A photo of buffaloes with a July 30 article about land use on the Northern Plains was incompletely credited. The photo was by Valerie Bruchon for the American Prairie Foundation.
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In the New West, Do They Want Buffalo to Roam?
Donations -- $11 million so far, with fundraising goals of at least $100 million -- have already bought out five ranches.
Genetically pure wild buffalo have been trucked in. In March, for the first time in more than a century, buffalo calves were born here in Phillips County.
  For the first time in more than a century, buffalo calves were born in eastern Montana on land the American Prairie Foundation owns. (Valerie Bruchon -- American Prairie Foundation And World Wildlife Fund) |
Some people here don't welcome the changes. About 30 local families, many with huge holdings, do not want to sell land that their grandfathers homesteaded. They resent the power of outsiders to erase their family footprint on the prairie.
"For the Prairie Foundation to realize its vision, all of the ranch families have to fail," said Dale Veseth, a rancher in south Phillips County. He refuses to sell his land and is leading a group of local ranchers in opposing the prairie reserve.
The foundation disputes this argument, pointing to studies showing a decades-long decline in the region's agriculture economy and noting that no rancher is being forced to sell out.
"Look, the land started going out of production long before we showed up," said Gerrity, who was raised in Montana and returned in the late 1990s after a career in Silicon Valley. "The only question is who is going to buy it."
Private groups of wealthy individuals -- seeking prime hunting for birds, elk and deer -- have bought large ranches in the Northern Plains, as well as across Montana, and often deny public access. The Prairie Foundation says it plans to allow access for tourism, bird-watching and hunting on nearly all its land.
Even if the foundation were to buy all the land it needs for the reserve, more than 85 percent of the privately owned prairie in northeast Montana would likely remain ranches or farms, Gerrity said.
The Nature Conservancy's alternative vision for Phillips County embraces cattle and ranchers, but does not include roaming herds of buffalo.
"Grazing cows is completely compatible with the wildlife restoration of the prairie," said Linda Poole, program director at the Nature Conservancy's Matador Ranch, a 60,000-acre holding.
The Matador Ranch leases its grazing land to local ranchers at reduced rates if they agree to conservation practices on their own land. Those practices include living with prairie dogs, controlling invasive weeds and never using a plow to bust up fragile prairie soil.
Poole said the Nature Conservancy, after analyzing the most cost-effective way to conserve grasslands, decided that the best strategy was to "work with people who already own the land."
