Wild bison crossing into Colorado from Utah gain protection under new law
Colorado previously treated bison who reintroduced themselves to the state as livestock, leading to over a dozen killed in a decade
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American bison appear to have better PR agents than gray wolves.
While Coloradans continue to debate the wisdom of wolf reintroduction five years after a public authorization vote, bison that reintroduce themselves to the state by walking across the border from Utah just got the backing of Colorado law.
Before this year’s legislative session, Colorado law treated bison like livestock, and people could shoot the hulking visitors from Utah without consequence. State wildlife officials told a Senate committee that’s happened a dozen times over 10 years.
Senate Bill 53, signed by Gov. Jared Polis, switches the bison’s designation to big game animal, and makes shooting them a poaching offense. The bill also directs Colorado Parks and Wildlife to set up a licensing and hunting protocol for bison, similar to other big game species such as bighorn sheep, mountain lions or elk. There are no immediate plans to create a hunting season, state wildlife officials said, given the small numbers involved, but the division wanted to be ready.
The Sierra Club and other animal defenders applauded the bill, saying far too many bison were slaughtered needlessly as white hunters and railroad employees wiped out more than 30 million of the valuable bovids in the late 1800s. The iconic signature animal, life support and cultural touchstone for many Native American tribes, dwindled to just a few hundred in the wild.
Populations are reviving, but mostly as captive demonstration herds or livestock raised for food on sprawling Western ranches. There are small herds for the public to see at Genesee Park along Interstate 70 west of Denver, and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge near DIA.
Utah’s northeastern Bookcliffs region hosts about 150 wild bison, and they sometimes wander in north of I-70.
“In recent decades, efforts to restore bison on Tribal and public lands have gained momentum for their role as keystone species and in Tribal cultures,” the Sierra Club said in a release. “The Protect Wild Bison bill recognizes those values, and as Utah has shown, bison can live on the landscape and play an important role in restoring grassland ecosystems.”
Colorado ranchers like Dallas May who are trying to restore resilient grassland habitat say the hooves of the massive bison helped push seeds deep into soil and break up older, stagnant pasture.
“This is a really important animal to Colorado,” said primary sponsor Sen. Jessie Danielson, D-Wheat Ridge, at a March committee hearing on the bill.
“Bison have been key to our survival and spirit,” said Southern Ute Tribal Council member Andy Gallegos, supporting the bill’s protections of wild bison attempting a revival straddling the Utah-Colorado border.
“This bill is amazing and powerful,” said Ean Tafoya, a vice president of Colorado GreenLatinos who also mentioned his Native American family heritage. Colorado communities welcomed the bill’s acknowledgement of the bison’s importance to the environment and to the physical and spiritual lives of tribes, Tafoya said.
Ute tribes, however, wanted to add in protections for their current relationship with bison herds, where captive domestic bison on reservations are kept for meat, hides, bone tools and crafts, as well as spiritual ceremonies. The bill must keep bison raised in domestic herds classified as “livestock” so that tribes can be compensated from state funds if reintroduced gray wolves slaughter animals, leaders said.
The Utah wild bison were intentionally reintroduced in areas across the Colorado border northwest of Grand Junction in 1986 by the Ute Creek Tribe, said Colorado Parks and Wildlife big game manager Andy Holland. The total population managed as wildlife by the state of Utah is about 580, Holland said.
The subherd whose members occasionally thunder into Colorado holds about 130 bison, he added.
Legislators amending the bill to the tribes’ requests also asked state officials whether they planned their own reestablishment of wild herds inside Colorado, and whether the wandering Utah bison carried diseases that could devastate other wildlife or domestic herds.
Holland said the Utah bison do not carry any threatening diseases. Colorado does not plan its own reintroduction or reestablishment, Holland added, but will instead watch how the newly-protected incoming bison survive under their new status.
Fines for poaching a wild bison under the new bill are as eye-opening as for other protected species, state officials noted: As with an illegal taking of a bald eagle, downing a bison could cost up to $100,000.
