The legal argument Interior is using doesn't hold up against the law it's citing. The Taylor Grazing Act - written in 1934 when Great Plains topsoil was literally blowing into Washington DC - does not contain the phrase "production-oriented purposes." That's the phrase Burgum's decision uses to justify evicting 950 bison from land they've grazed for 20 years. Congress has never defined "livestock" to exclude buffalo. Montana state law defines bison as livestock explicitly. American Prairie runs a slaughterhouse. It sells buffalo meat. It ear-tags, inoculates, fences and manages its herd. The neighboring fourth-generation cattle rancher who fought American Prairie's arrival says brucellosis turned out to be a non-issue and the buffalo have been good neighbors for 15 years. He now leases land from them. When cattle move in where the bison were evicted, their owners will pay BLM grazing fees running roughly 90 percent below private-market rates in Montana. The Coalition of Large Tribes - 50 tribes, 25,000 buffalo - says Interior's ruling would make it nearly impossible for any tribal government to ever qualify for BLM bison leases. Their executive director called it "DEI for cows." The agency proposing this ban has a buffalo on its official seal.
