Shana Drimal:
That was one of those moments where I just realized like, "Wow, there's something very special about these animals." And that wasn't the only time that I saw a behavior like that especially with the mothers and their calves. And just as a species in general, they're so protective of each other.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Hello there, and welcome to Voices of Greater Yellowstone. I'm your host, Kristin Kuhn. First, a very big thank you to our supporters for helping us reach our 10th episode. It's early fall in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which means that the skies are smokey, the days are getting shorter and fall colors are just around the corner. "Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam." This 19th century poem line turned Western song lyric evokes days past when wild bison covered the wide open spaces across North America. But these days, the only place wild American plains bison can be witnessed in large free roaming herds is within Yellowstone National Park.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yellowstone bison are the descendants of just two dozen animals who found refuge in Yellowstone's high interior during the mass extermination of bison that took place in the late 1800s at the hands of European settlers and the American military. Today, around 5,450 bison roam Yellowstone, but you may be surprised to learn that unlike other wild animals that are free to move in and out of the park, bison are largely confined to Yellowstone.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
On today's episode, we'll sit down with the Greater Yellowstone Coalition's own senior wildlife conservation associate Shana Drimal. Shana is a wildlife biologist by training who spends her days working to restore bison to the American west and make it easier for people and bison to coexist. We'll discuss why she thinks bison are the coolest, hear a remarkable story about a mother bison devoted to her calf, and learn about some of the challenges we face in trying to restore bison to their ancestral habitat beyond Yellowstone National Park itself. So get ready to learn a whole lot about North America's largest land mammal the bison.
Shana Drimal:
So my name is Shana Drimal. I am a senior wildlife conservation associate for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. I currently lead our bison program here at GYC working to restore Yellowstone bison to Tribal and public ancestral lands throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and beyond.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Beautiful. So tell us a little bit about your journey. How did you find yourself working on bison conservation issues in the GYE?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah, I've often wondered that myself. No, it's a great question. So I really started working on bison conservation as an advocate or in the advocacy realm when I started at GYC back in early 2015. So I'm a wildlife biologist and researcher by training. So before coming to GYC, I spent most of my adult life working as a field biologist and a researcher in the field studying a whole host of some of our most iconic and controversial species, including grizzly bears and wolves and elk, a whole host of African carnivores in Zambia, and then of course, bison.
Shana Drimal:
Actually, I first became interested in bison ecology while doing my undergraduate degree at the University of Utah there. I did an independent study on bison nutritional ecology on the herd of bison that is on Antelope Island there in the middle of the Salt Lake. So I guess I was really intrigued by this population of bison living in the middle of the Salt Lake on an island. So that was a long time ago. That's kind of my first introduction to bison. But then yeah, over the years, I worked for many years in the interior of Yellowstone National Park on a large mammal ecology study at the Montana State University, studying wolf and elk and bison, basically large ungulate ecology and predator-prey interactions. It was through that project that I spent just a lot of time many winters living and working in the interior of Yellowstone tracking and following the bison there, trying to learn about their movements and their migrations and their habitat use, as well as the predator-prey interactions between wolves and grizzly bears and elk and bison and how that differs between each of those species.
Shana Drimal:
So through that experience and all those years that I really fell in love with bison as a species. They're incredible, they're resilient and they're just so incredibly adapted to their environment. I learned all about how important they are to the ecosystem and how much they influence the ecosystem and at the same time learned a lot about how complex and controversial the restoration of the species has been and their journey has been. They have faced just great challenges over the years from essentially almost being wiped out and near extinction at the hands of people, to now finally making a comeback in the last 50 to 100 years.
