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Oh, Give Me a Home | 1 | For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People
Episode 1 • 2nd February 2017 • Threshold • Auricle Productions
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Amy Martin:

Let's see how to describe it.

Amy Martin:

It's like hard, hard to capture. Green. Lots and lots of green

Amy Martin:

everywhere. Trees in the distance, a little line of snow

Amy Martin:

over the top of the ridge, across the valley, and in front

Amy Martin:

of me are hundreds and hundreds of bison. I think the most bison

Amy Martin:

I've ever seen in one place just soaking in this beautiful

Amy Martin:

morning.

Amy Martin:

Okay, I'm gonna try and capture some of their voices now.

Amy Martin:

Clearly, these bison did not get the memo that a radio reporter

Amy Martin:

was coming to interview them this morning. They're being

Amy Martin:

unbelievably picturesque and unbelievably quiet.

Amy Martin:

Welcome to Threshold. I’m Amy Martin and I’m in Yellowstone

Amy Martin:

National Park.

Amy Martin:

The calves are, like, sacked out, they’re like just laying

Amy Martin:

flat on the ground...and there’s a calf nursing, there’s a mom

Amy Martin:

and a calf walking, a lot of little tails switching

Amy Martin:

about...cud is being chewed.... It's like a small taste of what

Amy Martin:

must have been so normal to see hundreds or 1000s of bison just

Amy Martin:

doing their thing.

Amy Martin:

A huge group of any kind of animal is a spectacle. But the

Amy Martin:

fact that there are this many bison here is something of a

Amy Martin:

miracle, because we came so close to losing this animal.

Amy Martin:

Before Europeans arrived, there were more than 50 million wild

Amy Martin:

bison in North America in 1901 there were just 23 left in the

Amy Martin:

United States, less than two dozen free roaming bison

Amy Martin:

protected here inside Yellowstone National Park. This

Amy Martin:

is where we saved the American bison from extinction. Those 23

Amy Martin:

animals are the ancestors of this group I'm watching now.

Mike:

There's buffalo everywhere. It's just

Mike:

unimaginable how many buffalo there are here.

Donnie:

They're just so powerful looking and so big and mighty.

Cheyenne:

This is just mind blowing. It just kind of gives

Cheyenne:

me goosebumps.

Caroline:

Oh, wow. This is the most bison I've seen all

Caroline:

together, all at once. This is pretty incredible.

Jerry:

This is just a joy to see them, you know.

Amy Martin:

Quick note here, bison and buffalo refer to the

Amy Martin:

same animal. Bison is the more scientifically correct term, but

Amy Martin:

a lot of people use both words interchangeably, so we will too.

Amy Martin:

What did you think when you came around the corner of the highway

Amy Martin:

and saw all these bison hanging out here in this valley?

Ethan:

I was shocked. I mean, it looks like there's a couple 1000

Ethan:

bison right over here.

Amy Martin:

What does it make you feel?

Ethan:

Makes me feel like it makes me feel so connected to

Ethan:

nature.

Donnie:

To see the little calves. It's just awesome. We're

Donnie:

so happy to see those.

Deborah:

This is what it is. This is where it's at, not not

Deborah:

the Dairy Queens and the Walmart.

Bindu:

We're absolutely the luckiest people on earth to see

Bindu:

this.

Cheyenne:

It's just an emotional experience, for sure. Like you

Cheyenne:

hear so much about these magnificent animals, but you

Cheyenne:

don't really know the feeling of seeing them until you see like

Cheyenne:

these big huffing, just beautiful animals. Awe. That's

Cheyenne:

all I can say.

Mike:

I hope that nothing ever happens to this.

Amy Martin:

These are just a few of the millions of people who

Amy Martin:

come to Yellowstone every year, in part to see these animals,

Amy Martin:

the largest wild bison herd in the lower 48. The day I made

Amy Martin:

this recording, there were probably close to 5000 animals

Amy Martin:

in the park. It's one of the only places in the world where

Amy Martin:

you can see bison at anything close to their natural scale.

