To protect bison, Colorado declares them a huntable game species
Amanda Pampuro
GOLDEN, Colo. (CN) — For the first time in state history, it is finally illegal to indiscriminately kill wild bison in Colorado.
When Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed the Protection Wild Bison Act into law Thursday, the measure was met with woops from conservation groups and Indigenous people who see the fate of the West intertwined with the majestic mammal — and its absence.
No bison chose to wander out into the open grass at Genesee Park in Golden, Colorado, during the bill signing, but Native American advocate Lewis Tallbear danced on the hide of an animal he himself had cleaned, calling his relatives home.
“We consider the bison our relative. We're just as much a part of this land as the bison are,” said Tallbear, who founded the Sacred Return with his wife Esther Perez to support the animal's recovery. Tallbear descends from Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Oglala Lakota tribes. Perez is Meshika, a native tribe of Mexico.
Introduced this year as SB25-53, the Protect Wild Bison Act bans poaching the bison that wander into Colorado from neighboring states by classifying them as big game and requiring a permit to hunt. A majority of the state's bison are raised as livestock and fall under a separate classification.
If the population reaches a certain threshold, residents may obtain a hunting permit for $374, and out-of-staters for $2,756. Poaching bison is now finable by up to $10,000.
Conversation groups tried to bring a similar proposal through petitioning the state Parks and Wildlife Commission three years ago. This iteration came as a recommendation from the state’s American Indian Affairs Interim Committee.
State Senator Jessee Danielson, a Democrat from Jefferson County, led the bill through the Legislature alongside House Democrats Junie Joseph, of Boulder, and Elizabeth Valasco of Eagle, Pitkin and Garfield.
"This is a sacred animal, it is an important part of our history and it is an important part of our future," said Daniels ahead of the bill signing.
Scientifically known as Bison b. bison, the Great Plains being once numbered 30 million across North America with the last of Colorado’s wild population killed circa 1897.
Against a background of drought, several waves of settlers effectively eradicated the majestic mammal from the landscape. From 1825 to 1850, cattle-moving cowboys killed an estimated 15,000 to 25,000 animals each year per the National Park Service. The U.S. government forced 50,000 eastern Native Americans into Oklahoma in 1830 where they were forced to compete for food along with local plains tribes. In the final half of the 19th century, the U.S. Army gave hunters free ammunition to clear out the last of the bison in an effort to force the remaining Indigenous population onto reservations.
Just as the U.S. government hoped to erase Indigenous people by erasing the bison from the land, many Native Americans believe seeing their tribe thrive depends on the animal’s return to the wild.
The people, bison and land are so interconnected, that many native plants thrive only with the fertilizer of bison dung.
While the new law brings bison protections as far as the state border, many hope to see efforts to protect the animals across their natural migratory path regardless of state and national boundaries.
“If they can bring back the wolves, they can bring back the buffalo,” said Rick Williams founder of People of the Sacred Lands. A descendant of Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne tribes, Williams called the law “an important step to bring our relatives home.”
”We came from another world together, and they made a promise to take care of us, so now we must take care of them,” Williams said of the bison.
With Colorado spanning a patchwork of state, federal, and private land, Williams hopes to see enforceable co-management agreements across government lands.
Another barrier to bison recovery is the fences that divvy up private land for cattle grazing. Although beef vastly outnumbers bison, the latter are native to the land.
“Bison are indigenous to America, cattle is foreign,” said Raven Payment, who is Ojibwe and Mohawk. Payment helped write the bill and said watching it pass represented “a commitment to say ‘we’ll protect your relatives.’”
Looking to the future, Payment hopes to see a day when wild bison numbers not in the dozens, but in the millions. Just as it took decades to decimate the American buffalo, the road to recovery is long and rough, but advocates are undeterred.
“Protecting these bison is inherited and it's been passed down,” Tallbear said. “The work that we're doing is definitely not for us, it's for our future generations.”