My time has been eaten up by buffalo lately, but some balance has been achieved of late since we’re eating on our own (buffalo), finally. Shot a ~2.5 year old bull, which had hung in the cooler for hmmm… eleven days now. Time well spent, I believe, as it’s nice and tender. This one, extrapolating backwards from carcass weight, should have gone about 950# or a bit more on the hoof, and although we used to be professional meat cutters and could whip through several a day that size (with a top hand or three to help out), it pains me slightly that we’re into our third afternoon on this one, as a somewhat sporadic family project. I’ll finish up the burger today, though, so buffalo burgers for New Years Eve dinner is a strong bet. No, we’re not going out, and in fact last evening we were struck by yet another advantage of eating bison.

It dramatically reduces expenditures on eating out! I’m serious, although I do find it mildly amusing for some reason, but it’s the truth. My wife made a spinach chef salad, bolstered with not only hard-boiled egg but strips of fresh-cut and seared bison sirloin tip. This salad was a work of art, I tell ya, easily comparable with anything available downtown, and Bozeman has some pretty high-end restaurants. Garnished with croutons from Wheat Montana high-fiber flax and sunflower bread, and perfectly complemented in both appearance and flavor with a few slices of garden-raised pickled beets, this salad was so delicious and satisfying that the idea of looking for something even as good (as better seems wholly improbable) downtown, strikes me as a fool’s errand.

Not that we don’t eat out anymore, but it’s noticeably less since we started eating buffalo on a regular basis. What this portends for the restaurant business remains to be seen, although hopefully more of them will start serving bison, like say, Ted’s Montana Grille. Hmmm, as I mentioned, Bozeman has some great restaurants, but for a straight-up steak place we find ourselves in Manhattan or Logan (again, less so than before, but…) and I bet a Ted’s might go over well here. Ya think?

Maybe not, though… This is Montana, after all, where we eat beef and wear big hats and hate those damn rich out’a staters who come in here and screw everything up, right?! Mention buffalo to somebody who thinks along those lines and they darn near go apoplectic on you. I’ve seen it. Lots of times. As numerous wildlife agency types will gladly agree, bison are a polarizing issue, and people get kind of irrational about them. I mean, look at me, for God’s sakes! I’ve become a fervent advocate because, well… for one thing, they’re fabulously good eating. Not to mention perfectly adapted to the climate, as well as the rest of the plains ecosystem, easier on the range and relatively impervious to predators and need little if any care and not least, aren’t part of the industrialized agribusiness cartel. And of course there we’re only talking about privately owned ones, and haven’t even touched on having wild bison on the landscape here in Montana!

Before this end-of-the-year column degenerates into yet another tirade, let me touch on a handful of other items that developed in December, as promised in my previous column. Tsk, no, I couldn’t cut it as a blogger… Better late than never, though, I believe we have some items that qualify as gossip, news, or hot tips.

Regarding reports from the recently concluded hunting season; overall harvest levels were pretty good. Good enough that Fish, Wildlife, and Parks decided against any season extensions. Local Madison/Gallatin biologist Craig Jourdonnais gave a very interesting presentation to the Gallatin Wildlife Association early in the month on some of their recent census flights and ongoing research projects. Elk numbers remain strong in most areas, at least once you get away from Yellowstone Park a ways. Even in some of those adjacent areas where there used to be lots of elk, they’re still finding decent concentrations in places, especially of bulls. Like say, in the upper Gallatin, where overall elk numbers have plummeted. Those left, though, are disproportionately bulls, and there’s some big boys. I’ve heard rumors of a 400 class bull out of the Gallatin this past season, and have solid reports of several other known good ones. One thing I found particularly interesting pertains to elk movements in the Madison Range. Quite a few of the thousands of elk who winter in the Madison valley and vicinity summer in the high country of the Madison Range. This is verifiable as they have about 40 elk radio-collared as part of a brucellosis study project. This past year, almost none of those elk went back into Yellowstone. What amazes me is the rapidity of their migrations, both spring and fall. Apparently, those thousands of elk decide more or less en masse that it’s time to move, and do so in the period of only a few hours. We’re talking six to eight hours, and basically the whole lot of them have up and crossed the range! I might have to be up there sometime when that occurs. No, not so much to hunt, perhaps, I’d just like to see it. Besides, it occurs toward the tail end of archery season, rifle isn’t open yet, and it’s a wee bit of an expedition to get to likely viewing points, but that would be a sight to behold; truly a world-class wildlife event.

