LETTER: Transfer of bison range opposed

Like most Americans and Montanans, I oppose disposition of federal land. So, it was amazing to see the Montana Conservation Voters, a leftist environmental advocacy group which professes to protect public lands, endorse giving a Federal Wildlife Refuge worth tens of millions of dollars to a sovereign nation. But that is exactly the result of transferring ownership of the National Bison Range to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

Apparently, Montana Conservation Voters is more politically concerned about “tribal self-determination” and ignores the real history of the Bison Range. Created by Congress and Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, the Bison Range initially had 40 bison purchased from private individuals by the American Bison Society with private donations. Ensuing decades of taxpayer-funded improvements have transformed the Bison Range into a world-class game park.

The tribes have been paid market value twice for the Bison Range land: first in 1910 and second in 1972, when they received $21.9 million (over $100 million in today’s currency), tax free.

The National Bison Range has been created, developed and paid for by U.S. taxpayers and should continue to be federal land managed by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service experts (expertise which would be lost with tribal ownership). In a recent tribal-sponsored public comment period, only 53 percent of respondents supported transfer of the Bison Range to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, hardly a mandate. Let Montana Conservation Voters, our congressional delegation, the governor and the tribes know that we want the Bison Range to remain public land. —Philip L. Barney, Polson, president of Protect Public Land LLC