Shana Drimal:
And I realized also then through this experience that there was a strong need for practical science-based approach to managing the species and also a great need for education. There's a lot of misunderstanding around the species and fear around bison. I just felt this need to do something more than just study them. I wanted to get out on the landscape and talk to people and hear their concerns, and also talk to them about what we know now about how important they are for the healthy functioning of an ecosystem and the fact that we have all these great tools that I believe can result in successful coexistence. I really think that people in bison can coexist. In not all areas, but many areas. So yeah, I felt this strong desire to do that. And this job came up and I went for it and I got it and here I am still today.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So would you say that your sort of decision to orient your career around bison was something that happened organically for you? Or was there that key moment where you're like, "Actually, I've studied a lot of different charismatic megafauna, but this is a species that was really calling to me and this is where I want to focus my energy."?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah, well, I think it's both. I think I was pretty open to... I was really just passionate about the study of wildlife ecology in general, and very much interested in predator-prey dynamics. I grew a great fondness and respect for bison as a species over the years and just felt like, "Gosh, these species, they need to be here. Species that we can all benefit from on the landscape." And it's also probably one of the most difficult issues that we work on in this ecosystem. And so I guess part of me was just like, "I want to work on that." But it's kind of just evolved, I guess, organically over the years, especially once coming to GYC, feeling like, "Okay, this is definitely my niche. This is where I need to be." So yeah, I first started off working on grizzly bears and wolves and other species at GYC and I've kind of just now I'm really focused on bison at this point.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So very use word, dynamic, which I think is really apt to talking about bison because there's so many different sort of tangential issues and complexities with the bison topic. But let's start with the basics. Tell us what this animal is. In case anybody's listening who happens to have just never heard the word bison before, describe this animal for us.
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. So a bison is a large hoofed mammal or ungulate of the bovine family, similar to cattle and other species of buffalo. They are considered the largest land mammal in North America. They are nomadic grazers, so they feed on grass primarily. And in the wild, they typically travel in large herds across large landscapes in search of food. Prior to European settlement, American bison numbered in the tens of millions roaming the great plains and grasslands of North America from central Canada to Mexico. And in fact, they ranged more widely across the landscape than any other native large herbivore.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Perfect. Thank you. So you mentioned the role they play in the ecosystem. Can you describe for us what that is? What is that they sort of do in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. Bison are native to the GYE. They're inextricably tied to the ecological and cultural history of this landscape. They're considered an important keystone species and ecosystem engineers of grassland ecosystems. So their migrations, grazing patterns and behavior literally shape the physical environment, creating habitat and benefiting a whole host of other species including amphibians and insects, grassland birds. So restoring bison into grassland communities, both in the GYE and beyond, supports native vegetation, health, and regeneration. The way that they graze actually increases plant species diversity and the nutritional quality and quantity of forage while helping to control noxious and invasive weeds. And this, I'll just say too, could have important implications from a climate change and resiliency standpoint. Many people don't realize the importance of healthy grassland ecosystem serving as an important and essential carbon sink. Bison can potentially restore and maintain the health of these grass on ecosystems that honestly have suffered pretty severe degradation since bison have left this landscape as a result of agricultural practices, including livestock grazing.
Shana Drimal:
Bison also serve as an important food source for a native predators in the GYE and elsewhere, including wolves and grizzly bears, and for people through Tribal and state hunting. Beyond their ecological importance is the cultural piece. The extirpation and near extinction of wild bison was directly tied to the removal of indigenous people from these ancestral lands. An immense loss of culture and way of life, including connection between Tribal youth and the buffalo and diminished health of native Americans is all sort of related to the loss of buffalo. So restoring bison to the GYE landscape and beyond represents much needed hope and a path towards healing from many indigenous communities. I think I could spend the entire podcast talking about why bison should be here and why they're so important to this landscape and beyond, but really, I think we all benefit from the species on this landscape.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. No, it's so interesting when you talk about bison as ecosystem engineers. I think it could be a new concept to be able to think about how the presence of a specific species on the landscape can actually change that landscape. Not just because, "Oh, Hey, look, I look over there and there's a bison," but because that animal is actually affecting change on the world around it, which then means that in the absence of these animals, the land also changes. So the land sort of must respond to their absence as well. So it's like we are living in a profoundly different world without the bison.
Shana Drimal:
Absolutely.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So let's talk about this disappearance. You mentioned that there were tens of millions of bison across North America, and that is not the case anymore. What happened?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. So as European Americans settled the west in the 1800s, unfortunately the federal government began a campaign to remove native American tribes from the landscape by taking away their primary food source and lifeblood, which was bison, also known as buffalo. And actually by 1902, after years of intensive market hunting and commercial slaughter, bison numbers were reduced to less than two dozen. And these last remaining wild bison had found refuge in the high elevation interior of Yellowstone National Park.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Right. So you mentioned a federal campaign to exterminate native Americans. I think a lot of people think that bison or buffalo were hunted out of existence maybe from trophy hunting, and really there was a more intentional and strategic reason for the removal of bison because it directly contributed to the obliteration of native Americans, correct?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the US Army was tasked with removing buffalo by the mass.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
And they're really successful at it. And so we ended up with a couple dozen wild bison high up in the middle of Yellowstone National Park. And so let's talk about Yellowstone bison then. So the bison that exists in Yellowstone today are descendants of those holdouts, correct?
