The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 851: The Promise and Controversy of American Prairie

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Steven Rinella talks with Alison Fox, CEO of American Prairie.  Topics discussed: The history of American Prairie and its aim to create one of the largest land preserves in the country; plains for buffalo; land acquisitions; funding structure; grazing permits and the BLM; block management, hunting on American Prairie lands, access; and more.             Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's the meat eater store, Milwaukee, at the corners of Brooklyn. Brookfield. Stop in, get dialed, and get after it. What you're about to listen to is a conversation with Allison Fox, the CEO of American Prairie. For 25 years, American Prairie has been executing on an ambitious and highly controversial plan to buy hundreds of thousands of acres of ranch land in the vicinity of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in north central Montana in order to ultimately compile a contiguous block of private and public lands that are 50% larger than Yellowstone National Park, all open to the public.

So far they've managed to buy 169,000 acres. Their aim is to manage the land to maximize wildlife habitat health and restore a grassland ecosystem inhabited by a full suite of native wildlife, including the American Buffalo. Fans and supporters of the plan see a Yellowstone of the Great Plains, or to steal a term from the historian Dan Florees, an American serengetty. Opponents see an evil land grab that poses an existential threat to the American cowboy. This is the Meat Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless.

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No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. All right, everybody, I'm joined today by Allison Fox. She goes by Allie. Yes, I do. Correct. The CEO of American Prairie.

You may have known, and I didn't even catch when this happened. American Prairie at a time was American Prayer. reserve. Yes. But became American Prairie. How long ago? 2021. And before that, we were American Prairie Foundation. Oh, okay. It's been a journey. All right. So now landed officially on American Prairie. She's been the, she's led the organization since February 2018 and has been with the organization in various roles since 2007. Here in the state of Montana, they're based here in the state of Montana, primarily in north central Montana.

I'm going to let you explain what the mission is. But America Prairie is and we'll get into what it is and what it's been interpreted as and controversies surrounding the organization.

But it is a one-of-a-kind effort. That is true. It is a one-of-a-kind habitat restoration effort going on, and it presents certain challenges. But I would like you first to lay out, like lay out for the audience, lay out for me. What is the American Prairie vision? Okay, let me start with what American Prairie is today.

Okay. So American Prairie is a nearly 25-year-old conservation organization. We are based here in Montana. We are a team of Montana's leading this organization. And today, we manage 600,000 acres of habitat of a deeded and least. public lands, lands that are open to the public and are all located around the Charlie Russell National Wildlife Refuge up in north-central Montana. The ultimate vision is to using private philanthropy, purchase private lands to link together existing public lands around the Charlie Russell National Wildlife Refuge for eventually a landscape of about three million acres. So we've assembled 600,000-5,000 acres toward two million acres next to the 1.1 million acre Charlie Russell National Wildlife Refuge.

These lands are... Back those numbers up, Mick. I want to follow this. Yep. The current Charlie Russell land. So this is like BLM public land. It's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That's U.S. Fish. Okay. I'm sorry.

So the actual CMR proper is how many acres? It's 1.1 million acres. 1.1 million acres. Okay. And it's along the Missouri. For those are not familiar, it's a long and skinny wildlife refuge. along the Missouri River. Got it.

So it's river, river bottom, steep breaks on either side down to the river. I guess when you were saying that in my head, I'm mixing up the National Wild Scenic River designation. But you're talking about the CMR, the reserve. Yeah, yeah, the refuge. Yeah, the refuge. Yeah, the refuge. Second largest refuge in the lower 48. Okay.

And then what you're referring to is the Missouri River portion, the White Cliff's portion, that has wild and scenic river designation. And that goes through the monument, the upper Missouri breaks national monument. And that's a huge complex of public lands extending off. Exactly. It's somewhere around 400,000 acres, 450,000 acres. Okay, so the refuge is how many acres? 1.1 million.

Okay. Just for context for people, Yellowstone National Park is about 2 million acres. Exactly. Glacier is about a million. Okay. Got it. All right. So there's, so the ultimate.

goal you're saying is make like the shooting for three million contiguous acres. Exactly. And how many so far? So 600 and 5,000 next to 1.1 million acres. Okay. Okay. Um, there's a huge Buffalo component to this thing. There is. Yeah. Let's explain that to folks. Yeah. This is where I get interested. I'm interested in the whole thing, but this is where I have like a more detailed fine point interest. Real tattoo or not. Yeah. Fake tattoo. The tattoo, yeah. So let's just start with what this landscape looked like, what our great plains look like for thousands and thousands of years. And that, as you know, as you've written about, was tens of millions of bison out on this landscape or Buffalo out on this landscape in a very, very short time.

And Dan Flores talks about this in his book, American Serengetti as the great. loss of wildlife that had human hands in sort of modern human history, documented human history, that we went from 30 plus million animals to less than 1,000 in Yellowstone National Park. So good conservation has been happening to return bison. I think they're about a half million in both conservation and production herds in the country now. And I think it's less than 20,000 that are in conservation herds.

You may know that exact number. Like about 90, I mean, well, just kind of a good way to understand it is about 95% of them are privately owned. Okay. Yeah. So that number is about, that number is about right. And so from the American Prairie is not a Buffalo or Bison project entirely. We are a full ecosystem, full conservation and public access. And I hope we talk a lot about public access to public access project.

But from basically American Prairie start, we recognize that bringing. Bison back to the landscape was an important part of demonstrating the ultimate vision and bringing that native grazer back to the land. So American Prairie has grazed Bison on our lands since 2005. We bought the first property in 2004. This was a few years before my time. But that early team was was brave and intrepid. And they brought 16 animals in from Wind Cave National Park in 2005. And we have been growing this conservation herd ever since. It's about 940 animals now on two of our 12 units. So the 600,000 acres is split up into a number of units based on which properties were available for purchase. You know, I didn't know until the other day. I'm writing like an updated afterward for my Buffalo book because it's been 18 years. And so I'm doing a I'm doing kind of a snapshot of I don't talk about America Prairie animals, but I'm doing a snapshot of what I define as like really truly free range herds that can move across jurisdictions.

Yeah, which there are a few. Very few, right, very few that can move across jurisdictions. Henry's Mountains, bookcliffs. One that, but that discussion brought in that discussion, I'm talking about the ones that live on the North Rim. And there's a population on the North Rim that can move across jurisdictions. Of the Grand Canyon. Yeah. Well, they move from the park onto the Kaibab.

They can move on to state lands up there. So I was talking about those. And I didn't realize that at one point in time, American prairie animals, I think some excess American prairie animals went to Arizona. Yes, probably. Yeah, I was reading about that. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't realize that. I mean. So that was used as a foundation herd for other conservation herds. Yeah. We have, you know, we have 940 animals today. We have raised more than 2,000 animals in this 20-year history of bison on the landscape. And north of 650 have been distributed to other conservation herds. And we've helped start a number of herds.

