American Prairie Bison Herd Tops 1,000 for the First Time at 1,016
MONTANA — American Prairie, a nonprofit seeking to establish the nation's most extensive wild-prairie landscape, recorded 1,016 bison during its annual calf count, the first time the herd has crossed the 1,000-bison threshold, according to reporting on October 31.
The organization's reserve covers 603,657 acres in Montana, including 167,070 acres it owns and 436,587 acres of public land it leases, so access to public grazing land is central to its restoration work. Bison historically numbered in the tens of millions across the prairie; the population today may be as little as about 1% of its preindustrial size.
The milestone comes as the herd's access to three federal grazing allotments remains in legal dispute. The Bureau of Land Management canceled the nonprofit's permits to graze bison and ordered it to remove the herd, arguing that the law reserves public grazing land for commercial food and fiber production. A federal judge found the organization's interpretation of the law very likely correct and, on September 4, paused the removal requirement, though the decision does not resolve the dispute. Montana classifies the bison involved in the project as livestock, not wildlife.
Source: The Cooldown, October 31 report.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美洲野牛（资料图）。来源：Wikimedia Commons（Khoshhat，CC BY-SA 4.0）