Shana Drimal:
Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So let's talk about Yellowstone bison. What makes them so special?
Shana Drimal:
Gosh, yeah. It's hard to overstate the cultural and ecological significance of these bison here in Yellowstone. They really truly are special and unique. So not only are they the largest population of free roaming plains bison in existence today. So there's about 6,000 currently in Yellowstone. Many consider them the last remaining truly wild herd of plains bison in existence. That is what's called ecologically viable. They're genetically pure. They're large and wide ranging. They descended from the last wild herd in North America as you mentioned. And a cool fact is that Yellowstone is the only place in the US where bison have continuously lived since prehistoric times.
Shana Drimal:
These bison are a reservoir of some of the most valuable genetics for the long term conservation of the species. Bison in Yellowstone are still exposed to a whole host of natural selection factors, such as predation, harsh climatic and environmental conditions, harsh winters. And given their large numbers, have retained much of this genetic diversity and many of the adaptations that have been lost in other more domesticated or smaller herds that exist throughout the country. And then also this herd has unparalleled significance to many native American tribes who see Yellowstone bison as uniquely linked to their ancestral descendants. In fact, 49 tribes have direct cultural and ancestral ties to bison and Yellowstone and consider the lands and resources of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as sacred.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So really important, magnificent, impactful critters.
Shana Drimal:
Yes.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
There's so much that can be said about bison and buffalo. What do you think just as somebody who's spent a bunch of time studying these animals was just one really cool thing about them?
Shana Drimal:
Oh, bison are so cool. Bison are true relics of the Pleistocene era. So their ancestors roam the continent with saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths. So I just think that is so cool.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
If we dropped back into the Pleistocene, would we see an animal that was easily recognizable as a bison? Like, "Oh, there it is"?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. "Yep, there's a bison."
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Cool. Do you have any particularly memorable moments from your time actually studying bison in the park or any memories that you'd be willing to share with us?
Shana Drimal:
I have many. Yeah, there's one memory or experience that sticks out in my mind that I'll share with you. So when I was living and working in the Madison [inaudible 00:17:37] area of Yellowstone in the interior for that large mammal ecology project, I had to get up every morning, hop on my snowmobile with my radio telemetry before the sun came up and drive the different drainages and check for wolf presence, so check for wolf signals. So in the Firehole drainage, there's this hill that we used to climb up called Porcupine Hill and it was where we would go to check signals and check for wolf presence out in this area called Fountain Flats.
Shana Drimal:
So I'm up there checking wolf signals one morning. It's just starting to get light. And sure enough, I picked up the presence of one of the wolf packs. I think it was the Gibbon pack. Anyways. So I picked them up and I immediately got my binoculars out and spotted them out there. They had surrounded a bison cow, so cow bison, a female bison, and her calf. So the cow was like, she was standing over her calf and the wolves were darting in and out trying to get out the calf. She was rolling around and defending little baby there. They would get bites in here and there, both into her and that calf. This went on for hours. I stayed up there and just watched.
Shana Drimal:
Unfortunately over time, they got enough bites into that calf that it died from its injuries, but she still stood there and protected it long after it was dead on the ground. And at a certain point, the wolves, they would get tired and they would lay down and just kind of rest about 30 meters away from her, all around her and just like, "All right, they're exhausted." And then she would just stand there and she was not going anywhere.
Shana Drimal:
Eventually, I had to leave and go do some other things. That evening I came back to check again. They were still there, still waiting, watching, and she was still stood there over her dead calf. I just thought, "Wow, that's impressive." And so the next morning I came back, I was like, "Okay, well, I'm sure she's gone now. They've probably made a meal of that little calf." And she was still there.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Wow.