In addition to harvest success, I have a feeling the lack of season extensions is a statement from FWP regarding the commitment to accomplishing the harvest in the five-week general season, and doing away with specially administered late cow seasons, especially on outfitted ranches. That idea has some merit, although I hope they start to emphasize the flexibility that’s built into the Elk Plan for extensions. For now the message is a hard-line "five weeks or get ready to kiss your bull season goodbye" message. Maybe that’s what it takes, but it’s not going over real well with organizations like the Madison Ranchlands Group. In fact the Wildlife Subcommittee’s very existence is sort of in limbo, but I trust we’ll rally after the Holidays, eh?

Another noteworthy thing that came up on pretty short notice was release of an Environmental Assessment for Phase II and III of a Bison Quarantine Project. It’s available online, and if you are the particular type of reader who can plow through 72 pages of bureaucratese I encourage you to read it and more than that; submit comment. This EA is dated 12/15/05. The (to date) only public hearing was four days later, on a bitterly cold Monday night in Bozeman. Formal protest of the lack of opportunity to digest this document has been filed, requesting additional time and opportunity for public input. Several things are problematic with this issue…

While using "graduates" of a quarantine program for bison re-introductions across not only the West but Mexico and Canada is certainly a laudable idea, as usual the devil is in the details. Our beef (so to speak) with it is there is no reason to believe any of these bison would ever be released as public wildlife in Montana. At the risk of appearing an insensitive and self-centered ingrate who would deny re-introduction seedstocks to these other states, countries, and tribal entities, we just feel that if the quarantine project is to take place here in Montana under the auspices of our state wildlife agency it would be nice for Montana sportsmen to benefit. Specifically, that means seeing some of those bison managed as public wildlife on public lands, eventually to huntable populations.

Unfortunately, at the moment and any foreseeable future, the odds of that appear to be nil. As distasteful as that is, we could probably swallow it if our ideas for common-sense bison management here in southwest MT got even the slightest support from the Department. Again, specifically, those ideas are a couple of minor tweaks of the Interagency Bison Management Plan, primarily redrawing some zone boundaries. The handful of very limited livestock conflict points should be re-defined as Zone 3’s (where bison are not welcome). Those areas can easily be patrolled, or if necessary fenced. A much better solution would be to come to agreement with the owners that it makes more sense to raise a handful of steers, spayed heifers, or better yet horses instead of breeding age cows that put our entire state’s brucellosis-free status at risk. This is a free, capitalist society, Thank God, so private landowners are free to do as they like, but let’s just say substantial enticements can be offered, and barring that; buffalo fence.

Also, the substantial areas of adjacent public lands should be Zone 2’s, where bison are afforded at least some degree of tolerance. Allowing animals to disperse over their habitat is a proven disease management tool, and public hunting is a known population control measure, likely dramatically more so with bison than elk.

After voicing these concerns at the public comment hearing once again to the apparent disregard of FWP and APHIS (who it appears really call the shots on this thing), I was struck by the thought that the main thing wrong with our ideas is that they don’t cost hardly anything!! The quarantine budget is over 2 million and counting. At least we got ‘em to admit that re-introductions are at best a distant goal. Of course, bison have to be quarantined for at least three years (or three birth cycles), and half will be killed "for research" no matter what. Additional bison will be killed depending on their disease status, of course, and so the more immediate benefit of the project (disregarding an infusion of cash) is as a population control measure. Our own wildlife agency people said they didn’t feel public hunting would be a viable population control measure. Apparently this quarantine project is, though? Plus of course we can do research. I’m sorry, research is great, but let’s also research treating these wild bison as an asset, OK?!

Once again, if you see fit to submit comment on this project, we’d be grateful. Be aware the comments have to be very specific to the scope of the EA, however. You’ll notice there’s barely a page of issues deemed "within the Scope of the EA", versus nearly eight pages of comments dismissed as outside that scope and therefore irrelevant. So if you’re going to go to the trouble of commenting, make it specific. They hate that! ;-)

And on that note; I am certainly going to make some effort to finish out the year with a chuckle or at least a smile. It’s been quite a year! Mercy, a lot went on…

God willing, I hope it continues to. I certainly see no reason to expect otherwise!

So here’s sincere best wishes for the New Year from us to all of you, and we’ll be talking to you in ’06…