Variance sets up 10-year truce in fight over Montana bison

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A new agreement has established a truce in a long-running dispute over the management of bison on Montana’s north central prairie.

An adjustment board appointed by the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation approved an agreement between American Prairie Reserve and the Phillips County Conservation District, The Billings Gazette reported Wednesday.

The agreement grants American Prairie Reserve a 10-year variance from the Phillips County bison grazing ordinance.

The reserve agreed to provide a disease identification and management plan and disease testing for 325 bison in the first five years and to scale back to 150 bison in the next five years. All of the tested bison will be tagged.

The conservation district and intervenors agreed not to enact more ordinance provisions during the 10-year period.

“As a whole, this laid out a really good framework for a testing and monitoring program,” said Dale Krause, one of three adjustment board members.

In 2016, a majority of conservation district members approved an ordinance to protect the district’s soil and water resources from depletion related to bison and buffalo grazing.

The reserve challenged the ordinance. The conservation district received support from a group on intervenors representing the Phillips County Livestock Association and the South Phillips County Cooperative State Grazing District.

Beth Saboe of American Prairie Reserve said in an email that “we have always met (or in some cases exceeded) state Department of Livestock disease testing requirements, and this agreement expands our already robust disease testing protocol.”

The reserve has grown its herd to 800 bison with the goal of establishing a conservation herd of 10,000 bison. The organization also provides grazing leases to ranchers for 13,000 head of cattle.

The reserve has met resistance from local landowners and cattle producers since its arrival in Phillips County in 2005.

Rancher Perri Jacobs, who testified in support of the conservation district, said the agreement provides comfort to ranchers because of the reserve’s agreement to be more transparent about disease testing.

“It’s a good place to start to address the concerns of myself” and others, Jacobs said.