Many of those are tribal herds, but some of them are federally or state-managed herds. You know, years ago, we did an interview with Sean Garrity. Yes. Sean Garrity, how do you describe what his role is in American Prairie? Today? Or just historically? So, Sean, Sean was a founder of American Prairie. This idea was not his.

It came and we can talk about where the idea originated. But he was a first CEO. Oh, so he did hold the CEO position. He held the CEO position. And he started with the organization. I mean, he built the entire organization. He came from business. He came from a company.

consulting background. He knew a lot about organizational management and design. And it was, you know, he was, he was the entrepreneur who built the organization. So Sean was the CEO, president CEO for 17 years. And then I took over, I worked for Sean for 10 years and then took over in 2018 from Sean. And then he continued to serve on the board for a bit and is now an emeritus director. Got it. What, a thing that we had talked about when I spoke with him and it surprised me is I sort of maybe other people do I used to have an association between American prairie like conceptually between American prairie and the the member of the sociologists that had this idea of Buffalo commons yes he didn't like the he didn't he was uncomfortable with the relationship but it felt like

to me like like if it if if not intentional such an interesting it was like an interesting point of comparison or an interesting coincidence yeah do you know because I want to like explain the listeners quick like a thing out that what I'm talking about is I think it was like Frank Popper Mary Poppers were the last name there's these sociologists Nate look this this idea well let me let me back up even further to a different part of this just for listeners understanding. If you think of, when you think of like big national forests in the West,

a lot of times national forests in the West, they were, they were, had always been set aside as forest reserves. They were undeveloped landscapes. In the east you had this thing, east of the Mississippi, a lot of these big national forests,

like the one I grew up near, I grew up near the Manistine National Forest. The Manistine National Forest was assembled after the fact. Like, much of the Manistee National Forest had been, homesteaded and people bought it for agriculture after the big logging era. But a lot of that land couldn't be made to pay. And people bailed on it.

They bailed on back taxes. They just walked away from the land. And over time, there's this whole story where they had the Weeks Act. They made money. Like, the government had money. And they started to reassemble abandoned landscapes into the national forests that are in the eastern U.S. Years ago, it was in the 70s, maybe. Someone brought up this idea that these sociologists were looking at areas on the Great Plains that they would see that over time had less and less population.

And they put forth this idea, you know, it was just like this kind of observation that if landscapes depopulated, would you see, you know, would some sort of new, like, after the fact wilderness emerged? and depopulated landscapes. And that, I think that when they were looking, they were sort of like, happened to be looking in this particular area of the state as great plains became, as portions of the great plains became less populated. I remember reading about this in Ian Fraser's book, Great Plains. Yeah. And ultimately, that's kind of where this idea emerged, but it's not like a reflection of that.

But I think that people hold that in their heads, maybe. Yeah, and the idea was called Buffalo Common. So it was particularly looking at what the decimation of Buffalo on the landscape and where could Buffalo come back. I think Sean's point, and it's a good one, is that they were just one of many who were looking at our Great Plains, if you even look at a global level, at temperate grasslands, and saying where could you restore that full ecosystem? And so, you know, I like to point out that it was the American painter George Catlin in the 1930, 1830s, excuse me, who called for the establishment of a nation's park on our grasslands. He was just, as he was coming up the Missouri River, he was just, you know, astonished by the numbers of animals that he saw. And he has this great quote about being lifted up upon a pair of imaginary wings and seeing just endless,

of Buffalo below him and calling for the establishment of a nation's park for man and beast, which of course never happened and we never set aside a large portion of our grasslands. Why was that? Like they went out, they got to yellow, you know, like you hear all the stories, the conservation history stories, like someone's like, Yosemite. Now there's a place. Yeah. That should be, we should save a chunk of that.

And they go to Yellowstone and like, man, we should save a chunk of this. but on the on the the the grasslands it just didn't occur to anybody yeah i think in part it was it was timing you know we were we were settling the grasslands and of course you know with the with the extermination of the buffalo we were pushing indigenous nations often into onto reservations as well and so that period from 1872 when we established elstone through kind of the the mid 20th century we weren't viewing that the wildlife was gone from the grasslands and we weren't viewing that as something to be protected. And I think there's also the sort of scenic bias, right? Like we like really tall mountains and we like deep canyons and geysers and the subtlety, you know, the subtlety, you know, you know this landscape.

It's vast and complex and beautiful, but you don't. that's not, it's not, it's dramatic in a different way. Yeah, you get something you got to learn to love. Yeah. When I think about the timeline, you know, like, like early conservationists, a way to understand how quickly early conservationists recognize certain things like Yellowstone and Yosemite, these like very almost, like, like, too, like so obviously scenic, right? that Yellowstone was a protected park.

Yellowstone had tourists when they were, we were still fighting the Indian wars. When the Nez Perce fled reservation confinement in, in eastern Washington, western Idaho, when the Nez Perce were fleeing reservation confinement and the Nespers war started. Part of their retreat

led them through Yellowstone. And they're having like shootouts in the park while there are tourists there. It was like that early, that early in the history of the West. But it's just like not. The wagons were already going from. Yeah. At that point in time,

someone had come in and said, man, you know, let's do a couple million acres to out on Great Plains, they would be like they would be as celebrated today for that decision as we celebrate, you know, the people that were involved in Yellowstone. And those were the decades where we were really decimating those hurts. Yeah. 1870s, 1880s. No.

Those were, you know, those were the years where, you know, that we were just slaughtering these animals. Yeah. When did the, when did the idea of American Prairie first take shape? Like, how did it take shape and when did it take shape? Yeah, there were a number of conservation organizations and coalitions in like the late 90s. Yeah, the late 90s, basically, who said we're looking, again, at temperate grasslands across the globe and particularly the Northern Great Plains and recognizing that we didn't have those large protected areas. And it was World Wildlife Fund was the organization that founded a.

American Prairie from the beginning as an independent 501c3 with the model that we now have today, which is private philanthropy to purchase private lands to link together existing public lands. And so that this region in Montana, they recognized for its wildlife history. They recognized it for the abundance of public lands, and they recognized that, you know, well over 90 percent is intact, Native Prairie has not been plowed and has been well-stewarded. So the habitat is. is in good shape. And those were really the factors that led them to choose this area.

There were other, you know, bigger protected grassland areas in South Dakota and Colorado and Wyoming. But American, they chose this area for American Prairie to do its work. When did you first find out about it? Like, how did you first get turned on to it personally? Yeah, personally. So I moved, I'm from a small town of Vermont. And I spent a summer up in Glacier National Park in college. And that was the beginning of my time in Montana.

I met a Montanaan who's now my husband and just completely fell in love with the big landscapes of the West, big tracks of public land. I grew up hiking in the White Mountains in New Hampshire and the Green Mountains in Vermont, but these really, really big expanses of public lands were relatively new to me. So I would have probably come into Montana anyway. So I moved to Bozeman right after college and worked for a software company for a few years. and while I was here met a college classmate of mine whose parents were involved with American Prairie. And that's how I learned about it.

