In 1987, Fort Peck tribes returned over 100 bison to 5,800 acres; decades later they stopped hunting their own herd to restore the original cultural purpose | World News

​Representative Image of the Fort Peck buffalo herd grazing across a vast 33,000-acre prairie (AI-generated image)

In 1987, tribal leaders on the Fort Peck Reservation in northeastern Montana began working to restore buffalo to Assiniboine and Sioux lands, reviving an animal central to their culture, spirituality and way of life. Two years later, the tribes purchased more than 100 bison from the nearby Fort Belknap Reservation and established a herd on 5,800 acres. What began as a cultural restoration effort eventually developed an economic component as the costs of managing a large, roaming herd grew and Fort Peck began allowing paying hunters from outside the reservation to hunt its bison. The hunts generated revenue, but over time tribal elders became concerned that the program was drifting away from the reason the buffalo had been brought back in the first place. Fort Peck ultimately ended the commercial hunting operation and shifted toward a system in which tribal members could hunt through a cultural lottery, allowing hunting to remain part of the herd’s purpose while putting the community rather than outside customers at the centre of the program.

Why Fort Peck elders decided the bison program had lost its way

According to the Property and Environment Research Centre, Robert Magnan, who has managed Fort Peck’s buffalo program for nearly 15 years, said the change came after tribal elders told program leaders that the community had lost sight of the purpose behind bringing the buffalo back. The issue was not hunting itself, which remains an important part of the tribes’ relationship with the animal, but the decision to make the herd available to outside hunters for a fee. Once commercial hunts became an important source of income, the economic value of the animals risked overshadowing their cultural role. Fort Peck therefore stopped selling hunts to outsiders and redirected hunting opportunities toward tribal members. The cultural lottery now issues a limited number of tags each year, with demand exceeding supply. Around 50 tags were issued to tribal members last year, demonstrating that hunting remains an active part of the modern buffalo program rather than something the tribes have abandoned.

How Yellowstone bison became part of Fort Peck’s restoration effort

A second chapter in the program’s history began with Yellowstone National Park, where a growing wild bison population created longstanding disputes over how animals could move beyond the park’s boundaries. In 2000, federal and Montana agencies established the Interagency Bison Management Plan, while the InterTribal Buffalo Council later became involved in the management framework. In spring 2012, Montana transferred 61 certified disease-free Yellowstone bison to Fort Peck, prompting a legal challenge from critics who argued that state law required landowner approval for bison movements. In 2013, the Montana Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favour of the tribes, finding that the relevant law did not apply to reservation land in the manner the challengers had argued. The Yellowstone-origin animals subsequently became an important part of Fort Peck’s conservation work, helping the reservation develop its capacity to quarantine and certify disease-free bison for transfer to other tribal communities. That work has turned Fort Peck into an important hub for the broader movement to restore buffalo to Native American lands.

What Fort Peck’s buffalo program looks like today

Fort Peck’s program has expanded dramatically since the original herd was established. The reservation now manages more than 800 bison across roughly 33,000 acres and operates quarantine facilities that support its work with Yellowstone-origin animals. Through the Buffalo Conservation Transfer Program, Fort Peck has distributed disease-free bison to 27 reservations across 16 states, helping other tribes establish or expand their own herds. The program also made its first international transfer to Canada last year. Fort Peck’s longer-term goal is to grow its own herd to about 1,500 bison across 150,000 acres, but the program’s significance is not measured only by animal numbers. The buffalo provide food and support cultural and educational activities, while the transfer programme helps other Indigenous communities rebuild relationships with a species that once shaped life across much of North America. By ending commercial hunts while retaining hunting opportunities for tribal members, Fort Peck has effectively changed who the herd is for: not outside customers seeking a paid hunting experience, but the community whose elders originally brought the buffalo home.