Amy Martin:

But what most visitors to the park don't realize is that

Amy Martin:

hundreds of these animals we're watching will be slaughtered in

Amy Martin:

less than a year. Right now, in January 2017 as we prepare for

Amy Martin:

the broadcast of this show, 900 Yellowstone bison are slated to

Amy Martin:

be killed, yearling calves, pregnant females, big, stately

Amy Martin:

bulls. Almost 20% of this herd will be destroyed in the next

Amy Martin:

few months. And this isn't an anomaly. It's become an annual

Amy Martin:

winter ritual in Yellowstone, 500 animals one year, 1000 the

Amy Martin:

next. So why, after almost losing this animal and then

Amy Martin:

saving them from extinction, why are we now killing hundreds of

Amy Martin:

them every year? Well, there are at least a dozen different

Amy Martin:

answers to that question, but all of them begin with this.

Amy Martin:

When different people look at this valley full of bison, they

Amy Martin:

see entirely different things, where some see a beautiful

Amy Martin:

restoration story, others see a threat to their way of life. And

Amy Martin:

a third group sees these animals as the key to their future.

Amy Martin:

Bison are sort of trapped in the spaces between these different

Amy Martin:

worldviews. They're stuck in this weird liminal state

Amy Martin:

somewhere between being exterminated and being fully

Amy Martin:

restored, because we're stuck between a complicated history

Amy Martin:

that we haven't fully reckoned with, and very different ideas

Amy Martin:

of what we want the future to be. In short, what I've found,

Amy Martin:

after a year of reporting on these animals, is that when you

Amy Martin:

start out talking about bison, you end up talking about

Amy Martin:

America, who we were, who we are, and where we're headed. And

Amy Martin:

I think that's why things get so tricky. So we're going to dig

Amy Martin:

into all of these issues here, the practical and the

Amy Martin:

philosophical. That's what this show is about. Each season,

Amy Martin:

we'll explore one story from the natural world and what it says

Amy Martin:

about us. This season, it's bison in America. Next season,

Amy Martin:

it'll be something else. And one of my main goals here is to give

Amy Martin:

people on all sides of an issue a chance to be heard and to get

Amy Martin:

your input too. I want Threshold to be a place where we can have

Amy Martin:

a different sort of conversation, a deeper dialog,

Amy Martin:

and we're going to take on issues that need our attention

Amy Martin:

now, problems that need to be solved or decisions that need to

Amy Martin:

get made, like with bison, whether or not you understand

Amy Martin:

and care about these animals, has real world consequences. We

Amy Martin:

could take one path and end up with many more wild bison in the

Amy Martin:

future, or we could take another and end up with a lot fewer, or

Amy Martin:

none at all.

Amy Martin:

You could almost say we're at a threshold.

Amy Martin:

Bison are not allowed to go beyond a certain point, and if

Amy Martin:

they do, they're hazed and are sent to slaughter.

Amy Martin:

Everybody has this big dream that free roam and it's gonna be

Amy Martin:

so good for it, but it's not.

Amy Martin:

It's up to us to say, Okay, well, how are we gonna do this?

Amy Martin:

This eerie parallel the herding up of Indians and the herding up

Amy Martin:

of bison.

Rick Wallen:

Yes, America could live with free ranging wild

Rick Wallen:

bison.

Drusca Kinkie:

I don't think in Montana there's a place for free

Drusca Kinkie:

roaming bison.

Unknown:

I love going to battle for these animals and for us,

Unknown:

for our culture.

Chris Jeremiah:

Yep, I definitely see the three. Then

Chris Jeremiah:

to the right of those three that are obvious, there's two, a cow

Chris Jeremiah:

and a calf that are just against black.

Amy Martin:

It's January 2016 and I'm in Yellowstone counting

Amy Martin:

bison, or at least trying to.

Amy Martin:

I see three, I don't see.

Chris Jeremiah:

And then to the left of that, there's a cow

Chris Jeremiah:

walking in the draw.

Amy Martin:

Oh, I just saw that cow kind of there you go, yeah,

Amy Martin:

up towards the just below the ridge.

