The American Prairie Reserve (APR) nonprofit has plans to “create the largest nature reserve in the continental United States.” If completed, the reserve will span more than three million acres of private and public land and be home to thousands of bison. However, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) must first approve a proposal to change grazing allotments for the reserve to happen.
APR currently controls 18 private “base properties” in northcentral Montana that are managed by BLM and tied to grazing allotments, according to a released statement from BLM. In November 2017, APR submitted a proposal to modify the grazing permits on the allotments. The proposal requested 10-year grazing permits for the 18 allotments located within the BLM’s Glasgow, Lewistown, and Malta Field Offices, and the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument.
The proposal included: changing kind of livestock type from cattle to bison; changing seasonal use to year-round grazing; removing interior allotment fencing to create one large pasture; and electrifying perimeter fencing.
APR proposes BLM authorize 31,893 animal unit months (AUMs) on 260,893 BLM acres. An animal unit month is calculated by multiplying the number of animal units by the number of months grazing.
In addition, APR requests BLM include in the allotments 29,309 acres of State of Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) land and 86,426 acres of APR deeded land for an additional 4,440 and 19,235 AUMs respectively. This would allow up to 4,631 bison for year-long grazing on the allotments, according to calculations using the NRCS method for below normal precipitation years.
Although the BLM has no authority over state of Montana DNRC land or APR deeded land, the organization included the information in the proposal to display APR’s full intent, the proposal read.
The APR proposal also proposes to add all state and APR deeded acres to the grazing permit for each APR ownership unit. Additionally, it would authorize the maximum number of livestock associated with the BLM, state, and APR deeded acres with the permits because “the proposal creates one pasture for all of these ownerships.”
APR also proposes that one BLM allotment be split into two separate allotments: the first made up of two pastures issued to American Prairie Foundation, and the other allotment a pasture issued to two cattle ranchers. APR notes that if the ranchers are unwilling to split the allotment, “another alternative is to run APR indigenous animals in common with the cattle on the entire allotment.”
APR proposes 298.5 miles of existing fence be removed from the landscape from the original 717.2 miles of fencing. Additionally, APR suggests construction of 35.2 miles of fence, reconstruction of 250.9 miles, and electrification of 49 miles, totaling 453.9 miles of fence in the proposed project area.
“When APR reconstructs a perimeter fence, which does not belong to the BLM, they offer the salvage materials from any fence being removed to the adjacent landowner or leaser, whenever possible, and free of charge,” the proposal reads. “This ensures at least a portion of the financial investment the adjacent owner or leaser had in the fence materials is returned to them.”
The proposal continued, “APR commits to perform 100 percent of the maintenance of all perimeter fences of areas stocked with bison, thereby relieving adjacent landowners of any fence maintenance responsibilities they would otherwise have under Montana State Statute.”
BLM held meetings in Winnett, Winifred, Malta and Glasgow in spring 2018 to seek public recommendations on topics the BLM should consider in their environmental analysis. A total of 2,497 submissions received and 24 summary issue statements were developed and released on Feb. 8, 2019. The BLM will prepare an environmental analysis over the key issues determined and will notify the public once the assessment is complete. — Anna Miller, WLJ correspondent
