Going to Bison

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Each February trucks line the road up Beattie Gulch, a typical small Montana valley with one important, invisible feature: the boundary between Yellowstone National Park and less restricted public lands. Bison from Yellowstone graze and amble in the upper valley, safely ensconced within the National Park system. It would take an act of Congress to allow for the Native American men and women waiting in the valley below to shoot one of the animals. That's why the Native Americans who have come from as far as Wisconsin and Oregon mill around their trucks, drinking coffee, readying guns and waiting for the bison to unknowingly cross the prairie-grass rubicon.

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An ongoing series documenting how we view bison, as livestock or wildlife. See the New York Times story here.