Federal officials begin Bison Range planning

Officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began outlining the process to draft a new, 15-year management plan for the National Bison Range during meetings in Polson and Kalispell this week.

The team leader for the planning group, Bernardo Garza, explained to about 20 people gathered at the Kalispell ImagineIF Library’s meeting room Wednesday night that the planning process will result in two separate “Comprehensive Conservation Plans” — one for the Bison Range and a separate plan for the other units in the National Bison Range Complex.

“The CCPs outline clear goals, objectives, strategies on how we will manage the complex,” Garza said. “These goals help us figure out: how are we going to manage the habitat of the refuge; how will we manage wildlife populations; how will we manage public uses ... how do we manage the infrastructure; how do we manage the partnerships?”

Fundamentally, the two plans will draw from the official purposes of the refuges, as designated by Congress.

Of the 566 units in the National Wildlife Refuge System, the Bison Range is the 10th most-visited, welcoming about 200,000 people per year, refuge project leader Jeff King said. The Bison Range’s original purpose when it was established in 1908 was simply to create a permanent sanctuary for American bison, a species then teetering on the brink of extinction following decades of over-hunting.

Since then, Congress has twice modified the purpose to include providing breeding grounds for more than 200 species of migratory birds and to offer public bison-viewing opportunities.

As a parallel process, the federal agency also is pursuing a comprehensive conservation plan for the other units within the National Bison Range Complex: Ninepipe, Pablo and Lost Trail national wildlife refuges, along with the Northwest Montana Wetland Management Districts.

While the 18,766-acre Bison Range accounts for the lion’s share of the complex, the other three refuges span a combined 13,829 acres in Lake and Flathead counties.

In April, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke made it official: the National Bison Range is not going to be returned to the Flathead Indian Reservation, at least not anytime soon.

But during the Kalispell meeting, several area residents said they still worry about the role the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will play in the range’s long-term management.

Citing issues in the past that led to the federal agency severing a previous cooperative-management arrangement, Missoula resident Susan Campbell Reneau said she worries that a change in policy at the Bison Range will have a ripple effect throughout the National Wildlife Refuge System.

“What happens at the National Bison Range happens at all the refuges,” Campbell Reneau said. “This sets a precedent.”

While the tribes were the only stakeholder listed as a cooperating agency in the notice, published last month, that officially kicked off the new planning process, agency staff said local governments including Lake, Sanders and Flathead counties are also being formally invited to participate as cooperating agencies on equal footing.

Skip Palmer, a former Bison Range staffer who lives in Charlo, was also critical of the tribes’ inclusion in the planning process. Like Campbell Reneau, Palmer is one of nearly a dozen plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Fish and Wildlife Service in May 2016.

Spearheaded by the organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the lawsuit alleges that the federal agency failed to follow environmental laws when it began exploring the idea of transferring the lands back to the tribes.

Tribal officials have countered the group’s narrative by pointing to their history of natural-resource management at the Ninepipe and Pablo refuges, as well as overseeing the strictly protected Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness, which spans nearly 92,000 acres. They also note the federal government unilaterally removed the land that became the Bison Range from the Flathead Indian Reservation when it was established.

The agency hopes to finish developing its basic objectives for the plans by the end of this summer, after which it will begin developing a range of management alternatives. A draft version of those alternatives and another public-comment period is expected to follow in the spring of 2018.

For more information about the plans or direction on how to provide comments, visit fws.gov/mountain-prairie/refuges/nbrc.php.

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.