So after I went to graduate school, we moved back to Bozeman. And that's when I got involved. When American Prairie was taking shape, like, it was called American Prairie Foundation at the time, what was the first step? Like the first step in what had to have been like a piece of land acquisition? I mean, the first step was building a board of directors. Yeah, I guess the first tangible step. Yeah, yeah. So first step was building a board, starting to raise money.

And then, yeah, then acquiring property. The first property was the end of 2004. So we were found in 2001. That was a pretty quick turn to get the organization up off the ground. You know, the thing that like on that property, I want to talk about that property purchase for a minute. Because this is the thing that always puzzles me about the conversations that people have around American Prairie. Is it like you guys have always been like willing seller, willing buyer?

Yes. Okay. It's like if someone owns land, like most Americans, most Westerners would agree that if someone owns a ranch and they decide their family. decides that it's time to sell the ranch, that that would be their business. Most people would agree with this. That it would be that when you want to sell a ranch, that's your call. That there wouldn't be like a government entity would come in and say, you cannot sell that ranch. You must hold on to that ranch.

People would agree that you should be able to do what you want. So you list it. And you have a price. And no one's holding a gun to your head. and you as a free American, like a free Westerner, takes their offers and you consider the offers that you have,

you consider the bids that you have, and you sell to the one, generally speaking, I think most people are going to sell to the highest bidder, and they're going to sell to who they choose. Right. And I would feel that most Americans, most Westerners would be like

that makes sense to me. I think they do. Yeah, they do. No, I think they do. But oftentimes not if you guys buy it. Which to me is so weird because people like get it. It's an, like, I mean, just like, frankly, anyone doing any kind of major thing.

Like it becomes controversial. Like, frankly, like, you guys, I mean, you can't deny it. Like, you guys are a like somewhat. what controversial organization. I appreciate that qualifier. Yes. Yes. No,

we are. Absolutely. But it's just like, and I have like all kinds of things I wonder about. And I'll ask you those questions. I have things I wonder about. But it's like foundationally, it surprises me how many people are antagonistic to a principle that they have to broadly support, which is like that if you want to sell a thing and someone wants to buy a thing, whose business is it besides the seller and the buyer? but people get so worked up about who's buying it's like that's not your problem like that's that's kind of a view I have on it is I'm surprised that upsets people yeah no I agree with everything you've said

we've done this 49 times now if I sold my house and someone bought my house that later someone would be mad I'm like dude mind your own business well I think two things can be true though Steve I think they can say well good for my neighbor my neighbor found a a buyer who will pay fair market value. My neighbor might have found a buyer who has agreed to lease back to them for a number of years so they can have some transition their family or transition their operation somewhere else. They can say, can think, yes, good for my buyer, private market transaction, willing buyer, willing seller.

They can also be disappointed and wish that their new neighbor was, you know, was going to be, was a cattle rancher or was a different buyer, right? And was not American Prairie. So it's change. And American Prairie. But if you were, if you were buying for a data center, then I would understand people being pissed.

More. I would better understand people being pissed. But if you imagine that there's like, there's a spectrum. Okay. There's a spectrum being like on one end of the spectrum is data center. Right? Mm-hmm.

Or like, I don't know. Uh, a data center, a nuclear power plant, like whatever. There's a spectrum of refinery. Yeah. Okay. Even a large residential development, maybe. A big residential, big residential development.

Yeah. Whatever. That's on one end would be like, oh, man, that's a bummer, right? On the other end would be, on the other end would be like habitat preservation and restoration, which is kind of like more of a like, it's more of a like doing of not doing on one end and then over here is like data center and i would say that like running cattle sits very close to the habitat thing i'm a cow's not condos guy yep so i would put like running cattle over in this area data center over in this area develop like housing development

this right right so like like different The fact that you're, the fact that you guys buy land in order to have it be just kind of like habitat seems to be like sort of like, uh, even like that reinforces in my mind what would be like a non issue. Well, I'm, I'm really glad you're raising this because I think most of our neighbors, I know most of our neighbors don't mind having us as a neighbor. We have a lot in common. And of course, what gets, you know, blown up, it's the loudest voices is the, is the, is the controversy. But whether there are cows on American Prairies lands or bison, and there are a lot more cows than bison. And we can talk about that. There's a lot of common ground in the way that we're running our operations. There's a lot of common love and appreciation and responsibility for the stewardship of these grasslands, the stewardship of these grasslands for a lot of different wildlife species.

We're buying the same trucks. We're using the same fencing contractors. There is a, there is a lot, a lot of common ground, and you don't, you don't see that common ground necessarily in a slogan, right? Yeah. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline.

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Gobble, gobble, gobble. What in your mind, like if you had to express it to somebody, what what in your mind is the um like what in your mind do people feel as being lost on this from your perspective what do they feel as being lost on this like you know sizable piece of ground but but not something on the scale of like uh you know not even on this it's not even on the scale of what we have agreed to be a wildlife refuge yeah i i think it's i think it's i think It's change, and it's change that has been occurring on this landscape for decades, and it is perceived as a loss of a way of life. And there's been consolidation in, you know, consolidation of land ownership over those decades.

There has been, you know, public lands ranching is a very, very difficult business. It's a very difficult business. And there are a lot of global factors that are not, that American people. has nothing to do with that are putting pressure on the industry. And then an organization comes in and is the new kid on the block is, has different aims for their, their private lands and is bringing in a new species like, like Buffalo. And it represents, it represents change. And I think that's new, a new old. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yes, exactly. A new old because, because, because, Because Bison are not, of course, new to this landscape.

But yeah, I think I think that's, I think that's really at the root of it. Mm-hmm. What do you, how, what would you say in conversation when, like, you did a great, I appreciate your ability to articulate that. A lot of people I find don't, don't, don't, don't comfortable articulating someone else's perspective. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm not entirely, no, I'm not entirely comfortable too, because I'm, I don't, I'm not not, I'm not not not. you know, native to Phillips County. And I certainly have spent a lot, a lot of time on that landscape. And I've, you know, I know a lot of our neighbors.

Our team knows a lot of our neighbors. I've heard the perspective articulated. So I want to be, you know, somewhat careful putting words in people's mouths. But I also see, I grew up in a small town and I know how much small towns value communities. value tradition and you see the one-room schoolhouses and you see, you know, you hear about the traditions that some of which still exists that used to happen like up there. Like one time we were at one of the community halls and we were having a big community feed. It was really fun. A bunch of American people folks were there and our neighbors were there and kids were all running around

and the kids came out with a pole vault. I think we're in the middle of, ranch country. I didn't know what a pole vault of all things. And I learned that there used to be an event at these community schools that was a, there was a track meet in or a spelling bee in the morning and a track meet in the afternoon. And like, that's a really cool, that's a really cool community tradition, right? To amongst all these, these country schools, which there are not many anymore. And so, you know, that human honoring that human heritage in those kind of lifeways on the

whether they're indigenous and are for thousands of years or if they're more recent, settling, ranching families for a number of generations. Like that is important to American Prairie and recognizing that everyone's still out there and we together can look at what is the future of the landscape. What are our shared values? What do we want this place to look like? Those are the conversations that we want to be having. How many bison do you guys have on the ground right now?

