This story is part of our Quick Hits series. This series will bring you breaking news and short updates from throughout the state.
Native American tribes and conservation groups want to keep Yellowstone National Park’s new bison plan in place.
The Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes and four conservation groups are seeking to join a lawsuit as intervenors to defend the plan in court. It's being challenged by the state of Montana.
The motion was obtained on Earth Justice’s website, a nonprofit that is representing the intervenors.
Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, along with the state’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks and Department of Livestock, filed a lawsuit in December in U.S district court in Montana seeking to overturn the park’s bison plan.
Montana said the park violated federal law by not consulting with the state. Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly has said that he involved the state as the plan was being developed.
State officials also want to cut the herd size to 3,000 animals over worries of bison transferring a reproductive disease called brucellosis to cattle. There’s no evidence of Yellowstone bison transmitting it to cattle.
The plan, adopted last summer, would allow the herd to grow to up to 6,000 animals, an increase over a 10-year average of about 5,000. The plan also prioritizes tribal hunting outside the park and transferring live bison to tribal nations. Bison would also be shipped to slaughter where their meat and hides are given to tribes.
The tribes and conservation groups say that reducing the herd size could mean fewer bison are rehomed to Indigenous people’s lands as part of the bison conservation transfer program, among other concerns.
“Montana’s suit challenging the National Park Service’s Yellowstone bison plan is akin to standing in the path of our national mammal’s cultural restoration to Indigenous communities,” said Chamois Andersen, senior field representative for Defenders of Wildlife, in a release.
National Parks Conservation Association, Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and Park County Environmental Council are also seeking to defend the bison plan in the Montana lawsuit as intervenors.
According to court documents, the National Park Service has a deadline of March 3 to reply to Montana’s lawsuit.