Shana Drimal:
She was still there standing over that calf. And so were the wolves. They were kind of just off playing and doing their thing, but still in the area watching, waiting. Eventually, the wolves left. They gave up and they left. And later on that evening, I came back and she had finally left too. But that was one of those moments where I just realized like, "Wow, there's something very special about these animals." That wasn't the only time that I saw a behavior like that, especially with the mothers and their calves. And just as a species in general, they're so protective of each other. Many other species I have seen and tracked and learned about, the mothers would've taken off in a heartbeat. Like elk for example, we studied elk as well. This is kind of sad, but we used to call elk calves get out-of-jail free cards.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Oh no.
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. And the reason being is that wolves would come into an area and go after a herd of elk and the mothers would just take off and leave their calves in the dust. And usually the wolves would get the calf. But that enabled the cow to get away and escape the attack. And so just very different. And as a mother myself, I can just totally relate. I would give my life for my kids. Especially in this particular incident, this cow was obviously willing to do the same, she wasn't going anywhere. So that was just a very touching experience for me and it's always stuck with me many, many years later.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Clearly, I mean, you were a scientist and a researcher and presumably trained in impartial observation of the natural world, but what was that experience like for you emotionally?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah, I mean, it was just touching. Yeah, even though I'm a trained scientist and all of that, I mean, I still have seen... You see a lot of hard stuff in the natural world. I mean, when working in Africa, seeing lions very, very up close, taking down a prey species or especially a young animal in particular pulls up the heartstrings for me anyways, the babies. But it's part of how things work and you carry on and you feel that pain and the empathy. And I think it's okay. Yeah, you don't want to impart that in your data collection or trying to understand certain things, but it's okay to feel that, I think so.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. There's a place for all of it.
Shana Drimal:
Yeah, definitely.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So let's get into a little bit of the challenges that we face when talking about bison conservation. So they're this incredibly important, unique, moving species, but that doesn't mean that the effort to restore them back to their habitat is without road bumps. So for starters, you talked about bison being nomadic grazers. So they're these migratory animals that like to roam and cover these vast distances. And as such, they're often trying to leave Yellowstone National Park. We know that there is a park boundary there. We roll in our cars and show our interagency pass and pay the fee and get in. Bison don't know where the lines of the park are. So in trying to follow their natural instincts, they're trying to often leave the park, but they can't. It's not that straightforward. So tell us a little bit about why bison aren't allowed to just migrate out of the park and follow those natural instincts that they have.
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. So I'll just start with... So Yellowstone National Park is really a high elevation plateau. When they drew the lines and created that park, I don't think they were thinking of ungulate species and prey species and migratory movement patterns and wildlife in general actually. I think it was more kind of focused on the geothermal aspects of the park at the time. Bison are naturally migratory species. Just like many other migrating ungulates including elk and pronghorn, much of their winter range exists in the lower elevation valley bottom areas outside of the park. And so every winter, many bison attempt to leave the park to access this winter habitat. This also includes calving grounds as well for bison in the spring. But because of limited tolerance for wild bison in Montana, many are rounded up and sent to slaughter every year as they attempt to leave the park following what's called the Interagency Bison Management Plan, also known as the IBMP. This was first implemented back in the year 2000 as a result of a court mediated settlement when the state of Montana sued Yellowstone for allowing bison to leave the park and enter Montana.
Shana Drimal:
Now, I just wanted point out too that all other species in Yellowstone are allowed to move in and out of the park freely. Wildlife species, the park is not fenced and they don't know where that line is. Their habitat extends beyond the boundary of Yellowstone. The goal of the IBMP was, and still is, to significantly limit bison numbers as well as their distribution outside of the park primarily through capture and slaughter, as well as hazing bison back into the park.
Shana Drimal:
On the surface, this lack of tolerance is due to fears around disease transmission risk because many bison in Yellowstone have been exposed to a disease called brucellosis. The livestock community is fearful that wild bison roaming beyond the park boundary could transmit the disease to livestock on the landscape, which could have economic repercussions to the livestock industry and to producers.