940. You know how many cattle are in this state? In this, I know it's a lot more than, a lot more cattle than people. And I know in the, it's a couple million. Yeah, I was going to take two, two and a half. How many bison? 940. And there are about a half million cattle in the seven counties where we own land.

And on America Prairies properties, there are eight to 10,000 cattle. Because we're leasing that, we're leasing either to the former owner or leasing to, a neighbor on 10 of our 12 units. Yeah. Can you remind me again the how many deeded acres you have? You're about 170,000 deeded acres. 170,000 deeded acres. And people, you allow people, people can walk across, like people can walk on all that land.

Oh, yeah. It's all open. Yeah. People can walk. They can cross, always cross, with a couple of exceptions. right by our staff houses, but they can cross deeded land to get to public land. We have dispersed camping. And we can talk about how we open access, but we have 80,000 acres enrolled in block management in Montana on those properties.

Yeah, I want to talk about that. Yeah, we can talk about that. I want to talk about the walking part, though, just for a minute. Okay. Meaning if someone's going along on annex, they're cruising along on annex, they see all the land ownership would say American Prairie, right? Mm-hmm. So if you see American Prairie on Anex, you'd be able to park, you can park your car and go walk around. Yes, absolutely.

No one's going to yell at you. No one's going to yell at you. No. Okay. They're going to welcome you. Yeah. On the land that you have grazing leases, the only thing you really have access to is you just have the lease. right. Yeah, if you have a

privilege, it's a leasing privilege. Meaning if you have a lease on BLM land, that doesn't have any factor on someone going hunting birds on the BLM land. No, those are public lands. Yeah, it's just like regular public lands. So when someone says, when you say you have federal lands that are leased, BLM lands that are leased, what that means is you have it like, you have like an exclusivity around grazing livestock. Yeah. Yes, yes. And that's it.

It's not like you don't have like, like, it doesn't come with mineral rights. It doesn't come with with exclusive hunting rights. It just is grazing. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. In and this part of, well, across the west, but particularly in this part of Montana, most ranching operations are made, their ranching operations are made up of about a third deeded private acres and two-thirds leased acres. primarily BLAM, but there are state sections in there as well.

And the ranching operation depends on both that private land and that public land. But as the owner of what's called the base property, you have that preferential grazing privilege on those associated public lands in the 10-year renewable grazing leases. 10-year renewable. Yes. So when you buy a ranch, if that ranch has a lease, the lease transfers to the new buyer. Exactly. Got it. And that's good if you renew it or not.

Yeah, you have to pay your grazing fees and be a good steward of those lands and take care of that range land. But yes, it continues to renew as long as that you meet those conditions. Can you explain for me what I kind of, I mostly understand it, but I like to hear you explain it. In the news lately, there's been this, this, I don't know what I call it, there's been this like policy. shift of saying that if you lease land and run, if you have a grazing lease, historically, you would be able to graze buffalo on that ground. But there's a move now to make it that you cannot. Mm-hmm.

Yes. That's got to be just, that's got to be just because that's got to be just directed at you, right? Oh, yes, it is. Yes, it's directed just at us. So... Like, that would not come up if it wasn't for you guys. Going back to... And then we're right in the middle of this. So the final decision has not come out. There's a proposed decision from the, from the BLM. Yeah, lay this all out. This has been very interesting. So this grazing regime that I just talked about ties back to the 1934 grazing act, the Taylor grazing act of 1934. And that grazing act was to, to sort of make sure we're taking good care of our range lands in the West.

And that's what established started this precedent of these grazing privileges tied to base properties. The Taylor Grazing Act and it's to support the livestock industry. And that the Taylor Grazing Act, though, does not say what species and bison have been, bison are livestock in Montana. So important thing to say is that American Prairie's bison are livestock, and they are our private property. We pay the livestock taxes on those. We pay, obviously, the grazing fees, and we are not alone in grazing bison on public lands. And so American Prairie has been permitted to graze bison as livestock after environmental assessment is done on the affected lands. We have been permitted to do that since 2005.

So 20 years. And bison have been grazing on public lands for 40 years. And they have been grazing in six states. And there are about 40 permatees across those six states who are grazing bison on these public lands. And that's been happening for 40 years. That's been happening for 40 years. For American Prairie, it's been happening for 20 years. So in 2019.

to pause on the thing just to help listeners on this is a thing I talk about frequently but just to help listeners understand the thing is um we recently covered on the podcast this interesting move that Colorado made Colorado passed legislation that says if a if a Buffalo walks into the state of Colorado like naturally walks in on his own four hooves he's wildlife okay but that but that does designation of them coming in from a like walking in as wildlife that designation doesn't impact privately owned ones which are regulated as livestock Montana doesn't have an equivalent law Wyoming doesn't have an equivalent law to that meaning when they're on when they're in the state they're regarded as a livestock animal this is me talking or not you talking like I wholeheartedly disagree with that like I think that I think that other states and again this is Steve not Allison saying this I would love to see like Montana could be doing a lot more Wyoming could be doing a lot more to create room for Buffalo to be of wildlife they could be doing a lot more to create Buffalo space for them as a wildlife species which they are

but they're not legally regarded as wildlife but your point being I think is important important understand is that you guys have animals. You have bison. But your bison are like a, they're legally livestock. And so they're registered as livestock. Like you have to be like each one is a registered creature. Well, we have to meet all the disease requirements and they are fenced, obviously. And we're meeting all the the, the requirements of the Montana Department of livestock. Yeah. I think what I think I think a difference is you got, know what it might be and I want it to continue but it's like part of the thing is you guys uh in my I in my view there's a sort of that you perceive of them as like you perceive of them

as wildlife you're still able to imagine them as wildlife we we we manage them and we absolutely manage them. We manage them for their wild characteristics and their display of wild characteristics. But we are disease testing them. We are vaccinating them. We are keeping them home. We are paying attention to stocking rates. We are rounding them up and running them through our handling facility, following low stress techniques for sure so that both we're paying a lot of attention to human safety and animal safety. But we are absolutely managing them. But this is, you're getting at the root of what the BLM has now said, which is that our bison are not production animals. And they have not defined production. They've never used a production standard in the

past. But they're saying, they're arguing that because our animals are not production animals, that that's why they're proposing changing these bison grazing permits back to cattle only grazing permits. So just I want to make sure, because I kind of like made us go off on that little livestock wildlife thing. Just to get to re-clary a point you made that 40 years ago, someone allowed, it was decided that if you had a grazing, a federal grazing lease, meaning you have the you have the right to run your livestock on federally managed public land. Right. say BLM, BLM ground. The BLM ground stays open to everybody.

