810-Unc«ster Farming, Saturday, August 30,1986
VtsHois Crowd To Motional Bison Range
MOIESE, Mont. - Out here,
where the buffalo roam and the
deer and the pronghorn antelope
play, there is a dilemma that
reflects in microcosm a similar
problem affecting Yosemite,
Yellowstone, and Glacier parks
and other better-known pieces of
the national heritage.
The dilemma is this: How do you
make such places, supported by
taxpayer dollars, open and ac
cessible to the public without at
tracting so many people that the
whole point of the enterprise is
lost?
Moiese is home to the National
Bison Range, one of the oldest
components in the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service’s chain of wildlife
refuges and one of the key
elements in the successful early
century battle to save the
American bison from extinction.
Park Relatively Small
Compared with the big national
parks, the National Bison Range is
tiny, as is the number of visitors
who come here in a year, com
pared with, say, the 2.6 million who
annually visit Yosemite.
Yet, in 1983, when the number of
visitors to the 18,541 acres of
grasslands, low-rolling mountains,
and gently flowing streams
reached a record 132,000, range
manager Jon Malcolm feared that
a further increase could cause
grave problems.
In 1984, the number of visitors
dropped by 24 percent, to 106,000,
and Malcolm noted in his annual
report that this was “optimum in
terms of providing visitors with a
quality experience.” Partly
because of unseasonably cold
temperatures and early, heavy
snow, the number dropped to 96,000
in 1985.
Visits in 1986 are up, however
10 percent higher in May and June
over the same months in 1985, a big
■Tj»
BLACK
LT GRBY
Yellow
BLUE
BROWN
MALAYAN TAPIR: THIS
ANIMAL IS RELATEP 70
THE HORSE AND RH/NOC
BROS EVEN THOUGH IT
LOOKS LIKE A PIG. THEY
UV£ N£AR U/ffTER, ANP
LOUS TOSUJ/M. THETA PUT
STANPS 3 TO Si ft HIGH
AT THE SHOULDERS. f/AJi&S
HUNT THEM FOR FOOD
fWO FOR THEIR THICK
hides.
32 percent jump in July and
Malcolm is worried. “It’s kind of
hard to tell people, well, don’t
come because we’ve got enough
the way it is,” he says. “But that is
one of our concerns.”
A 1985 census on the range
counted a balanced population of
elk, white-tailed and mule deer,
bighorn sheep, pronghorn an
telope, and mountain goats. There
also were coyotes, who did their
part to keep down the population of
deer, antelope, and sheep.
But the animal that is the
range’s reason for being is
thriving. There were 332 bison,
with 90 calves, and a mortality rate
of just 1 percent. The range an
nually auctions off what is known
as excess; last year, 66 bison were
sold, for display elsewhere or for
their hides or meat.
Where 60 Million Roamed
The current status of the bison
the creature’s true name, though
most authorities use buffalo in
terchangeably is a far cry from
the animal’s peak in the mid-19th
century, when an estimated 60
million of them roamed North
America.
But it is also a far cry from the
bison’s plight a few decades later.
Many forces brought about the
bison’s decline: the suppression of
Plains Indians who had lived in
balance with the animal, hunting
only what they needed for food and
clothing; massive buffalo hunts
that accompanied the settlement
of the West; the rise of trophy
hunting; the desire of settlers to
eliminate buffalo so they could
plant crops.
When late-century scientists set
out on expeditions to collect
specimens before it was too late,
they could hardly find any. By
1900, there were only 39 wild bison
in the United States, a small herd
in Yellowstone. Alarmed, the
PINK
GREEK)
LTBKWKJ
IT BUIE
LT. GREEN
9-4-86
scientists and their supporters
formed the American Bison
Society.
They found an ally in President
Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1905
designated a 61,500-acre tract in
Oklahoma as a game preserve. It
was stocked with 15 bison shipped,
ironically, from New York’s Bronx
Zoo.
The conservationists then moved
to have the government establish a
second refuge. The Bison Society
persuaded Congress to buy land in
Montana from the Indians, and
raised $10,560 from the public to
buy 34 bison from a privately
owned Montana herd. The
animals, the first stock of the
National Bison Range, arrived in
October 1909.
What visitors to the range find
today is a situation vastly different
from natural conditions. The other
big-game animals were introduced
over the years, beginning with
white-tailed deer and elk. Heavy
fencing surrounds the entire
range, preventing the wildlife from
roaming over farms and ranches.
Some areas are fenced off to
prevent overgrazing or to keep
herds apart for their own good.
Management Essential
“The populations we have here
are probably as intensively
managed as you’ll find on any
refuge,” Malcolm says. “These
animals, if they’re not managed,
can have a severe impact on the
habitat, so on an area this size, it’s
necessary to manage and
manipulate them. Just the fact
that we have big-game-type fence
around the perimeter is not natural
to begin with.”
There are, however, few con
cessions to humans. There is an
information center with exhibits
about the range and the history
and biology of the bison, and a few
animals are kept in display
0
At home on the National Bison Range, a buffalo bull
displays wariness befitting a species that barely avoided
extinction. Only 39 wild bison could be counted in the entire
United States in 1900, compared with 60 million a few
decades earlier. Congress set up the 18,000-acre Montana
refuge in 1909.
pastures nearby. self-guided excursion over a dusty,
“We find that a lot of people, all unpaved road that winds up and
they want to do is stop by and see a around Red Sleep Mountain. It can
buffalo or two and they’re easily take two hours, but visitors
satisfied,” Malcolm says. “By are rewarded with a view of much
providing for those people, that’s of the range’s wildlife. It is a
one thing that limits the use on the daunting trip. Far fewer than half
longer tour. ” the visitors embark upon it.
The “longer tour” is a 19-mile
%
V'
m
W/