Shana Drimal:
So this has never actually happened in the wild however. We do know now that elk and the GYE are the primary culprits. There's been now over 30 transmission events in the GYE and all have been linked back to Greater Yellowstone elk. So GYE elk also carry brucellosis. But yet, elk are allowed to roam freely in and out of the park. Bison are not. So many believe this is more about competition for grass with cattle on the landscape, as well as human safety concerns. On a deeper level, I think it's also about a fear of change and a loss of control, states rights versus fed rights, and the fact that wild bison symbolized the resilience of native cultures.
Shana Drimal:
Obviously, some of these deep seated beliefs and fears, this is stuff that's going to take a long time to change. But again, I do think that there's so much that can be done now from getting on the ground and connecting with folks and listening to their concerns and talking with them about all the effective tools that do exist and that can be implemented to ensure that livestock and people are safe and to promote successful coexistence with wild bison.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. So what exactly is brucellosis? So you mentioned that bison we're exposed to it, and now there's some surface level fears of them transmitting it to cattle. But what's the history of that disease? And then what does it actually cause in the animals that carry it?
Shana Drimal:
Brucellosis is a European livestock disease that was introduced into the park in the early 1900s by dairy cows that were being held in the Lamar Valley. And so after many years of efforts across the country, it has been eradicated in all of our livestock, but it still exists in this reservoir in GYE wildlife. So the disease can be transmitted to livestock and it does induce abortions or still births in infected animals in the first one to two years of their reproductive lives. And this can have economic impacts on ranchers because it affects the marketability of their animals, especially due to regulations around disease transmission.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Right. So you mentioned that elk, there's been some confirmed cases of elk transmitting brucellosis to livestock, but that's not the case for bison?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. So even if bison were allowed to truly roam freely outside of the landscape, it's still more likely that elk are going to transmit that disease to livestock on the landscape. And it has to do with the timing of parturition. So elk are pregnant and give birth a little bit later into the season than bison do. The timing of when elk are likely to abort a fetus and it overlaps more with the timing that livestock are likely to be on the landscape in this ecosystem. I guess I'll just go back and just say that the way that it's actually transmitted in the natural environment is through contact with fetal tissue on the landscape. So a fetus is aborted, it's on the grass. Another animal comes along to eat that grass and picks up some of that bacteria, and then now they have been exposed to the bacterium.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So despite the existence of brucellosis in the wild bison population, there are some efforts to try to get bison out of the park onto appropriate public lands and Tribal lands sort of across Montana and elsewhere. Can you talk a little bit about those efforts? So brucellosis being a tricky disease to manage. Bison with brucellosis are really not allowed to leave the park. So what is the park doing to try to navigate that situation?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. Okay. So because about 40 to 60% of Yellowstone bison carry the disease brucellosis, or they have been exposed to the disease brucellosis, we cannot simply re-home these bison to other places like with other department of interior herds. That is something that they definitely do unless they have first been certified as disease free according to Montana law. So over the last decade, we in our conservation and Tribal partners, many state and federal agencies with Yellowstone National Parks leadership developed what's called the Yellowstone Bison Conservation Transfer Program. It's through this program that disease-free Yellowstone bison can be identified through a multi-step quarantine process and used to establish new Tribal and conservation herds elsewhere.
Shana Drimal:
So the way the process works is some bison captured during winter roundups as they are attempting to leave the park are then entered into quarantine rather than being sent to slaughter. The number of bison that can enter the program depends on how much room there is at the current facility, just inside Yellowstone. And then once they're in the program, animals complete the first two phases of testing at the Yellowstone facility, either/or at a facility down the road that is being leased by APHIS currently. So APHIS and the state of Montana health officials certified bison as brucellosis-free at the completion of this second phase of testing, which takes about one to one and a half years for males and two and a half to three years for females. And then these bison are then allowed to be transferred to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation where they complete their final year of what's called assurance testing. And then following this, the Fort Peck tribes transfer some of these bison to the InterTribal Buffalo Council who distributes them to member tribes throughout North America.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Amazing. So that sounds like a lot of effort. So why is it worth it? Why is quarantine the best solution for these bison?
Shana Drimal:
I think the use of quarantine and transfer, it really serves as a viable alternative to shipping Yellowstone bison to slaughter to manage their numbers. I think it's important to point out that this population is growing exponentially without human intervention. So they have a really high reproductive rate and a really low mortality rate. So bison numbers, they have to be managed somehow. And currently, there is only very limited hunting opportunity outside Yellowstone for that to serve as a sufficient tool to manage numbers. And that's a tool that is used for many other wildlife species, but it currently is not really an effective tool for bison at this time.
