Good grief, where did September go?
October will be even faster. We start skinning buffalo tomorrow, I still have a few days of harvesting to do (I hope), the inbox has been full lately, and of course there’s antelope hunting and a 25th anniversary and then elk hunting! Hmm, does it get better?
September was almost what passes for a slack month around here. Partly because my oilseeds, camelina and golden flax, have just refused to ripen. This defies all logic, as they’re supposed to be shorter-season crops, not to mention July was a blast furnace, but no… I seeded them on the late side, got them in a little deep (live and learn, etc.), and then the spigot turned off and even friends in Arizona agreed we were having some hot weather. But then we lucked out with about ¾” of rain in late July, and they got a second wind. The flax was still blooming at the end of August! The camelina is a pretty thin stand, but who knows, maybe it would have croaked otherwise but instead turned into these little bushes with actually a fair number of seed pods, that just took forever to ripen. In fact some of it was still green, but we hit 28 here last night, which I believe will put the cure on even crops of hardy northern European origin, not to mention the weeds, and so maybe I’ll still get the stuff harvested. It’s not going to yield worth a damn, but if a fella has his own oilseed press it still might turn a buck.
September, though… In spite of this alleged “slack” status I think I only really took one day off, this past Friday. I’d been at the desk steady all week, and as was pointed out had turned crabby. The National Weather Service was calling for a winter storm watch followed by a generally unsettled period. I’ve been wanting to check out one more elk spot a little closer, there was nothing on my list that couldn’t wait a day, and so true to form I headed over to the Madison. Climbed up to 9200’, which is a heck of a lot easier when there isn’t a foot of snow on the ground. This spot isn’t horse-compatible, so it’s a backpack proposition, and I still haven’t quite figured out where to camp. Flat spots are pretty much non-existent until you gain a couple of thousand feet, and then they’re covered with elk beds! Even Friday, I was thinking some of them showed sign of suspiciously recent use. It’s primarily winter range, and the elk don’t really arrive in numbers for a bit yet, but sure enough I came over a little knob to flashes of tan in the timber. They didn’t have a positive ID, only went a little ways, and in a few seconds the bull cut loose with a bugle. I wasn’t really expecting elk, hadn’t brought bow or bugle, and was further surprised when his challenge was answered by several other bulls scattered across the canyon! It was about as close to an operetta as you’re going to find in those parts, and better to my way of thinking.
They didn’t have my scent, and so I backed off, circled around and let ‘em be. I’d just as soon maintain their perception that the humans don’t come up in there much.

The matter of whether and what animals think has been on my mind lately, and I suppose that’s one difference. I bet they don’t give a hoot what I think!
This subject was part of an outstanding recent series on the New West Network, an interview by Bozeman journalist Todd Wilkinson of Bob “Action” Jackson, the controversial Yellowstone Park backcountry ranger and Iowa bison rancher. Bob patrolled the upper Thorofare, the most remote spot in the lower 48, and was uncannily successful at catching poachers. As the interview series makes abundantly clear, he’s an outspoken guy, which is frowned upon in bureaucratic circles, and he wound up with an official gag order from the Park Service over his harsh criticism of the Bridger-Teton National Forest for allegedly turning a blind eye to outfitters maintaining illegal salt licks, literally fifty yards outside the Park boundary in some cases. Not to mention the area grizzly bears learned shots meant dinner, and an ugly situation had developed.
What the interview series is mostly about (well, it touches on a lot of things) is Bob’s observations of social structure in bison and elk. In the remote Mirror Plateau-Pelican Creek herd, he observed a complex multi-generational family-based “culture” that he maintains is largely dysfunctional in “managed” herds. There’s way more to it than that, and I strongly urge you to read the interview series. It’s some of the most fascinating reading I’ve come across in quite a while, and journalism awards should be forthcoming, in my opinion.
Bob challenges the status quo on many fronts, not least his contention that these animals are sentient beings, capable of thought. My own experience is mostly with horses, but I’ve long maintained people who say animals don’t think haven’t spent much time around them. I swear, a couple of mine even have a sense of humor! It’s not like we’re going to sit down and play chess, but there’s clearly a lot more going on than meets the eye. It’s mostly non-verbal, body language (for lack of a better term), but there’s more to it than that. I can’t explain it, but just for one example I’ve repeatedly seen my saddle horse and packstring suddenly perk up and pick up the pace when the boss horse in the back sends some sort of telepathic insult forward.
With horses, a lot of their world revolves around the “pecking order” (Bob questions over-application of this concept, also). If you’re using them and wish to avoid mayhem it’s important they recognize you as above them in the order. Bob refers to it as being a "brother's keeper". I think there are parallels with human interactions, though. You can’t beat respect into them, but have to earn it. I’ve tried to explain this to friends, but I think it leaves language behind. The closest I’ve come is that you project an aura of friendly invincibility, but that doesn’t quite catch it either.

The most striking example of this I’ve come across is in Jackson’s interview, when he talks about riding in the dark and suddenly realizing you’re in the middle of a herd of slumbering bison. He says avoiding chaos requires “a really good horse”, but personally I think it takes mojo. I know animals can tell at a glance if you’re a threat, and whether they see an aura or something, I don’t know. We see through a glass darkly…

Bob sees clearer than most, though, and realized if this 200 member Pelican herd could have structure (and yes, culture) he could possibly do it with a private herd on their farm in Iowa. Now, fifteen years later, he has 400 head in five fully functioning family groups. Of course, it’s taken that long to become economically viable! It’s like organic farming. The market doesn’t really reward agricultural innovation, it seems, not in the short term at least.
Jackson is also pretty hard on current wild bison management. His ideas certainly run counter to the quarantine program, where young bison are basically placed in a high-fence gulag and half their siblings killed every year “for research”. The idea is to produce disease-free seedstock for restoration projects. Of course current law states those bison can only be sold to offset project costs, or given to Native American tribes. Jackson says they’d be “terrible” candidates for restoration, and the dysfunction and disruption caused by current haze/capture/test/slaughter operations quite likely increases seroprevalence in Yellowstone bison.
I’d like to think we have a better idea for bison management in Montana, which I recently had the opportunity to present to Montana’s Board of Livestock. Perhaps better than that, New West solicited an editorial that ran concurrently with Jackson’s interview series. Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of this made the conventional ag media. I just received the current issue of the Prairie Star yesterday, and it appears they’re continuing to spin the situation as the death of ranching as we know it.
I’ve been reading the Prairie Star since its inception, though, and lately am appalled at how blatantly biased it’s become. In fact, it’s time to call the publisher and complain. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going further up the Lee Enterprises chain. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get them to run a countervailing viewpoint next issue. The times, they are a’changing, and we can hope…