GAME & PARKS (CONT)

The Conservancy also incorporates prescribed fire in its buffalo grazing system. "With the combination of fire and grazing we get benefits we don't get with just fire or just grazing," Steuter said. "We try to burn a couple of 400 acre patches in the spring and a couple of 100 acre patches in late July or August. We burn the areas with the most old-growth grass and heaviest fuels, the areas that have been only lightly grazed in recent years. We also try to burn more than one patch so that the bison move between burned areas."

Steuter explained that buffalo are attracted to the fresh re-growth of grasses after a fire. Their heavy grazing and trampling of burned areas reduces the dominance of prairie grasses for one to three years after the fires. Because of the reduced competition with grasses, the native forbs, including nitrogen-fixing legumes, increase after the burns. The flush of forbs provides an abundance of seeds and high-quality forage for wildlife.
Steuter said the combination of fire and grazing produces a mosaic of habitats including vegetation of varying density and composition. It is used by different groups of grassland birds, mammals and insects, and the forage quality for bison improves. Fire and grazing also prevent woody plants from encroaching on the prairie.
The Conservancy has found that buffalo are not practical on smaller grassland preserves typical of highly farmed landscapes. However, some methods of cattle grazing on smaller preserves accomplish ecological objectives similar to those achieved with buffalo on larger preserves.

Steuter said most of today's landscape is more similar to the patchy European landscape to which cattle are adapted than to the open prairie landscape to which buffalo are adapted. Fortunately, because of the foresight of early conservationist, buffalo survive as a tool for managing large grasslands.

"Restoring buffalo back to health will help restore our people back to health," said Fred Dubray, a member of South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and founder of the InterTribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC). "They are the life blood of our people. We are both natives to the country and our history says at one time we were all the same. That is the spiritual viewpoint of tribal people."

Established in 1992 and based in Rapid City, South Dakota, the ITBC's mission is to restore buffalo to tribal lands in a manner compatible with the spiritual beliefs and practices of Indian people. The ITBC provides its 48 member tribes in 17 states with technical assistance, aid in seeking financial support for herd development and outlets for tribal buffalo products.

Most ITBC member herds are small and not intended as money-making operations, but some tribes are trying to rebuild their economies by raising buffalo. "When the buffalo herds were destroyed, and that was done purposely to weaken the tribes and force them into submission, it had a devastating impact on our economy. We went from a self-sufficient economy to one that was dependent on the federal government," Dubray said.

Last year, the Cheyenne River herd, about 1,000 animals (up from 80 in 1990), produced $27,000 distributed among 18 reservation communities, although relatively few animals were slaughtered. Recently the tribe acquired the nation's first mobile slaughter facility designed for field killing and processing buffalo. The $1.5 million unit is modeled on one designed for butchering reindeer in Scandinavia.

Many ITBC member tribes, as well as some non-tribal buffalo producers, advocate raising buffalo in the most natural way possible. "Subjected to shots, rounded up and worked just like cattle through corral systems, then put in feedlots and finished on grain, and the genetic selection to produce bigger animals -- it's offensive to the animal and very damaging to the species," Dubray said. "That's all part of domestication and commercialization. For us, respect for the animal is the bottom line rather than profit."

Three Nebraska tribes, the Winnebago, Santee Sioux and Ponca, are ITBC members. Louie LaRose, bison manager on the Winnebago Indian reservation in northeastern Nebraska, said the tribe's herd was established in part as an alternative food source for tribal diabetics. About 35 percent of all reservation dwellers nationwide are afflicted with the disease linked to the sedentary reservation lifestyle and a diet high in fats and sugars. LaRose believes the best diet for tribal diabetics is one similar to the tribe's pre-treaty diet which included a high proportion of buffalo meat.