Shana Drimal:
The program will also help to preserve the unique Yellowstone bison genome or genetics that I talked about earlier. There's also great interest among Tribal nations in using Yellowstone's culturally significant and genetically pure wild bison to restore herds on Tribal and public lands. This program is a way to do that. It's a way to support and restore the culture, the economy, food sovereignty, and nutrition of many native American tribes and ultimately contribute to the conservation and restoration of the species to portions of its native range on public and Tribal alliance across the continent
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
And the Greater Yellowstone Coalition actually partnered with Yellowstone National Park on a recent expansion of the Bison Conservation Transfer Program quarantine facility, correct?
Shana Drimal:
Mm-hmm.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Can you tell us a little bit more about that partnership?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. So last year we partnered with Yellowstone National Park and Yellowstone Forever to raise the funds needed to more than double the capacity of the Yellowstone facility. And the reason for that is because a significant number of bison that were being captured and were also quarantine-eligible were then having to go on and be sent to slaughter because there wasn't enough room for them to enter the program due to capacity issues at the facility. And in fact, that number were somewhere around 70, 75% of bison that were eligible were then going on and being sent to slaughter.
Shana Drimal:
And so with this recent expansion effort, that reduced that number down closer to 20 to 30%. And so it's fantastic. This expansion, which was just completed this month, added three additional pens to the facility. Some new water infrastructure, which was necessary to bring in more bison as well as the new low stress testing area. Yeah, we're just super excited. We don't want to stop there though. We want to continue to grow this program so that eventually all quarantine-eligible bison that are captured can enter this program and eventually be re-homed to Tribal lands and hopefully public lands. For example, we're trying to identify a new place somewhere within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem to develop a new quarantine facility. So we can create of a steady pipeline of Yellowstone bison available for restoration efforts.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah, that's really beautiful. So often in conservation work, what we do feels very abstract and kind of nebulous. It's amazing to be able to point to specific animals, individual animals, that can go through a program like this because now there's space for them. So congratulations to you on your role in that. I think that's so inspiring.
Shana Drimal:
Thanks. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely the collective effort of so many people. Yeah, I just feel so grateful to be a part of it. It's a really special program.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Yeah. Truly, it takes a village and then maybe another village and another village.
Shana Drimal:
Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Tell us a little bit more about the other bison programs that you work on with GYC, for example, the Coexistence Program where you're trying to build tolerance for bison on the landscape. Talk about that a little bit for us.
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. So before working on this expansion effort and the transfer program, a lot of our focus over the last 10 to 20 years has really been on trying to secure additional habitat for Yellowstone bison to use outside of Yellowstone. Originally, before the year 2000, bison, there was basically zero tolerance for Yellowstone bison beyond the park boundary. And so we really wanted to help secure some areas for them to go so they can start to carry out some of this natural migratory behavior and access important calving areas. And so that's really been our focus. And much of that work involved, and still does, working to reduce potential conflicts on the landscape. For example, through voluntary grazing allotment buyouts to remove potential cattle conflicts on the landscape, as well as land leases.
Shana Drimal:
Back in 2011, we began a program called the Yellowstone Bison Coexistence program in partnership with some of our conservation NGO partners. The idea with that program is to basically help people on the landscape in these communities outside the park reduce the potential for conflicts with wild bison roaming beyond the park boundaries by providing financial and technical assistance to build what are called bison exclusion fences on private property to keep bison off of private property, to protect landscaping and gardens and livestock and pets and children. Yeah, since that program started, we've completed now I think 56 projects in the Gardiner basin area and the Hebgen basin area west of the park. Yeah, it's a fantastic program. It's really, I think, done a lot to help promote tolerance for the species and just help folks, help them with the tools that they need to successfully coexist with bison on the landscape, and to also just really enjoy them.