Amy Martin:

It's cold and gray, with a dusting of snow on the ground

Amy Martin:

and a feeling of more coming in the air. I'm in a big pickup

Amy Martin:

truck with two national park biologists, Chris Jeremiah, who

Amy Martin:

you just heard and Rick Wallen.

Rick Wallen:

My name is Rick Wallen, and I'm a biologist with

Rick Wallen:

the National Park Service, and I'm the team leader for our

Rick Wallen:

bison ecology and management program.

Amy Martin:

Rick is a little bit like a bison himself. He's super

Amy Martin:

tall and he has a big beard. Both of those things are true

Amy Martin:

buffalo as well, and he's also kind of unflappable in a very

Amy Martin:

bison esque sort of way. He's been leading the bison program

Amy Martin:

at Yellowstone since 2002 a very controversial 15 years. And in

Amy Martin:

that time, he's had a lot of people direct a lot of intense

Amy Martin:

feelings his way. But whatever gets thrown at Rick, it just

Amy Martin:

seems to roll off his back. Maybe he learned how to stay

Amy Martin:

calm under pressure when he was an artilleryman in the army. But

Amy Martin:

I have a feeling it's just kind of who Rick is.

Rick Wallen:

Today's mission is to drive around the Gardiner

Rick Wallen:

basin, and we're going to try and count all the bison that we

Rick Wallen:

can find and determine what their distribution is, size of

Rick Wallen:

groups, makeup of groups, things of that nature.

Amy Martin:

The Gardiner basin is just north of the park, and

Amy Martin:

Rick and Chris do this count several times a week all winter

Amy Martin:

long. The reason they keep such close tabs on these animals is

Amy Martin:

because these bison are doing something very special,

Amy Martin:

something that some people find extremely hopeful and other

Amy Martin:

people find very problematic. These bison are trying to

Amy Martin:

migrate. We spotted a large herd on the move. We're on one side

Amy Martin:

of the Yellowstone River, and the bison are on the other side,

Amy Martin:

and their dark shapes stand out against the snow. There's 200

Amy Martin:

plus. Rick stops the truck so he and Chris can try to get a good

Amy Martin:

count.

Amy Martin:

That's really cool to see him move.

Rick Wallen:

It's like a giant amoeba.

Amy Martin:

Yeah.

Amy Martin:

it's kind of a funny comparison, but if you'd been there, I think

Amy Martin:

you'd know what Rick meant. It's almost like the herd becomes one

Amy Martin:

giant organism, especially when you're watching from a distance.

Amy Martin:

It has a shape, and it moves with intention, kind of like its

Amy Martin:

own quirky intelligence. But it's this very same

Amy Martin:

intelligence, these survival instincts, pushing them to

Amy Martin:

pioneer new territory, that are getting them into trouble,

Amy Martin:

because if this herd is going to migrate, they need somewhere to

Amy Martin:

migrate, too, and right now they don't have anywhere to go.

Rick Wallen:

There's no place for them to immigrate. There's

Rick Wallen:

no tolerance for wild bison in very many landscapes outside

Rick Wallen:

Yellowstone,

Amy Martin:

As we pushed bison to the edge of extinction in the

Amy Martin:

late 1800s some animals were moved to farms and ranches and

Amy Martin:

became livestock, and a few buffalo were saved in zoos. Some

Amy Martin:

of those animals were later brought here to supplement this

Amy Martin:

herd, and there are some accounts of other small herds

Amy Martin:

that were discovered later in hidden pockets of the country,

Amy Martin:

but those 23 bison we saved in Yellowstone were the only ones

Amy Martin:

that were never moved off of their ancient territory. But

Amy Martin:

historically, that territory was much bigger of course- bison

Amy Martin:

probably didn't spend all winter inside the current park

Amy Martin:

boundaries. Yellowstone sits on a high plateau- it averages over

Amy Martin:

8000 feet in elevation, and parts of the park get more than

Amy Martin:

