Buffalo Field Campaign: Connections to Global Injustice

(Published in the Earth First! Journal March/April 2008)

There are times and places, many times and places, where cruelty exists. There are times and places where lives are disrupted, where babies are murdered and mothers taken. Times and places where the unparalleled beauty of the natural world stands in stark contrast to the human activity in the same area. But I do not need to tell you this. You have seen it in the newspapers, heard it in stories and read it in history. Political corruption, government ineptitude, malignant alliances and plundering of the natural world are all rampant. Families who are driven from their homes and rendered into vulnerable refugees are subject to harassment and a deplorable lifestyle that will be ignored by most. They become homeless refugees forced to wander across their homeland. “Management” is used as a guise for power, control and the unfettered ability to accumulate.

This could be the beginning of an article about a whole myriad of issues: worker’s rights in China, the Zimbabwean economy, our forests, the Amazon, the polar ice caps—the list could go on. But this time, it is about the plight of the American buffalo. This issue embodies and exemplifies many larger themes of injustice. The deeper one delves into the politics of the buffalo, the more elucidated its connections to other global social, political, environmental and economic issues become.

Millions of buffalo were slaughtered throughout the 19th century as part of the US government’s calculated plan to “manage” the western US and its indigenous peoples. This systematic killing continued until only 23 of the original tens of millions of buffalo remained, and the people who depended on them were no longer able to live freely. Only after the population had dipped to 23 were plans instated to save the only genetically pure herd of wild buffalo—much to the ire of the livestock industry. Still, buffalo harassment and slaughter has continued.

After the particularly bloody Winter of 1996-1997, when more than a thousand buffalo were killed by the Montana Department of Livestock, Buffalo Nations—now the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC)—was formed. BFC, co-founded by Mike Mease and Lakota activist Rosalie Little Thunder, has, with the help of more than 3,000 volunteers, spent the past 11 years fighting for greater tolerance and expanded habitat for the buffalo.

As usual, this year’s forecast for the Yellowstone buffalo is grim. In order to find food in the Winter, buffalo migrate outside of the invisible boundaries of Yellowstone National Park and into lower elevations—mainly West Yellowstone and Gardiner, Montana. Once outside of the park, buffalo are no longer considered “wildlife” and are instead classified as a “species in need of disease control,” because politics trumps science. Cattle ranchers fear the transmission of brucellosis and the loss of Montana’s brucellosis-free meat status. Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that affects wildlife and livestock, often causing a miscarriage in an animal’s first pregnancy. It was first transmitted to American wildlife by European livestock in the early 20th century. Though there has never been a documented case of a wild buffalo transmitting the disease to livestock, this inflated potential “threat” frames them as pariahs.

The buffalo’s status as a threat, as well as the protocol for handling them as such, is detailed in the Interagency Bison Management Plan (IBMP). The plan was drafted in 1999, by the Montana Department of Livestock, the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the long-term “management” of Yellowstone buffalo. This piece of legislature helps the livestock industry at the expense of buffalo and all people and creatures who coexisted and depended on these amazing animals.

There is, however, a brief window of time when buffalo are considered wildlife. For the past three years, from November 15 through February 15, state and tribal hunting tags have been issued. In the 2006-2007 hunt, 67 buffalo were killed, and as of early February 2008, more than 100 have been killed this season. Conveniently, once the hunt is over, buffalo are no longer wildlife in the eyes and policies of the Montana government—and more severe forms of management resume.

Winter is rough on buffalo, but Spring usually proves to be worse. They are hazed, harassed, captured, quarantined and/or sent to slaughter to prevent their presence on their traditional calving lands and historic range. Hazing is when federal and state agents play modern cowboys, using horses, motorized vehicles and even helicopters to force the buffalo back into the park. At times, hazes starkly resemble news footage from other government-sponsored wars and genocidal campaigns across the globe. The IBMP allows for repeated and continuous hazing, even at times of the year when there are no cattle in the vicinity. Brucellosis can only live outside of the body for 24 hours in direct sunlight, a fact that further illuminates how ridiculous it is to haze buffalo months before cattle return to the area. Hazing operations exhaust buffalo—forcing them to run for hours without breaks—and have killed newborn calves. Hazing is a barbarous and inhumane—not to mention wasteful, largely unsuccessful and inept—way to “manage” the last free-roaming and wild American buffalo.

In this issue, like in so many others, taxpayer dollars are funding an asinine policy and aiding in the destruction of the natural world. Meanwhile, Montana cattle ranchers, like agribusinesses across the country and throughout the world, receive huge subsidies.

History provides numerous examples of indigenous peoples being exploited by settlers and corporations. Those whose lives were once so interconnected with the buffalo are no exception. They are also at the heart of this issue. Plans to slaughter buffalo were concomitantly designed to destroy native populations. Just as the buffalo are confined to the national park, reservations have been delineated and assimilation policies legislated for people. A historic connection was severed so that money could be made across a tamed and managed country. Today, many native people are trying to re-establish their ancient relationship with the buffalo and introduce them onto their reservations. In this light, the National Park Service’s announced plans to capture and slaughter upwards of 1,700 buffalo this Spring is even further enraging.

The National Park Service, during its Summer fly-over, counted about 4,700 buffalo—a population size the IBMP deems too large for reasons that are entirely political. Buffalo advocates view this number as a step forward in buffalo restoration, noting that pressure from the livestock industry, not science, is behind the IBMP. Almost 5,000 buffalo should easily be able to survive in this area—as this ecosystem once provided for many, many more. Buffalo could roam, feed and live throughout the greater Yellowstone ecosystem—ideally, all the way to Appalachia. But that will not be the case this year, according to the previously mentioned plan for a Spring slaughter.

BFC is not just a small wildlife advocacy group. It is a group fighting against injustice in both this and so many other causes. The buffalo issue is a microcosm of inequality and injustice on the global level. It is, at its heart, the same battle that Darfur activists fight, and it affects its victims the same way government neglect and other acts of violence do. The campaign’s actions foment change on a local and macro scale.

I am often asked, “Why buffalo? Why the Buffalo Field Campaign?” These are questions to which I might respond with a discussion of how incredible the buffalo are, or how management of them disgusts me. It seems to me that, truthfully, I am fighting the same battle against global injustice as any other activist. This is the same battle against corporate or government greed, the same battle against environmental destruction and the same battle for the rights of the less powerful. This is the same fight for what so many of us believe is right and good.