Bison meat donated to tribes, food banks

By SCOTT McMILLION, Chronicle Staff Writer

At least 100 bison have been captured in Yellowstone National Park since Saturday, and dozens of them will be shipped to slaughter, with the meat being distributed to Native American organizations and individuals as well as food banks.

However, one prominent Indian group is urging its 53 member tribes not to cooperate with the program.

"We been discouraging the tribes from" accepting the meat, heads and hides, said Fred DuBray, executive director of the InterTribal Bison Cooperative, which is headquartered in Rapid City, S.D.

"It's too easy for the officials to claim they're doing these tribes a favor," DuBray said Monday in a telephone interview.

However, he acknowledged that some individuals and tribal groups are working with the Montana Department of Livestock, which handles the slaughter of animals exposed to brucellosis and distribution of their parts.

"I know there's people who could use the meat," he said. "And they're going to be killing (the bison) anyway."

DOL spokeswoman Karen Cooper said her office keeps an active waiting list of people and groups that want the meat.

"There are a lot of people and agencies on that list," she said. "In the past few years, we haven't had a problem donating the meat."

The recipients are prioritized according to their needs, location and the timing of its request, Cooper said. Many Indians attach spiritual importance to bison.

DuBray's group assisted with bison killings in the mid-1990s, often sending big work crews of tribal members to process bison killed in the field. They were especially busy during the winter of 1996-97, when 1,300 bison were killed, sometimes scores of them at a time.

Then ITBC decided it didn't want to help any longer.

"Some of the agencies were using (the tribal participation) to justify that management process," he said. "We had fully expected that would be a temporary thing."

But the process continues today, with some new wrinkles.

Bison are rarely shot in the field anymore. Generally, when hazing fails to keep them inside Yellowstone, the shaggy giants are herded or lured into traps, then loaded into trailers and hauled to slaughterhouses.

Both state and federal agencies have agreed to use that plan.

ITBC has a plan of its own, one that would ship live bison to a quarantine facility. Once animals are declared disease free -- a process that can take repeated tests over a couple years -- they would be distributed to member tribes. On the reservations, they would become breeding stock instead of table meat.

"That's probably the most important gene pool out there," DuBray said of Yellowstone's free-ranging, genetically pure herd. "And nobody has access to it at this point."

The idea of a quarantine facility has been discussed for years, but hasn't gone far. DuBray said the Fort Belknap Reservation in northeastern Montana has offered land for a facility, as has the Choctaw Reservation in Oklahoma.

Over the past 10 days, the Park Service has trapped almost 200 bison, including 71 on Saturday and 32 to 36 on Monday afternoon. Of those, 131 had been tested for brucellosis, according to park spokeswoman Cheryl Matthews.

Of the tested animals, 69 tested positive and have been sent to slaughter and 62 have tested negative and will be held in a corral until spring, when they will be released inside the park.

The remaining animals will be tested Tuesday, Matthews said.

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