Shana Drimal:
People really... When you get out in the landscape and you talk to these folks living in these communities with bison, for the most part, they love them. They love being able to sit on their back deck and watch bison grazing and moving through the area. they just don't want them trampling their garden and eating their trees. So, yeah, it's a pretty cool program and sort of huge success. More recently, as a result of a lot of this work, I sort of helped prime the landscape for the return of bison. I think it was really essential in the establishment and then expansion of what are called bison tolerance areas over the years. So now we have more than 370,000 acres of bison tolerance areas, both west and north of the park, where they're allowed to go as a, I think, direct result of a lot of this work over the years to reduce potential conflicts. Very few cattle now exist in these areas on the landscape. I mean, that was really essential to getting that.
Shana Drimal:
And then more recently, we've been focused on trying to work towards helping to reestablish those migration patterns into these areas because unfortunately, a lot of these areas are still sitting kind of empty of bison. And there's a lot of reasons for that and we could spend a whole podcast probably talking about that issue. But one of the things that we're hoping to do is to work with the Custer Gallatin National Forest to do some habitat improvement projects on the forest, following direction from the new forest plan. We fought really hard to get some new plan direction that supports bison use of the forest within these tolerance areas. And so that's another area that we're trying to focus on. And then I'll also mention too recently, Yellowstone National Park began the process to write a new Yellowstone Bison Management Plan and environmental impact statement. This will be basically the guiding document for the park for how they will manage this bison population into the foreseeable future.
Shana Drimal:
We really see this as a really important opportunity to update how these bison are managed because they've been managed for the last 20 years under the IBMP, which is implemented back in the year 2000. We have made so much progress since that time, so much progress. And so it's time to update the plan. I think it's time to look at what the population objective should be for this park and to look at ways to really help promote bison use of the landscape beyond the park boundary and support treaty hunting and treaty access and Tribal access to these bison. So this is an important opportunity that's going to be coming up. They did start the initial process of this, this past February during public scoping. They will be doing another public comment period probably sometime this winter on the draft EIS. So I would encourage everybody to get involved in that and we will definitely be getting involved in that heavily.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Awesome. So big opportunity to try to move more toward managing bison like wildlife as opposed to livestock.
Shana Drimal:
Yes.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So quick pitch for our newsletter. For anybody listening, you should roll over to www.greateryellowstone.org and sign up for our newsletter because we will keep you informed when there is an opportunity to comment on the Bison Management Plan. And you can definitely help GYC push for the most sort of progressive and just strongest bison management plan moving forward because it's certainly time to update that and really update our relationship with this incredible species. Anything else that you think folks can do to help take action for bison?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. I just would encourage folks to sign up, get on our email list and reach out to me. I am more than happy to email with people and chat with people on the phone. I do it all the time. So yeah, don't be afraid to get in touch with me. Yeah, just stay in touch so that we can keep you posted on the different things that are going to be coming up in the future in ways that you can get involved and way that you can speak out and try and advocate for a better future for these bison.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Awesome. Thank you. All right. One question that we really like to ask all of our guests, do you have a conservation or science hero or someone who you found particularly inspiring or influential to you over the years?
Shana Drimal:
Yeah, that's a tough one. I feel like I have so many. I think looking back, I have to say that the most influential conservation science hero in my life was actually a college professor that I had back at the University of Utah. His name was Dr. Fred Montague. I took many environmental studies and wildlife ecology classes with him.
Shana Drimal:
When I started undergrad, I was pretty lost. I had grown up like animal crazy. I loved animals, right? But I didn't know what I wanted to do. I thought about vet school. I was kind of all over the place. So I was a little bit lost. But Fred changed that for me in a really big way. I really fell in love with the study of ecology and just became totally fascinated with the idea that you can't study a thing whether that's a species or a phenomena or a human in isolation, and that everything interacts with this environment and it's bidirectional and complex and the environment interacts with you. So I was hooked and I can say that he set me on this path and is the reason why I am here today and doing what I'm doing for sure.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. All right, Shana, we have some listener questions for you. I think it's a batch of good ones. So first up, Gary from Idaho says, "I am wondering if the exclusion of tourist traffic in the Lamar Valley area due to the spring floods has affected the bison movements in the area."
Shana Drimal:
Great question. I do think that would be a question for a park biologist, but if I had to guess, probably not. Unlike other species in the park like wolves and grizzly bears that are more leery of people and traffic, bison are pretty uninhibited by people and traffic. They generally have no problem using the roads and creating bison jams and heavy traffic as probably a lot of people have experienced going to the park. So yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
They might be enjoying the peace or quiet, but they're not particularly concerned with our presence anyway.