You still hunt it and hang out, do whatever you want to do on there. But someone has the right to graze it with their animals. 40 years ago, your animals could be cattle. Your animals could be bison. They could be goats. They could be sheep. Okay. Yep.

On that thing. Time goes on and someone, right, very recently is like, hey, wait a minute. I don't like what's going on. I don't like this whole bison thing going on up here. We should have it be that that doesn't count. Yes. And more specifically in 2019, we put in for a change of use request to change to Bison on six federal allotments. Okay.

And the BLM did a three-year environmental analysis to determine that, yes, American Prairie could have these bison grazing permits on these six allotments. Allotments are what the chunks of BLM land are called. And they made that decision in July of 2022. Okay. What did the environmental impact statement turn up? it turned up that that that um that bison are good for the land yeah they eat grass they drop manure kind of like a cow that that that of course no the environmental impacts um are are are good for the land and that the the socio um uh the social and economic impacts are um are good to basically so they

they did a very thorough analysis there was a public comment period obviously it was a three year process so It was thorough. And then that was immediately challenged by the governor's office and a number of state agencies and the Montana stock growers. We were winning those challenges in administrative court. And then the Bureau of Land Management pulled back their decision. And January said, we're going to reevaluate this. And then the following January, just this year, came out with this new decision, with this new production requirement,

with this new way of looking at livestock. And just very clear, nothing changed about our management, nothing changed about the conditions on the ground. They are reinterpreting their own laws. And with a very thin fact pattern and, you know, no legal precedence. Because some of this has been challenged in the courts over those 40. years and bison were an acceptable grazer on these federal lands and now they're proposing that they're not. And I think one of the, what we've seen is that others are stepping forward to say,

wait a minute, what kind of precedent does this set? If you are building your business and American Prairie's bison program is not inexpensive. We've spent, we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on fencing. We're spending, we spent millions and millions of dollars on this program. and it's a important part of our business, but we've made a number of business decisions. We've made commitments to other conservation herds to distribute animals. And so we've built a lot of our, we made a lot of business decisions, right, based on the way things had been. And so you hear people making that slippery slope argument, like what's to say, keep a future administration from just arbitrarily changing the rules. And what does this mean for other bison herds?

And the coalition of large tribes wrote a compelling protest saying what impact could this have on tribal herds? Do the tribes have herds that graze on federal lands? They do. They do. And they recognize that they also recognize that American Prairie has, you know, we're not an indigenous led organization, but we are part of this Bryson conservation family, right? continent-wide, and we have distributed, as I mentioned, 660 bison to other conservation herds. There's a lot of exchange of genetics, exchange of animals.

We've helped start conservation herds. And so you hamstring American Prairie's ability to do that. The tribes pointed that out. They also pointed out that American Prairies management, back to your point about the way that we manage our bison for, you know, as minimal handling, low stocking rates, as natural on the landscape as possible, that that is in the, that is in the indigenous tradition and that, and the, the protest even says that, but that, you know, that American Prairie's way of managing is, is, is similar to the way that tribal herds are managed.

What, uh, on the thing that the production question, in, in forgiving from not understanding the proposal, the chain, like the wording change, is, is the gripe that it's, is the gripe that it's, is the gripe that it's not, that it's not, that they're not being raised with meat production in mind? The latter. More of the latter. Yeah. Yeah. They're saying, yeah, they're saying, um, that, that, that they need to be production animals. And so they're, they're disregard. So, so our, our response to this protest was, this production standard is brand new. It's nowhere in the regulations or the case law.

But if there was a production standard, what is that production standard? Because not only is American Prairie distributing these animals to other herds, other herds, many of whom are sort of food sovereignty herds, so are absolutely, you know, those animals are consumed. America Prairie also has a robust public harvest program, and we have 370 of our animals have been harvested by the public, and that's tens of thousands of pounds of meat. And so this idea that the BLM is going to come in and dictate exactly how you manage your animals for production, and they're only going to do it for this one species for cows. are not going to do it for bison, or excuse me, for bison, they're not going to do it for cows is, is really hard to get your head around, right?

Because cattle producers are like, are going, some cattle producers are reducing their stocking rates for conservation purposes, right? Does that, is it, would that make their, would they not be meeting some sort of standard? So that, that's, that's our argument is, this isn't anywhere in, in the case law. This isn't anywhere in the regulations and what does production even mean? So what will happen next on this whole thing? So there was a 15-day protest period. We protested, as I mentioned, did a number of other organizations.

And then the BLM has 45 days to issue a final decision. That final decision could come down any day now. And then we will, you know, assuming that their final decision is the same as their proposed decision. decision, we will challenge this in both the administrative and the federal courts. What do you think the final decision is going to be same? Yeah, we think it's going to be the same. Just sticking it to you. You know, Steve, what I do want to focus on is that right now, those animals are out on the

same lands. We have not had to change our operations. We have contingency plans. We have contingency plans A through F, right? and they're expensive and they're time consuming, but we have a plan to take care of those animals and to do so safely. And our mission's moving forward, right? We're going to continue to buy habitat.

We're going to continue to welcome the public to that habitat. We're going to continue to restore habitat. We're going to continue to raise bison. So while it may look in the public sphere, like this is all American Prairie is focused on right now. It is far from what all we are focused on right now. focused on moving our mission forward. And I think that's been one of the most comforting things about being part of this organization,

leading this organization. We get to look decades down the road. Sure. I understand it. It's still a kick to the nuts, though, but I understand you got to still keep looking forward, though. Yeah. I mean, it's been fascinating to watch, man.

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Probably not. That's probably the word you would use for it. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a hiccup. It's a hurdle. It's expensive.

It's time-consuming. But we're committed to bison conservation. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember, 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime.

988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this. Man, I'm telling you I'm fired up. Well, anyway, right now we're running the ultimate spring turkey giveaway, and it's packed with over $13,000 in prizes, including an incredible turkey hunting experience, gear from Sig, a shotgun from Bonelli, a $1,000 gift card from First Light, and a whole big pile of gear from. other partner brands. One lucky winner is going to receive

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Let's talk about the access program in the state. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to tell you a bunch of stuff you already know because I'm just telling the listeners this. In the state of Montana, like like many states, the state has an access. They have a handful of access programs, hunting access programs, one of their hunting access. They're kind of the main marquee hunting access program is called a block management program. Where you have, again, this is like a willing, willing seller, willing buyer situation.

the state fishing game agency they raise funds they fund their agency through hunting license sales tags and stamps right they're able to take some of that money that they get from selling hunting licenses

I think a big chunk of the funding comes from selling non-resident hunting licenses and they're able to they make a pool of money if a landowner is willing to allow hunting access on their land, they can get compensated by the state. Okay?