15 feet of snow in the winter. Bison are very well adapted to

Amy Martin:

the cold. They use their giant heads like snowplows to push

Amy Martin:

through the drifts and find whatever forage is available

Amy Martin:

underneath, and they turn their own bodies into fuel burning

Amy Martin:

through their fat reserves to keep themselves alive, but one

Amy Martin:

of their primary adaptations is this instinct to migrate. As

Amy Martin:

winter progresses, bison know that they should move down in

Amy Martin:

elevation where temperatures are milder and there's usually less

Amy Martin:

snow. What they don't know is that this instinct to migrate is

Amy Martin:

pushing them toward a very controversial line. It's

Amy Martin:

invisible. You wouldn't know it if you walked over it, and

Amy Martin:

neither do they.

Amy Martin:

Where's the line? The park line?

Rick Wallen:

They're not quite there. You see where the power

Rick Wallen:

pulls. Oh, okay, yeah, okay.

Amy Martin:

We're watching the herd approach the park boundary

Amy Martin:

on one side of that line, they are wildlife protected and

Amy Martin:

venerated. On the other they become dangerous intruders. They

Amy Martin:

can be hazed, shot, shipped to slaughter, and one of the main

Amy Martin:

reasons for this is a disease called brucellosis.

Rick Wallen:

Cattle being brought to North America was the

Rick Wallen:

original source of brucellosis infection in the wildlife.

Amy Martin:

Brucellosis is a bacterial disease, and all sorts

Amy Martin:

of wildlife native to North America caught it from European

Amy Martin:

livestock in ungulates like cattle and bison and elk, it can

Amy Martin:

cause pregnant cows to prematurely deliver their cows

Amy Martin:

to have a miscarriage. Essentially, we've almost

Amy Martin:

completely eradicated brucellosis from livestock in

Amy Martin:

the United States, but it persists in some wildlife,

Amy Martin:

including the elk and bison that live in and around Yellowstone

Amy Martin:

National Park. And here's the kicker, both of those animals,

Amy Martin:

elk and bison, are capable of giving the disease back to

Amy Martin:

cattle. So this is one of the answers to the question of why

Amy Martin:

we're killing hundreds of Yellowstone buffalo every year

Amy Martin:

because of the threat of brucellosis being transferred

Amy Martin:

back to cattle. Now, some listeners are probably already

Amy Martin:

typing emails to me right now because of a statement I just

Amy Martin:

made. I said bison are capable of giving brucellosis to cattle.

Amy Martin:

And for people who are deeply invested in this issue, this is

Amy Martin:

a major point of contention just what the risk of brucellosis

Amy Martin:

transmission from bison to cattle truly is. So here are the

Amy Martin:

facts as I understand them. There has never been a confirmed

Amy Martin:

case of a wild bison giving brucellosis to cattle in the

Amy Martin:

field. Ever elk have transmitted the disease to cattle, including

Amy Martin:

earlier, just this winter. But bison have not however, it is

Amy Martin:

possible for bison to transmit the disease to cattle that's

Amy Martin:

been proven in the lab. So both things are true, it's possible,

Amy Martin:

and it's never happened.

Rick Wallen:

The reason that we don't have that evidence is

Rick Wallen:

really a testament to the aggressive management approach

Rick Wallen:

to prevent it from happening.

Amy Martin:

We'll have more after this short break.

Amy Martin:

Hey, podcast listeners, we want to hear from you. We're going to

Amy Martin:

toss out a bunch of different questions throughout this first

Amy Martin:

season, and we've set up a threshold hotline where you can

Amy Martin:

call and leave us your responses. So the first one's

Amy Martin:

easy, tell us your buffalo stories. Any memorable

Amy Martin:

encounters you've had with bison. We want to hear about it.

Amy Martin:

All the info on how to participate is in the show notes

Amy Martin:

and also on our website, thresholdpodcast.org. Thanks.

Amy Martin:

Welcome back to Threshold. I'm Amy Martin, and this is Jodi

Amy Martin:

Lyle, a spokesperson for Yellowstone National Park.

Jody Lyle:

Now it's true, you are standing inside Yellowstone

Jody Lyle:

National Park right now.

