Burgum Wants to Ban Buffalo from Grazing Public Land

In another expression of its 19th-century mentality, the Trump Administration is trying to get rid of buffalo.

No, really—if Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has his way, the federal government won’t let tatanka graze on public land:

Acceding to anti-bison grumbling from cattle ranchers and Republican politicians in Montana, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in January proposed canceling leases for buffalo grazing on federal land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

…Now, in the MAGA era, with Interior reversing the Biden administration’s determination that conservation is a use of BLM land on par with grazing and resource extraction, Burgum has ruled that since bison here in north-central Montana are not being raised for “production-oriented purposes,” they have no legal right to roam, wallow or munch grass on land leased from the bureau.

If the ruling becomes final, which may occur this spring, more than 950 buffalo will be evicted from tens of thousands of acres of federal land, some of which they have been grazing on, behind stout electric fences and without major incident, for 20 years.

Cows will then mosey on in, and their owners will benefit from the hugely discounted grazing leases available from the BLM. It charges a per-animal fee that is about 90 percent cheaper than fees charged for grazing livestock on privately owned land in this state [Blaine Harden, “Trump Administration Targets Bison on Federal Grazing Lands,” Inside Climate News, 2026.04.05].

American Prairie, the non-profit that would lose its BLM leases in Montana, focuses on the ecological goals of restoring buffalo to the Great Plains, but they sell and donate buffalo meat. The Coalition of Large Tribes runs buffalo for “production-oriented purposes”—i.e., feeding Native people—and fears it, too, would lose out under Burgum anti-buffalo ruling:

Coalition tribes run bison on reservation land but plan to shift some of their growing herds to BLM grazing lands, which total about 155 million acres. Much of this land is threaded through and around large reservations. Tribes raise buffalo for spiritual, ecological and nutritional purposes—and sell buffalo meat (about 25 percent leaner than beef) for profit. Two tribes in California, the Pit River Tribe and the Fort Bidwell Indian Community, are actively seeking BLM grazing leases for their bison.

In a blistering notice of protest to Interior, the coalition’s lawyers said that “as the proposed decision is currently written, it is unlikely that any tribal government or tribal citizen buffalo herd would ever be eligible for BLM grazing leases” [Harden, 2026.04.05].

Montana legislators Tyson Running Wolf and Tom France say the United States is once again breaking its own laws to punish tribal nations:

Given the stakes, the Coalition of Large Tribes – advocating for more than 50 tribal nations, including the Blackfeet Nation and the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana – has filed a formal protest of the BLM’s unprecedented and unlawful decision. Federal law is clear: statutes affecting tribes must be interpreted in their favor and ambiguities must be resolved to protect tribal rights.

The consequences of the BLM’s illegal action are immediate and profound. Terminating these permits disrupts herd genetics, intertribal gifting traditions, treaty territories and longstanding cooperative relationships. It also establishes a dangerous precedent for other federal agencies engaged in tribal co-stewardship and wildlife restoration, not only for Montana tribes but for tribes everywhere. If bison being managed for conservation can be categorically excluded from federal lands, decades of collaborative progress are jeopardized.

Perhaps most alarming, this decision amounts to rulemaking by fiat. In order to reach the result demanded by the Gianforte administration, the BLM acted without meaningful consultation with either tribes or the public.

Federal law is clear. Actions and decisions affecting tribes require consultation, yet no meaningful effort has been made by either the BLM or the Gianforte administration to fulfill this binding obligation. If this failure to consult is allowed to stand, tribes across the West will be harmed by the precedent [Tyson Running Wolf and Tom France, “Where the Buffalo Roam,” Durango Telegraph, 2026.03.26].

Coalition of Large Tribes executive director OJ Semans says Burgum’s dubious reinterpretation of the 1934 Taylor Grazing Act threatens tribal culture and the Great Plains ecosystem:

“Many tribes are starting to bring buffalo back into their culture, and many of them are surrounded by federal lands,” said Oliver “OJ” Semans Sr., executive director of COLT. “If these rules are put in place legally, it could affect all of the Montana tribes. The way the BLM decision is written would make it impossible for tribes to secure BLM buffalo grazing permits in the future.”

Semans is an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, or Sicangu Oyate, and lives on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. The reservation is home to the 28,000-acre Wolak̇ota Buffalo Range, which sustains the largest tribally managed herd in the United States.

“The Taylor Grazing Act was never, ever an issue,” Semans said. “The only time it became an issue after 100 years is when BLM decided that they’re going to ban our national mammal, the buffalo, from our national lands.”

Semans said the proposed decision is “ironic” because it undermines one of the key principles of the TGA, which aims to “stop injury to the public grazing lands by preventing overgrazing and soil deterioration, to provide for their orderly use, improvement and development, to stabilize the livestock industry dependent upon the public range …”

“We have 1,500 head of buffalo. It used to be cattle, and when we put buffalo back on the land it changed the ecosystem,” Semans said. “The animals that were gone came back. We started getting foxes. The traditional plants that were gone under the cattle started coming back” [Leah Varess, “‘Slippery Slope’: American Prairie, Tribes Await Decision on Bison Grazing Permits,” Bozeman Daily Chronicle, 2026.03.07].

Hurting Indians and the ecosystem are key planks of Trumpism, but one non-tribal Hermosa rancher fears Trump and Burgum will come after his buffalo operation next:

Non-tribal buffalo ranchers with federal land leases are also up in arms. Colton Jones, an owner of the Wild Idea Buffalo Company in Hermosa, South Dakota, said he fears that his lease for bison grazing on 26,000 acres of U.S. Forest Service land, which is part of the Department of Agriculture rather than Interior, will be the next target of “politics and pressure from the current administration.”

“This action is not only unnecessary and politically motivated, but it also sets a deeply troubling precedent that threatens the livelihoods of family-owned bison operations like ours and the many ranchers with whom we maintain longstanding business relationships,” Jones said in a letter to the BLM state office in Montana [Harden, 2026.04.05].

Restoring buffalo feeds people, revitalizes Native culture, and makes the prairie healthier for all of its inhabitants. Boosting buffalo herds in their native habitat helps right one of the profound ecological and moral harms our ancestors inflicted on this land and its inhabitants when we invaded over a century and a half ago. But Burgum and the rest of the Trump cult are determined to do exactly the opposite, just to reinforce their sense of white male entitlement.