It seems we’ve progressed from the grain harvesting to buffalo harvest season. Bookings have been relatively brisk all summer, and the guns start going off tomorrow, with five to skin and quarter. And I know, regular readers are probably going "oh, no, not buffalo again!" But as usual, we remain keenly involved with bison issues.

For one, we’ve just (mostly) completed a website for www.MontanaBuffaloMeat.com for selling bison meat online. Until now, most bison meat available online has sold for fairly stunning prices in the $20-$50/lb range. We’re selling this meat from prime quality yearling bison for $4.95/lb, by the half or whole, which puts it in the same price range as beef. We think buffalo meat for the masses is an idea whose time has come, and once the word gets out we think a lot of folks will agree.

As mentioned, the Flying D Ranch bison harvests start up again tomorrow, which means the Buffalo Bill’s sideline does also, although shipping completed skulls and robes has been and still is an ongoing thing around here. And these robes are gorgeous…

Also, today is the deadline for application for Montana’s "hunt" for wild bison that attempt to migrate into Montana from Yellowstone. While a public hunt for wild bison could be a great thing for Montana, the foundation for this version remains fundamentally flawed, with the Department of Livestock calling the shots, so to speak. I won’t go on about that (again), if you’re interested I was quoted extensively in a recent New West article about the upcoming hunt.

We continue to present common-sense recommendations that could move the situation forward in a big way. The problem is the existing Interagency Bison Management Plan all but dooms this hunt to failure. A couple of minor tweaks of the Plan would not only recognize wild bison as valued native wildlife in Montana, but do a better job than the existing situation of protecting Montana stockmen from losing our Brucellosis-free status.

These proposals seem to be making the agency folks a bit nervous, as they’re had a couple of press releases and editorials featured in area newspapers lately. It seems to me their desperation belies the weakness of their position. Some of the points in these editorials are just laughable. In a recent Bozeman Daily Chronicle op-ed, obviously spoon-fed to newspaper staff by those interested in maintaining the status quo, they actually claimed that we wish to see bison allowed to "spread undeterred throughout the Intermountain Region- a move that would require whole segments of the region’s agricultural industry to walk away from their land and investments". !!?? That is bloody ridiculous, and as I’ve said before, when opponents of a common-sense solution are reduced to spreading hysteria, they become their own worst enemies.

In today’s Chronicle, there was another press release from the agencies (not available in their online version, unfortunately), saying that the existing Bison Plan works wonderfully, and we simply can’t change it because, among other things, we have not moved far enough toward eradicating brucellosis. OK, we’ll see about that. If this "eradication" mentality leads us to ecosystem-wide depopulations of the area’s wildlife, global media coverage is waiting in the wings, and again, these folks are their own worst enemies.

What’s more likely to happen, in my opinion, is that the upcoming "hunt" this fall will fail, and it will be patently obvious the problem is the limitations of the existing Plan. If we have a mild winter (which the National Weather Service seems confident will be the case again in this region) there’s historically only about a half dozen bison outside the Park in the hunt time frame. Obviously, that’s not much of a "hunt". And if we do get a weather event that triggers large migrations, the Dept. of Livestock will pull the plug on the public hunt, and resume their role as bison exterminators. Either way, Montana sportsmen and wildlife enthusiasts don’t get much if anything from the deal.

With a couple of minor tweaks of the Plan, though, we could have year-round populations of wild bison in Montana, on expanses of public lands adjacent to Yellowstone, that have less domestic livestock conflict than literally anywhere else in the region. Eventually, that will come to pass. The idea that would be the death of Montana’s ranching heritage and culture is simply ludicrous, a patent falsehood, and as the saying goes "all illusions are eventually revealed".

It’s gonna be interesting….