Amy Martin:

This is not a part of Yellowstone that you'll ever

Amy Martin:

see as a tourist, and that's intentional, because this is

Amy Martin:

where hundreds of bison are captured and shipped to

Amy Martin:

slaughter almost every winter. It's a maze of intersecting

Amy Martin:

corrals known as the Stephens Creek facility, and Jody's

Amy Martin:

leading a tour for reporters.

Jody Lyle:

All right, so as I mentioned, we are here in the

Jody Lyle:

area that we call the bullpen

Amy Martin:

Before the break, Rick said part of the reason

Amy Martin:

brucellosis has never been transferred from bison to cattle

Amy Martin:

in the wild is because of an aggressive management. Approach.

Amy Martin:

So here's what that means, the state of Montana sued the

Amy Martin:

National Park Service in 1995 over the issue of bison

Amy Martin:

migrating out of the park and brucellosis was a driving factor

Amy Martin:

in that lawsuit. After five years of negotiations, a

Amy Martin:

settlement deal was made, which said any animals that strayed

Amy Martin:

outside the park boundaries would be hazed back in or sent

Amy Martin:

to slaughter. So this facility is the result of that lawsuit.

Jody Lyle:

Once we have animals here, we start basically gearing

Jody Lyle:

up to do the processing.

Amy Martin:

Stephens Creek is located just inside the northern

Amy Martin:

boundary of the park, and there were no bison there on the day

Amy Martin:

of the tour, but in just a few weeks, the buffalo would be

Amy Martin:

standing on this exact same ground. They start out in a big

Amy Martin:

pen and move to progressively smaller spaces, until eventually

Amy Martin:

they land in a machine called the silencer, which holds them

Amy Martin:

while blood is drawn and tags are clipped to their ears. After

Amy Martin:

that, they're held in pens for anywhere from a few hours to a

Amy Martin:

few weeks, and then they're loaded onto trucks and sent to

Amy Martin:

slaughterhouses.

Jody Lyle:

I can tell you that the National Park Service and

Jody Lyle:

all of the people who work here, they don't like having to do

Jody Lyle:

this. This is not what they signed up for, and the Park

Jody Lyle:

Service does everything in its power to find alternatives and

Jody Lyle:

ways to reduce the need for this facility. But I can tell you

Jody Lyle:

that that's going to require some pretty significant changes

Jody Lyle:

to the current bison management plan.

Amy Martin:

What Jody's referring to here is something

Amy Martin:

called the Interagency Bison Management Plan, or IBMP. If

Amy Martin:

you're thinking that that's a name only a bunch of lawyers

Amy Martin:

could love, you're right. The IBMP was another part of the

Amy Martin:

settlement between the state of Montana and the National Park

Amy Martin:

Service, and although it sounds boring and bureaucratic, it's

Amy Martin:

actually really important. In fact, it's part of the whole

Amy Martin:

reason I chose to focus on bison for this first season of

Amy Martin:

threshold. The IBMP partners have decided that the plan is

Amy Martin:

due for a rewrite, and exactly what goes into it is going to

Amy Martin:

impact these animals for decades. We've got details on

Amy Martin:

how you can weigh in on that new plan on our website. But first,

Amy Martin:

you need to understand that a key aspect of the current plan

Amy Martin:

stipulates that the Yellowstone bison population is supposed to

Amy Martin:

stay at around 3000 animals, and since these bison are really

Amy Martin:

good at reproducing, that means somebody has to kill a lot of

Amy Martin:

buffalo every year, and that somebody is Rick Wallen and his

Amy Martin:

staff, and he says, Jody's right, killing bison is not what

Amy Martin:

they want to be doing.

Rick Wallen:

I've even had people on days that we were

Rick Wallen:

supposed to go there and do the work call and say, you know, I

Rick Wallen:

can't do this anymore. I have to resign my position. I'm sorry,

Rick Wallen:

and it's a personal thing.