So then a public hunter can wind up. They're administered in different ways. Like you need to get a, some you just go out and hunt, you sign up at a sign up box, some you need to get a reservation, but however it works,

they're administered in different ways, but however it works, the hunter, no cost to them, is able to go hunt these black management lands. Usually some, usually a lot of agricultural lands, ranch land, farm country.

No cost to them. The state compensates the landowner. You guys do, you guys have some enrollment in black management. What's like, like organizationally, what is your, what is your attitude about the black management program and

enrollment? Like, how do you decide what's, how do you decide what's in, what's out? How much is it? in, how much is out? Yeah, so, you know, philosophically, what we would like to see over time is larger wildlife

populations on these lands. They're not at their ecological carrying capacity. We fully support hunting. We provide a lot of hunting access. And what we're going for is a quality hunt, right? So fewer people quality hunt, right? So we have a group within the organization called Park, the Public Access and Recreation Committee. And any time – and they set – they set or make our public access policies, whether that's about what roads are open, what hunting access is allowed, what species are allowed on a particular property.

And they're using a lot of data and input from FWP and from others to make those recommendations for those properties. and then those go to the leadership team to approve. So anytime we buy a new property and we bought six last year, they spent about a year getting to know that property, right? Getting to know the roads, getting to know the infrastructure, working with the lessee, whether that's the existing lessee or a new lessee, and understanding how we're going to open it up to the public. But within a year, our goal is to open that property up to the public.

And so each of our units has a different, has a different management. A lot of it is what's called type two block management. Type one is the sign in box. Type two is call in and make a reservation. So right now we have about 80,000 acres enrolled in block management, which makes us, I believe it's the 10th largest participant in the entire state in the block management program.

So you can go at our website. It really clearly spells out which properties, you know, what hunting is allowed on the properties, how to make a reservation. And FWP is a great partner in managing all of that. We've done, we have one property where we manage the hunting access ourselves, and we've experimented with this in the past and having a partner like FWP to do that, to manage it, to take those calls, to make those reservations, let alone to do the enforcement, have the wardens on the ground.

That's tremendously beneficial to us. One of the things that makes, one of the things that makes Black management work, is it gives the, a landowner can sign up in degrees. Yes. Okay. So let's say you're landowner and for whatever reason you have a, you have a thing where you could never imagine any scenario in which someone hurting a turkey was acceptable. You had like a great affinity for turkeys.

You could say like, hey, I want to do black management, but here's the deal, no turkeys. Right. And the state's going to go along. I believe there's a point at which the restrictions get so great that they don't that that that it's that that it's that worth the participation for them yes but but but you guys are but but American Prairie though you have a lot of thing like your restrictions are are much different than the state's hunting restrictions like you have big areas that are open to black management but they're not open to mule deer yes I was going to use meal deer as an example that's I would you I think you was with some Heinrich that you were talking about mule deer populations, right? Yeah. So I believe it's north of the river, region six, where we don't allow any mield deer hunting. And that's because of what the data says about the mule deer populations.

So, yeah, we're making those species determinations on a property by property basis. But we're allowing a lot of access and thousands and thousands and thousands of hunter days each year. Okay. Go ahead. Oh, no, no. I imagine that, um, as you see like across the west, as we see white tail numbers, like just generally broads, like wide scale, increase in white tail numbers, um, decrease in mule deer numbers. Most of your lands are open for white tails. Most of your lands are closed for mule deer, even if the state is allowing mule deer hunts in those areas.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what, like, is most of the stuff open for pheasant? Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. That would be easy because it's a non-native bird. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Most of the stuff there's, we have some incredible elk hunting opportunities in the larb hills in region six. We actually, that's the one we manage on our own. We do, we do a special draw. That's a special draw district within for FWP. And then we allow, I think it's about 18 opportunities. and that is a coveted opportunity.

There's some youth opportunities in there. But so, yeah, it's property by property. It is a year by year, but it all reflects our commitment to hunting and to public access. How does it normally work? How, like, if you guys did six land acquisitions last year, what's your sort of batting average on land acquisitions? I mean, like, how many, like in the area where you're operating, how many listings are there in a year, would you say? Yeah. And of those listings, how many are you interested in?

And of the ones you're interested in, how many do you close? So six was a lot of transactions for us. That was a big year. That was a very big year. We added about 78,000 acres through those six transactions last year. And I definitely want to talk a bit about the anchor ranch because that was the biggest of those of those transactions. That's 67,000 of those 78,000 acres was the anchor ranch. And, you know, I don't know how to, we're not talking about a lot of properties, right?

Like on average, we've probably been adding two, three properties per year. There is often competition for those properties. We don't get every single one of them. And, you know, in some cases, these are family decisions that are made over, whether it's a resident landowner or an out-of-state landowner, they're decisions that are made over over a number of years, right? So a number of these properties, we've been talking to landowner for a number of years. So it's hard to, it's hard to say sort of like, you know, the sample size is so small. it's hard to say a true batting average, but hopefully that's a little bit helpful context.

But some, presumably some don't work out. Yeah, they don't work out. Yeah, the landowner wants a price that we, that is not fair market value and we're not, we're not willing to pay it. How often do you run into a landowner that would be like, hey, your bids higher, but I, I'm choosing to accept less money from a traditional cattle rancher? I mean, we don't, because none of this is public. information, we don't know what other people are paying. Right, right. We know what we, we know a lot about

the market from from appraisal data. We know a lot about the market from brokers. We're spending a lot of time figuring out sort of what is the, the fair market value. We're getting appraisals. We have no interest in paying above fair market value because we have more property to buy and we have to raise every single dollar that goes into to each of those of those acquisitions. What's your like what's the organization's like timeline? Like how long are you this is going to lead to another question like what is the plan? But like like how long are you guys? Do you know what I mean?

Like how long can you imagine being solvent and like continuing the mission for? Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, we intend to fulfill the mission of the organization. If you had to guess, like in all seriousness, if you had to say like it would take roughly how long? Oh, the acquisition phase will be additional decades. More decades. More decades. Yeah, absolutely more decades.

As the land comes available, we will purchase it. And in the meantime, we will continue to steward and restore. and open to the public what we have. But there is not, you know, I think what I've always appreciated in American Prairies, that there are a lot of ways to measure progress. There are a lot of numbers that I could throw at you, whether that's, you know, what the most obvious, of course, is Acres added. But we track visitor nights.

Like, we have two campgrounds and a series of public huts that are open to the public, and that those numbers are increasing every year. We have, I think it was last year, about 600, 6,600 overnight visitors at our properties. So we are tracking miles of stream restored. We're tracking fence removal and fence conversion. We have a staff member who tracks the tonnage of metal that he's removing from the prairie, right? Because part of, you know, the, the, the, the, the, sort of junkifying the landscape.