Shana Drimal:
Not really. Yeah. I had to say, of all the species in the park, they probably care the least about us.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
That's great. As is their right.
Shana Drimal:
Yes.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Okay. Leah from California is wondering what the biggest misconception is out there about bison.
Shana Drimal:
Well, apparently as we've seen too often in the news, that they are large docile furry cattle that you can walk up to for a photo op in Yellowstone or set your kid on. No. Wild bison are wild animals. And like many other wild animals, they can be dangerous and feel threatened if people get too close. So it's important to obey park guidelines and keep a distance of at least 25 meters.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
That's a good one. I'll actually add a funny answer to that. I don't know if it's a particularly common misconception, but one thing I've heard is people be surprised that bison are not extinct. I'm actually hearing that from someone who worked in the park, that they get a lot of questions or sort of exclamations of surprise that bison are not extinct. They think that they're actually just a Pleistocene animal that don't exist in New York.
Shana Drimal:
Oh, interesting.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Mm-hmm.
Shana Drimal:
Wow. Huh.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So that's a fun one.
Shana Drimal:
I mean, I guess it's not all that surprising.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
I mean, they came pretty close, so...
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Okay. Next question. Jeff from Montana asks, "How many offspring will a cow bison have in a year and how long does weaning take?"
Shana Drimal:
Yeah, so female bison, also known as cows, begin reproducing around two to three years of age and give birth to a single calf each spring. Gestation period is around nine and a half months. So pretty similar to humans. And then calves I think typically nurse for seven to eight months and are weaned by the end of their first year.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Okay. Next question, Ryan from Montana wants to know how do bison survive the cold.
Shana Drimal:
Good question. 2 million years of evolution, that's how. No, bison are well adapted to survive extreme winter conditions and cold. For one, they are migratory as we talked about. So they can move to lower elevation areas where there's less snow and milder temperatures. Then there's their physical adaptations, extremely dense coat and thick layers of skin and fat to help insulate them from the cold. Their muscular humps support their massive heads that serve as sort of snow plows to clear away deep snow and snow drifts to access buried grass and food.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
So a beautifully evolved creature. Well adapted to this environment.
Shana Drimal:
Absolutely.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Great question though. Okay. And finally, Amy from Washington, DC is curious about what the difference is between a buffalo and a bison.
Shana Drimal:
Yes. So in North America, the name bison and buffalo are often used interchangeably for the same animal. The true scientific name is bison, actually it's bison, bison, bison. Bison is what the Western conservation and scientific community calls the species while many tribes prefer to use buffalo. True buffalo, scientifically speaking, include the Cape buffalo and Water buffalo of Africa and Asia. The name bison comes from the Latin term for wild ox. And I guess buffalo is derived from the French word for beef.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
True. Yeah. And here at the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, we do use those terms pretty much interchangeably. Our indigenous staff members prefer buffalo in our bison programs where we partner with lots of conservation partners, traditional conservation partners. We use the word bison, but we're pretty loose goosey with those terms here.
Shana Drimal:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Proudly so.
Shana Drimal:
Yep.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
Wonderful. Well, Shana, thank you so much for your time today. It is always a pleasure to talk to you and it was really fun to have you on the podcast.
Shana Drimal:
Thank you. Such a pleasure to be here.
Kristin Kuhn, Host:
An enormous, bold bison-sized thank you to Shana for stopping by the podcast and sharing her stories and expertise with us. We will drop Shana's email address in the show notes in case any of you would like to reach out to her. If you'd also like to heed our shameless call to action to become a bison advocate, the link to signup will be there as well. We only skimmed the surface today of all the bison conservation work happening at the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and within many of our partnerships. From ongoing fencing initiatives to conducting outreach in the communities on the front lines of bison restoration, to our current work developing a robust Tribal buffalo program out of our office in Fort Washakie on the Wind River Reservation, suffice it to say, we look forward to bringing you many more stories about these magnificent animals and the people fighting for them in episodes to come. As always, thank you for joining us and we will catch you next time for more stories from Greater Yellowstone.