Amy Martin:

All year long, Rick and his team are studying these

Amy Martin:

animals, tracking their movements, recording their

Amy Martin:

behaviors, and then for a few weeks in the winter, they

Amy Martin:

suddenly have to switch hats. They go from being scientific

Amy Martin:

observers to executioners. And every time I talked to Rick over

Amy Martin:

this last year, I asked him about that, just how he handles

Amy Martin:

it on a personal level.

Rick Wallen:

There is a cost, and that cost is more emotional

Rick Wallen:

for some than others. But if you can, I guess, be cold hearted on

Rick Wallen:

the days that you're working at the trap and get the job done in

Rick Wallen:

a professional manner, you're going to be thinking more

Rick Wallen:

clearly the day after.

Amy Martin:

For Rick seeing animals shipped to slaughter

Amy Martin:

serves as an incentive to find a way to bridge the gap in our

Amy Martin:

conflicted relationship with bison. We've named them our

Amy Martin:

national mammal. We put images of them on everything from craft

Amy Martin:

beers to football jerseys, but at the same time, we haven't

Amy Martin:

really decided to make space for them in our country again.

Rick Wallen:

I think the root of the problem is whether society

Rick Wallen:

is willing to accept wild bison on the landscape, because they

Rick Wallen:

compete directly with the humans for habitat.

Amy Martin:

Rick says that bison want to live where we want to

Amy Martin:

live, including the grasslands where we raise cattle.

Rick Wallen:

It's more than just the disease issues. It's all

Rick Wallen:

about the amount of grass that wild bison would eat.

Amy Martin:

So even if brucellosis wasn't an issue,

Amy Martin:

there's this inherent competition between bison and

Amy Martin:

cattle for bites of grass. And Rick says that means bison

Amy Martin:

restoration depends in part on figuring out ways to keep bison

Amy Martin:

off of private land.

Rick Wallen:

To have agricultural lands in the area

Rick Wallen:

where you have wild bison, you'll have to build your

Rick Wallen:

infrastructure for your ranch differently. You'll have to

Rick Wallen:

build your fences sturdier and taller.

Amy Martin:

Some of that is already happening. Conservation

Amy Martin:

groups around Yellowstone have started programs that will pay

Amy Martin:

for half of the cost of bison proof fences, and many people

Amy Martin:

have signed up, but Rick says more is needed to really scale

Amy Martin:

those efforts up. We need to get innovative. We may need to

Amy Martin:

create special funds to help repay ranchers for the cost they

Amy Martin:

bear in raising cattle around wild bison.

Rick Wallen:

You know, and that's the part that society has

Rick Wallen:

to figure out, is it worth it to try and make. A sacrifice to

Rick Wallen:

learn to live with wild bison.

Amy Martin:

But it's not, in your view, mutually exclusive.

Amy Martin:

It's not either bison or agriculture.

Rick Wallen:

There's no reason that we couldn't figure out, you

Rick Wallen:

know, all of those conflicts in Montana.

Amy Martin:

Do you think people on all sides are wanting to

Amy Martin:

figure out the conflict?

Rick Wallen:

No, I think that there are various degrees of

Rick Wallen:

motivation in how to figure out how to live with wild bison.

Amy Martin:

Rick says it all comes back to that question of

Amy Martin:

migration. Bison are meant to roam. That's what they do. So if

Amy Martin:

we want to keep this species intact as a wild animal, we just

Amy Martin:

have to find more space for them, and that's a question for

Amy Martin:

all Americans.

Rick Wallen:

There's a lot of public land in the Greater

Rick Wallen:

Yellowstone Area that don't have cities and farms and ranches.

Amy Martin:

And there's lots of public land in other parts of

Amy Martin:

the state and the country as well. One possible solution here

Amy Martin:

is to sort out the brucellosis infected animals from the

Amy Martin:

Yellowstone herd and use some of the animals that are disease

Amy Martin:

free to establish new herds in other places. I'm going to tell

Amy Martin:

you about some people who are trying to do just that and the

Amy Martin:

opposition they're facing, but let's save that for a future

Amy Martin:

episode. I've already thrown a whole lot at you here, lots of

Amy Martin:

numbers, weird words, like brucellosis, so kudos to you for

Amy Martin:

hanging in there. This is all stuff you need to know in order

Amy Martin:

to help the country make smart decisions about the future of

Amy Martin:

this animal. But I had the advantage of learning about it

Amy Martin:

while driving around on this gorgeous landscape where at any

Amy Martin:

moment, something like this could happen.

