
    He said part of the hang-up has been APHIS requirements on bison coming from the quarantine facility, relating to fencing, commingling, testing, etc.
    The tribe intends to pasture the bison on what’s known as Grazing Unit 32, a 32,000-acre fenced pasture near Boysen Peak on the west side of the Wind River Canyon. Currently the pasture does not have adequate fencing for bison.
    “Their contingency plan was to make an arrangement with the Red Canyon Ranch northwest of Thermopolis that’s already set up for bison, and we took a tour of that and it looked good and at that point everything looked like it was a go,” said Logan.
    However, that deal fell trough. In the meantime, the tribe has talked with owners of another ranch near the Red Canyon Ranch. “The latest information I have is they are in the process of fencing on that ranch to make it compatible with the bison requirements,” noted Logan.
    In regard to concern about the 30 percent seroprevalence rate in elk on the reservation, Logan said the elk are quite a bit west of where the bison will be. “Game and Fish personnel say it’s very rare the elk from the Dubois area would ever go near where the bison would be pastured,” he said.
    Before the bison are moved Logan said MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) must first be signed between the Northern Arapaho and APHIS and the tribe and the WLSB. Currently the MOU between the tribe and the WLSB is in the hands of the tribe’s attorney.
    “The concern of the WLSB, and the majority of producers in the area, isn’t a disease issue,” said Logan. “We’re pretty satisfied they’re clean, but we’re concerned from a management standpoint. We want to make sure the bison are adequately contained and don’t pose a threat, disease or otherwise, to wildlife and livestock interests in the area.”
    In the MOU, Logan said the most pertinent item out of nine management points is that the bison will be considered livestock. “In the MOU they’re required to be maintained on tribal properties, and if they escape they’re subject to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Chapter 41 rules, which gives the WLSB authority to lethally remove them. That would be something we could fall back on.”
    Although the tribe’s original plan was to move the bison to Wyoming in early April, now they’ve begun calving. “At this point the whole thing’s up in the air,” said Logan. “We will probably try to tour the new place to see the progress sometime in the last week of April.”
    “The Livestock Board is not trying to facilitate this thing – we’re an interested party,” said Logan. “We’re trying, if this occurs, through the use of an MOU to have some ability to protect livestock producers in the area.”
    Interested parties will meet to discuss the proposed project at 7 p.m. April 30 in Thermopolis at Big Horn Federal. The Wyoming Department of Agriculture, Hot Springs Conservation District and the Wyoming Livestock Board will sponsor the meeting. David Stoner of the Arapaho Ranch will be present, as will the fencing contractor.
    Producers from the allotment on the south side of the mountain have already met, and he said they’re “very concerned about the proposition.”
    Christy Hemken is assistant editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .