First Buffalo to Enter Montana Met with Gunfire

A buffalo approaches Yellowstone’s boundary, entering Beattie Gulch, where hunters await. Photo by Stephany Seay, Buffalo Field Campaign.

Published March 9, 2019

YELLOWSTONE PARK — Hardly any buffalo have migrated from Yellowstone into Montana this winter. The few who had come close didn’t stay long before heading deeper into the park. Regardless, hunters have been coming to the Gardiner and Hebgen Basins just hoping to find buffalo to kill, finding an empty landscape. Yesterday, however, a handful of hunters got their wish in Gardiner. No sooner than the first group of buffalo had migrated into Montana, fourteen were shot just across Yellowstone’s north boundary, at the infamous Beattie Gulch.

Two of the buffalo who were shot fled back into the Park and were later found dead on the road. Those two buffalo will not go to huntersSome of the surviving buffalo retreated to the high hills, while a few others returned to the Park. As of this writing, there are once again no buffalo in Montana.

One of the buffalo who was shot, fled into the Park, then died there. Photo by David Steinle-Neumann, Buffalo Field Campaign.

Is it any wonder that buffalo have been staying out of Montana when this is the kind of welcome they receive? Through trapping and hunting, buffalo managers (read: killers) are letting buffalo know that Montana is not a safe place to be. Not only that, but the excessive killing year after year doesn’t go without consequence.

Buffalo aren’t born knowing the best places to migrate, they are taught this by their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. It is these buffalo who know the best routes to the best water, the best grass, and it is these buffalo who continue to fall victim to hunters’ guns and Yellowstone’s trap. There can be no doubt that migratory memory is being compromised; certainly buffalo behavior is changing due to these nefarious management actions.