Blue Goose Alliance
Contact: Bill West
1050 Matador Dr. SE,
Albuquerque, NM 87123-4223 nationalwildliferefugeadvocate@gmail.com
Phone: (406)579-0633
Blue Goose Alliance objects to Daine’s Bill to divest of a National Wildlife Refuge and National Bison Herd
Belgrade, Montana, Dec. 23, 2019
Blue Goose Alliance (BGA), an advocacy group for National Wildlife Refuges in America, has written Montana U.S. Senators Steve Daines and Jon Tester pushing back on trading/giving the National Bison Range, public land in Western Montana, to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) to settle water rights claims that threaten agriculture interests in the state.
Specifically, BGA objects to the Senators recently introduced bill, “The Montana Water Rights Protection Act” S.3019 with provisions using public lands as trade to remove the National Bison Range (NBR) from the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS). BGA Executive Vice President William Reffalt says: “The Refuge System must be kept whole”. He asks: “Will all Wildlife Refuges, Migratory Bird Wetlands, National Parks, State Wildlife Management areas or other Public Lands in America, where eminent domain occurred, be ‘given’ back to original owner? The assault on the NBR, other National Wildlife Refuges and Public Lands must stop”.
The BGA letter is co-signed by retired National Wildlife Refuge manager in Montana, Bill West, it states: Today all the land near NBR, opened to settlement, is divided into smaller parcels confirming that the 18,800-acre NBR would have been sliced in a similar fashion, unable to be used for wildlife conservation.”….. “Your bill appears to be using a national resource, (i.e. A National Wildlife Refuge and National Bison Herd) to pay a debt caused by the injustice of the 1904 Allotment Act which it did not cause. If NBR had not been established when and where it was, we all would have been poorer but CSKT would have been most irreparably injured”.
The letter goes on to say: “When the NBR was acquired, it was the first time the U.S. Congress appropriated funds to purchase an entire conservation land unit, specifically to protect wildlife. The American Bison Society was formed in 1905. Its member list included President Theodore Roosevelt as Honorary President. The group was led by William Hornaday of the New York Zoological Society. The ABS was the first conservation organization in the USA to organize grassroots to lobby congress for wildlife, encourage philanthropy for wildlife and educate the nation on a wildlife crisis. They raised $10,560 to purchase the bison because congress had refused to buy them. That’s why Pablo’s bison were sold in 1906 to Canada. ABS donations came from 29 states and included pennies from children.
Biology Professor at University of Montana, Morton Elrod, was commissioned to investigate several locations and recommend best site for a bison range in a report to ABS which was published and made available to Congress. A Native leader on the Reservation, Duncan McDonald, accompanied him. Professor Elrod recommended the site we now have as a ‘National’ Bison Range. Duncan McDonald told Elrod in 1907: “Every Indian will be glad if the Government can and will save them and keep them where they can be seen.”