A bison that killed a 70-year-old Canadian hiker on the Grace Coolidge Trail in Custer State Park last month has been spared the death penalty. South Dakota Game Fish and Parks initially moved and monitored the bull and was considering killing it, but on Wednesday, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe GF&P announced that it was taking custody of the bison to prevent the state from putting it down.
Rosebud GF&P director Matt Tucker indicates this clemency comes with Governor Larry Rhoden’s blessing:
“I was contacted by Troy Heinert, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Branch Chief about the situation. Already aware of the situation, I said, ‘Let’s do it; we’ll save him.’ Troy said that he had already talked to Governor Rhoden and Secretary Robling and we would be able to take the bull. I was lucky enough to be the first one to answer the phone.”
Tucker said the decision for them to step in and save the bison was a no brainer and they are very grateful to the State of South Dakota, so that the tribes were considered to take and care of their relative [punctuation added to clarify quote; Michael Doorn, “Rosebud Sioux Tribe: ‘It’s Our Duty’ as Bison Enters Care,” KELO-TV, 2026.06.12].
RST GF&P’s FB announcement also includes Governor Rhoden at the top of its Pilámaya list.
According to Tucker, the bison has to leave Custer State Park. If the bull passes a veterinary exam at Dakota Partnership Ranch east of Fairburn, the tribe will move it to their buffalo range southwest of Rosebud.
Just 150 years ago bison would be clearing the grasses that drive large wildfires. Indigenous peoples set at least 47% of fires in the Interior West between 1776 and 1900 because smoke from Indigenous cultural fire has been long-applied to control tree pests. Today, restoring and rewilding American ecosystems are parts of the Green New Deal.
The Anthropocene is now and time to rewild some of the American West eventually becoming part of a Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge connecting the CM Russell in Montana along the Missouri River through North Dakota to Oacoma, South Dakota combined with corridors from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon in the north and south to the Pecos River through eastern Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
Well just a few years ago we went to Custer State Park and drove among the herd. My wife took some great shots of them since they were overflowing on the highway.
We didn’t get out but it was a great experience.
Lar, the dates are between 1776 and 2026, and the percentage is 49%. You know this.
Should be easier to do, Kurtz, than force feeding another pipeline that will leak all over the place.
He will go to a wonderful place. 30,000 wide open isolated acres with many other bison and no people walking around. Hiking in a bison pasture is not a good thing to do. What a tragedy. Even though they look very stoic and peaceful their power, speed and agility are the results of thousands of years of evolution across the great plains. To know of the millions ruthlessly killed for entertainment and to destroy the indigenous way of life is to recognize the evil humanity is capable of. What always struck me is when people say they hunted a buffalo. Really, more like you went and shot one. No hunting to it. Get on a horse with a bow and harvest one. That’s hunting. Let this fellow live his life out in peace. The people who will watch him will do it with forgiveness, prayer and care. Its the Wolakota buffalo range. Thank you Rosebud.
There are Indigenous Nations who can afford to buy much of the land in the public domain if it indeed goes up for sale and after a 23-year effort and $56 million about 47,000 acres in the Klamath Basin have been returned to the Yurok Tribe after studies showed how conservation goals are more effectively met when Indigenous peoples manage their own territories. There is at least a $billion in the fund for the Black Hills Claim just for instance so some day tribes will buy some of their own land from the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in occupied South Dakota and Wyoming.
https://ndncollective.org/all-nine-south-dakota-tribes-pass-resolutions-supporting-developing-legislation-to-return-federal-lands/
Buy their own land back smells like a feloin/rapist scheme to get richer.
I would bet that if the tribes had been given the reparation funds that Iran will receive, they could buy back much more land.
Just another ignorant, racist smear from grdz to please putin and his puppets.
GOP — “Guns Over People”
Indigenous peoples set at least 41-47% of fires in the Interior West between 1776 and 1900 to actively manage the landscape. Controlled “cultural burns” were essential for their survival, serving to clear underbrush, improve grazing for game and horses, manage tree pests, stimulate berry growth, and reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Last comment came from US Forest Service (guv) page 3