Chris Jeremiah:

I'm going to have to pull over

Amy Martin:

Rick and Chris and I have come around to bend in the

Amy Martin:

road, and suddenly there are bison all around us, all sides

Amy Martin:

of the truck. It's almost like for a few minutes, we're in the

Amy Martin:

herd. You can see pictures on our website.

Amy Martin:

Hey, this is awesome.

Amy Martin:

The bison are walking so close to us that if I rolled down the

Amy Martin:

window and reached out my hand, I could touch them, which I

Amy Martin:

don't do. And by the way, you shouldn't do that either, if you

Amy Martin:

ever come to Yellowstone, these are wild animals.

Amy Martin:

Oh God, the calves are really adorable. There's just not

Amy Martin:

getting around it. That's pretty amazing.

Amy Martin:

Some people dispute the idea that Yellowstone bison are wild,

Amy Martin:

and it's true that they have a weird existence of being

Amy Martin:

constantly stared at and photographed and argued over. So

Amy Martin:

they're not as wild as they could be, but they're a lot more

Amy Martin:

wild than most bison alive today.

Rick Wallen:

Well, since the evolution of man, we've been

Rick Wallen:

domesticating wild animals, and bison are in the beginning

Rick Wallen:

stages of that process.

Amy Martin:

There are close to half a million bison living in

Amy Martin:

North America today, but the vast majority of those are

Amy Martin:

domesticated. They're managed as livestock on farms and ranches

Amy Martin:

and often interbred with cattle. These are the bison that end up

Amy Martin:

on your dinner plate. Only about 30,000 bison are protected as

Amy Martin:

wild animals, and of those, more than half are split up into very

Amy Martin:

small herds. They're not evolving on a big landscape with

Amy Martin:

predators and other natural pressures.

Rick Wallen:

Even amongst the conservation herds, there's, you

Rick Wallen:

know, hints of domestication going on. So though truly wild

Rick Wallen:

populations, at least in the lower 48 states, are limited to

Rick Wallen:

probably three populations.

Amy Martin:

That's the Henry Mountains herd in Utah, the

Amy Martin:

Jackson herd in Wyoming, and the Yellowstone herd, which is by

Amy Martin:

far the biggest. These are the only bison herds in the

Amy Martin:

continental US that have a chance to use and hone their

Amy Martin:

greatest survival technique, that herd intelligence that I

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mentioned earlier.

Unknown:

You see examples of that all over the place.

Amy Martin:

We're going to wrap up this first episode with a

Amy Martin:

story Rick told me when I came back to interview him in June.

Amy Martin:

We were walking through the park and hundreds of calves had been

Amy Martin:

born just a few weeks before. It made Rick think of something

Amy Martin:

that he'd witnessed several years ago, around that same time

Amy Martin:

of year, when he and his team were doing their annual

Amy Martin:

springtime bison census.

Rick Wallen:

I'd encountered a group that turned out to be

Rick Wallen:

something like eight or 900 animals, and there were a lot of

Rick Wallen:

moms with relatively young calves, two or three months. A

Rick Wallen:

couple of little calves didn't want to cross the river. You

Rick Wallen:

know, they were nervous. I don't know if they had a bad

Rick Wallen:

experience before or what. There were a couple of moms that would

Rick Wallen:

go in the water and they would they would have these

Rick Wallen:

communication sessions. And I had no idea what they were

Rick Wallen:

saying, but they were clearly communicating. And mom would

Rick Wallen:

take off, and the little calf would stay and rebel. Mom would

Rick Wallen:

come back, and they'd have their little session again, she would

Rick Wallen:

take off again, and eventually the little calf would go and

Rick Wallen:

over time, over that whole group, there were several of

Rick Wallen:

them that were doing that, and there were females that would

Rick Wallen:

simply convince their little ones to get in their eddy. And

Rick Wallen:

so as they're crossing the river, the calf would get in the

Rick Wallen:

little eddy, and it was much easier to cruise. And then there

Rick Wallen:

were females that would put their calf, like on the backside

Rick Wallen:

of them, so they were sort of slipstreamed. It was almost as

Rick Wallen:

if they were pulling them across the river. And there were

Rick Wallen:

clearly calves that said, No way, Mom, I can do this on my

Rick Wallen:

own. And they're going all over the place. And so at the other

Rick Wallen:

end, some of those little ones were getting out 100 yards

Rick Wallen:

downstream. Mom was getting up, and they're having their you

Rick Wallen:

know, I told you to stay close to me, kind of conversation. And

Rick Wallen:

then there were a couple that the female actually finally gave

Rick Wallen:

up and went all the way across the river and was trying to

Rick Wallen:

convince the little one from the other side of the river. You

Rick Wallen:

know, you wouldn't listen to me. Now, you're on your own, and you

Rick Wallen:

got to do it on your own. And in the end, they all crossed the

Rick Wallen:

river. Everyone was safe. There was a whole lot of scattering of

Rick Wallen:

those little calves because a lot of them didn't land at the

Rick Wallen:

same spot that the rest of them did. There's a variety of ways

Rick Wallen:

to solve problems. And bison mothers, you know, just

Rick Wallen:

systematically work through the process. And well, if this

Rick Wallen:

doesn't work, they try something different, and that's no

Rick Wallen:

different than any species, including humans. It's no wonder

Rick Wallen:

they've been so successful at being restored to the

Rick Wallen:

Yellowstone landscape that they look out for each other by and

Rick Wallen:

large.

Amy Martin:

This is what Rick is working for, this chance for

Amy Martin:

bison to be bison to be tested by their environment and to

Amy Martin:

become stronger through that process.

Rick Wallen:

To protect the wild and wild bison.

Amy Martin:

Why is it important to protect the wild and wild

Amy Martin:

bison?

Rick Wallen:

Otherwise they go extinct.

Donnie:

This is the way nature started and we destroyed it

Donnie:

almost, you know. So that's how we come up here. This is where

Donnie:

it's supposed to be. You know they were here first.

Mike:

Well, it gives you an idea just what the world's all about.

Mike:

You get used to your own little environment, and you think

Mike:

that's it. This is spectacular.

Ethan:

It's just amazing what a very big place can do for

Ethan:

wildlife.

Amy Martin:

But like I said earlier, not everybody who looks

Amy Martin:

at this herd of bison sees the same thing.

Drusca Kinkie:

I don't think in Montana there is a place for

Drusca Kinkie:

free roaming bison period.

Amy Martin:

This is Drusca Kinkie. She's a cattle rancher,

Amy Martin:

and we're gonna hear her perspective later this season

Amy Martin:

and in our next episode, we need to fill a big gaping hole in

Amy Martin:

this story, the space between 50 million bison and 23 what

Amy Martin:

happened in between those two numbers? How did we go from such

Amy Martin:

abundance to such scarcity?

Germaine:

The elders never imagined that there would be a

Germaine:

time that there were not bison here for us.

Amy Martin:

Find out next time on Threshold. Threshold is

Amy Martin:

produced by me, Amy Martin, with help from Nick Mott, Zoe Rom,

Amy Martin:

Jackson Barnett, Nora Sachs and Josh Burnham. Special thanks to

Amy Martin:

Michael Wright, Nicky Oulette, Ross Taylor, Rae Ellen Bichell,

Amy Martin:

John Barth, and Michael Connor for their help on this episode.

Amy Martin:

The music is by Travis Yost.

Nick Mott:

This episode was sponsored by hurrah lip balms.

Nick Mott:

That's hurrah with a W and by Montana Public Radio, and also

Nick Mott:

by listeners like you.

Amy Martin:

I am so close to so many bison and they are so

Amy Martin:

quiet. Come on guys, this is radio. I need you to speak up.

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