You know, that's when you're removing an old dump or, you know, you're auctioning off an old building that's not needed anymore. Like, we're, we're measuring that. So there are a lot of ways to measure progress and we're not holding ourselves. We don't need to hold ourselves to a firm timeline to complete the acquisition. Obviously, the longer it takes, more expensive it is and the more money we need to raise. but it's it's not like on an annual basis or even a five-year basis. We certainly set goals, but some of those, some of those milestones are,

or target milestones are not in our control and that's okay. You realize visitation can backfire, right? I mean, that was like with Yellowstone, dude, it's like yellowstone's like a nightmare. Oh, I mean, I live in the state. I know that. Like that needs to be turned into a wilderness area. There are... They'll tell you my whole plan. It's a big trailhead.

I'm going to keep anything that, any highway that goes through it, I'm going to keep. This is if I'm ever emperor. Okay. The bisecting highways, I'll keep open. I would dismantle all the infrastructure. I would keep the highways that go through open. I would put in large trailheads here and there and the whole thing would be a wilderness area. Just unpark it.

It's a very controversial idea. No, I mean. Very controversial. I was going to say. My kids been yelled at because I have this viewpoint. Your dad wants to. But he doesn't understand what wilderness area is. It would be, it would be, it would protect the park more.

You follow me? I'm just saying visitation can backfire. I mean, that place is a chaos. Oh, oh, yeah. But they have four, was it five million visitors last year? Yeah. And we're talking like maybe 10,000. So.

But, but when you get up into the millions, let me know. I might warn. What's important point you're making, which is you can be really thoughtful about where you put infrastructure. And, you know, I did a tour of Yellowstone sort of a behind the scenes tour. And I was reminded that that figure eight road and the lot, the placement of lodges is because that's how long a carriage ride was. That was 17 miles, 19 miles. And so that park was was built for visitors in that way with the gas stations and the, um, and the, um, and the, um, And the lodges and the, and there are a lot of roads, right?

It's not just a lot of roads. A lot of roads. And I want people understand when my plan comes in, I'm not going to mess with any kind of flow through traffic. I'm not going to mess with interstate traffic. I'm going to say take, take 20 through Idaho. All that's going to be fine. That's not going to be interrupted just so people are clear on this. Do you guys have like a, you guys have like, you get funding.

Like you don't fund. you have a network of donors, obviously, probably globally, right? We, mostly in the United States, I think 3% of our dollars raise have come from outside of the state. Oh, really? Excuse me, outside of the country. And we had donors from all 50 states. It's not all 50 states every year, but, and about 15% of our money last year came from

Montana. Okay. And when you do an acquisition, you don't fundraise specifically around an acquisition. you fundraise on the mission. Sometimes we're fundraised for an acquisition. Is that right? Yeah, sometimes we fundraise for an acquisition. Yep.

We've, you know, we're fundraising to support the organization's ongoing operations and stewarding those 600,000 acres and supporting our team of 50 people and all the roles that they play, right, in keeping a nonprofit going. And then we're, and then we're fundraising for acquisition. And then we are also fundraising for an endowment because we, once we are through with this acquisition phase, we envision an endowment large enough to take care of the basic operations of the place. There'll be some revenue generating activities for sure. But we want that endowment to be able to pay the taxes and support the bison herd and take care of the operations. One thing I think people wonder about, and maybe you can't even answer it, is like, I think people wonder like, what is the ultimate, let's go forward a century.

Okay. What is American Prairie in 100 years? Is it a park? No. Capital P. Park? Yeah. No. Is there ever point, like, is it ever point where you'd go like, ha, we're done?

And then, and then there's a, when there's a favorable like administration, you'd be like, ha, we're done. And you'd be like, we now are handing this over. This is, this is the national park that we did, that they didn't think to create, but we made it. No, we believe that a public, private partnership collaboration is the right solution for this landscape. We will hold title to those lands. That would work in perpetuity. I think it can work in perpetuity.

And I think if you look at the condition of our parks and the backlog, I think that there's a real opportunity to have multiple landowners at the table, meaning a private landowner and these agencies managing toward common goals, toward those common wildlife and public access goals. What I wonder about, though, is like because it's so hard to anticipate. Right. Political changes. You don't need to tell me that.

Okay. That like, and even if it was the plan, I don't, I think it'd be like hard if you guys to talk about it publicly. Do you follow me? Yeah. Yeah. Because you'd want, you'd keep it secret. Right. But I, I, like logically.

That is not the plan. But do I have a crystal ball for a hundred years from? Like, let's talk about bison. Yeah. What are bison? going to be. There's going to be, here's my prediction. There's going to be more in 100 years. This is my

prediction. Corinne and I have been arguing a lot, not arguing, texting back and forth about she hates poly markets. Doesn't hate them. She just, prediction market. Okay, not poly, yeah. She, I don't want to put words in the mouth. She views prediction markets as a, as a

very volatile industry. as people are like, there's this new thing, like what are the regulations going to be? Like, it's taking shape. I just feel like I'm kind of curious about them. She's sort of curious about what their future holds. What they need to figure out is how to do long-term wagers.

Like, I would make a 100-year wager that would benefit my children's children when I won. Right? That's like the bet I would make. So this is one of the, of those for when we build like the way-ass future prediction market thing, which is like a state planning. Will the world end or not? Yeah, this is a hundred years. Okay. It's like a state planning. If I could do that, I would put a lot of money on this. If there was a reliable way to make

hundred year bets that would benefit my children's children when I proved to be right. Okay, 21, 26. I would bet. There are, I don't want to say a lot. There are quite a bit more. There are quite a bit more. there are quite a bit more wild free roaming buffalo on the landscape that can cross political jurisdictions

that can freely cross political jurisdictions that are wild life that are treated as wildlife treated as wild life yeah there'll be more of that there's more of that

um it's our national mammal Steve yeah that was toothless It came with nothing. It came with nothing. It was the biggest. I was glad.

I was glad. But let's be honest. It meant nothing. It meant nothing. It was purely symbolic. Yes. But I hope it reminds. It reminds our citizens of this natural heritage and of what we had on the landscape.

You need to be suspicious. You know, you've been. live long enough to be suspicious. You need to be suspicious of anything that's frictionless. There wasn't like, like, when they were going like, hey, it's going to be the national mammal. There wasn't like an opposition.

Yeah. Okay. And if there's no opposition, then you must realize that it means nothing. Yeah. No, that's, I take your point. It was just a symbolic. Take your point. It was cool.

I was glad. But, but you also, I don't know when this study, I don't think this study was repeated recently, but there was a study looking at. at Montanaans and the Montanaans wanting to see bison in the way that you're describing in this state and it was well over 60% wanted that. So I do believe that that people want to see bison back on the landscape. Even though leading a private effort, we're facing this resistance, it could feel like if a private organization raising private dollars to raise a private herd is facing this resistance,

certainly your dream isn't going to happen immediately. But I hope it would be before 21, 26. Quite a bit more. What did I say? Not a lot, but a bit more, quite a bit more. It was real squishy. Real squishy. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything.

like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis hubline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder any time. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. All right, everybody, if you're getting fired up for spring turkey season, you're going to want to hear this.

