The Department of Interior is moving to evict from the Montana prairie hundreds of bison—a symbol of the American West and the once-critically endangered animal on the department’s own seal.
The Bureau of Land Management, a division of the Trump administration department, revoked the American Prairie Foundation’s license to graze bison on federal lands in Phillips County, which has more square miles than Connecticut. The bureau, the New York Times reported, cited the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 to claim that the land should be used to raise livestock for food. The 900 bison that roam the lands, it said, were wildlife.
The move—which has yet to go into effect but could as soon as the spring—has naturally been praised by ranchers, Republican lawmakers, and business leaders.
“We must ensure that public lands remain accessible and productive, rather than being locked away for the vision of special interests,” Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said.
Environmentalists and Native American tribal leaders oppose the revocation of the grazing permit, and officials at American Prairie Foundation, a nonprofit, say the federal government acted arbitrarily.
“By any definition, those animals are livestock,” Director of Landscape Stewardship Scott Heidebrink told the Times.
The bison are tagged and vaccinated, the foundation says. It leases land where the animals aren’t roaming to local cattle ranchers, and it maintains electric fences, allows public access through its land, sends bison to Native American tribes to boost their herds, and donates meat to food pantries, according to the Times.
“We’re following all the rules,” Executive Director Alison Fox said.
The organization estimates the cost of moving the bison to be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Neither the American Prairie Foundation nor the Bureau of Land Management immediately responded to a Daily Beast inquiry.
In a February press release, Fox argued that the proposal “is an unprecedented reversal of BLM’s own decision-making after more than 40 years of treating bison as eligible livestock under federal grazing law.”
“BLM lawfully approved these permits after a thorough environmental review and defended them for years,” she added. “Abruptly rescinding them now—under political pressure—creates immense uncertainty and sends a chilling signal to Tribes, ranchers, and conservation partners who depend on fair and predictable public land management.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the former two-term governor of North Dakota, has spoken in support of selling federal lands—including those used for grazing—in order to help pay down the national debt.
The process for how the land in Phillips County would be divided among ranchers wasn’t immediately clear.