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But don't wait around. The giveaway ends one minute before midnight on Monday, April 13th, 2000, 26. So you got all day that day. But it ends right before midnight. Gobble, gobble. My view on stuff, my view on things is like I have this sort of deal where, like, from a professional

standpoint, okay? Like from a professional standpoint as someone who advocates about the outdoor lifestyle hunting and fishing wildlife conservation my my sort of professional promise is that like I look at situations

taking place the political landscape the conservation world whatever and I try to be like what is in the best interest what is in the best interest of hunters and anglers and outdoorsmen okay and no one's perfect by try to strip out

in explaining things to people I try to strip out the other considerations that might come into being I'll give you a case and point talking about an impenetrable border wall between us and Mexico

I would view my professional obligation would be to speak to what it means for wildlife yes my professional obligation is not to talk about what it would mean for employment, what it would mean for the fruit industry, farming industry, hospitality industry, employment, like, right?

So I got to go like, okay, never mind. I got to forget all my opinions about that. And I got, I need to talk about what it means for wildlife. And impenetrable walls ain't great for wildlife. So I have to then say, to be honest with myself and to be true to my mission, I have to say like an impenetrable wall between us in Mexico is going to impair and impede wildlife movements and be kind of, that's bad for hunters, right? But here's another thing. It's also bad for hunters that if we have tons of illegal immigration and you have to have an exaggerated federal state presence on the, the landscape, dealing with all that, that's an impact on wildlife, right?

So that has be considered. So you follow what I'm saying? It gets complicated. When I look at American Prairie, you look like you're uncomfortable. No, no, no. I'm settling in for this. When I look to America Prairie,

I just want what I want, what I wish there would be, and I know you can't do it. I wish there would be that, like, written in the charter is like a promise to hunters and anglers, that it would be memorial. that there would be a deal codified, right?

And then people would look and be like, yeah, I know it's kind of weird what they're doing or whatever, but like they stand by hunters and anglers. Yeah. But you can't because it's too complicated. Well, you're not. So where I thought you were going to go is some sort of, you know, public access. easement. And the reason that those are tricky for us is because we don't know what land will ultimately own.

And when you put an easement on it, you reduce its value. And we're trying to borrow against our existing properties. And we don't, we could sell something that's on the, you know, if we, if we, concentration of land ends up over here, we could, you could sell something. So I'm not going, we don't want to hamstring a future management team. by doing an easement at this point. We do have conservation easements on our property. We've inherited conservation easements.

We're not anti-easement. We can work with them. But that's sort of the – but if – and what we say is look at our track record, right? Like, look at what we've done for the last 20 years of owning land. And it's increased access. It's increased hunting opportunity that will continue. But you're not the first to suggest some sort of. sort of contract with Montana or or charter and that that's that I think that goes beyond a

communications tool right it's it's it is it reflects a conversation and a commitment and so it's not it's not a terrible idea no it's not terrible idea it's a great idea because that's like when I was saying down the road if you viewed it like um if if if we started out our conversation We were talking about parks, right? They didn't do one of those, right? But I think that if there was imagined a, if there was imagined a large area that would be, the aim was to make it a increased wildlife,

better habitat. Right. with a open to regulated hunting activities in accordance with state objectives in perpetuity, I think that a lot, that some of the tension would trickle away. Yeah, I hear you. Also, that's kind of what's happening right now on 600,000 acres, right? I don't know if the tension, Steve, comes as much from that, we are seeing more support from hunters and anglers and less doubt and less skepticism and more appreciation. And I think, you know, there are a lot of conservation efforts in this state.

Some of them are species focused. Some of them are regionally focused. Some of them are private lands focused, working private landowners. I don't think there's anyone. There isn't anyone who is creating the access that we're creating in every single year, right? The access to our deeded land, the access through our deeded land to public lands. I mean, the response to our purchase of the anchor ranch was astonishing. Well, that was an important thing.

It was, and for those who don't know, we immediately opened a 3.9. nine mile private road, the gate to a 3.9 mile private road that accessed 50,000 acres, the Bullwacker Road, that opened 50,000 acres of public land that wasn't accessible. I mean, it was accessible for the very hardy, but now it is accessible through this road. And that gate was, those no trespassing signs were immediately taken down and that gate was immediately thrown open. Remember we were talking about the Nesperse war? It's right there.

They crossed in there. It's right there. I was standing there this fall. with my family. Yeah. Yeah. There's a Ford there. They crossed. There's a bit of a shootout. Yeah. There's a bit of a shootout down there, but it wasn't that big of a deal, but they crossed there. Yeah. It is tremendous, tremendous country. It is that, that whole Cal Creek drainage and that that footholes of the bear's paw there. So again, not a bad idea. But our track record is. That was widely. That was in my community, that was a.

That was celebrated. Yes, yes. And, you know, we, it just happened that we made that announcement right before the Choke-Terry Festival in Lewistown. We always have a booth at the Joke-Jerry Festival. Our building on Main Street is open. Our Discovery Center is open during it. And hundreds of people came by to say, thank you. We noticed that.

Thank you. So, so that's what we will, that's what we're doing. And that's what we will continue to do. Mm-hmm. How long will you stick with this, you think? I don't know. I'm still having so much fun. It is fun.

Like you enjoy it? Oh, it's so, yeah. First of all, it's an amazing team, right? We've got, we've got incredibly talented team. I was up with our Bison team the week before last. And we have two new team members in that group, both females, which is cool. And I hadn't seen our new handling facility and the new design of the handling facility. And they're world class.

They are world class in the way that they're managing those animals in the way that they're adapting the way that our management to take good care of the animals and make sure people are safe too. So it's an incredible team. We've got an incredible board. You have supporters around the country who believe in this mission, believe in this idea, care about this landscape, care about the wildlife and the human communities. get to interact with all of them. So it's challenging and it's a lot of nights away from home. And whether they're up in, whether I'm spending them up in more central Montana or around the country. But as long as, as long as the board wants me, I will, I will be here.

How big is you guys board? It's 22. Okay. Yep. 22 from all over the country, a handful of Montanaans. You're going to bring my suggestions to the board? Yes. Thank you.

They'll hear you. They'll hear them. Oh, yeah, because they'll be vetting how well you do. Yeah, yeah. What did I not ask you about when you get vetted? What did I not ask about that you wish I would have asked you about? You can just answer it. We've covered a lot.

We have covered a lot. I guess I would just say come visit us. And certainly we have a lot of people hunting out there. That is our number one recreational activity. But wildlife watching is a close second. our vice president of recreation and access follows all the trends in Montana and, you know, scenic drives and camping and wildlife watching and birding and floating the rivers are all are all incredible activities to do out there.

So you know, I thought it was interesting about you guys, you mentioned wildlife viewing. What I thought was interesting about you guys is like now and then just for people listening. Now and then, Grizzlies will kind of come out of the. Grizzlies will kind of come out of the Rockies up in the north part of the state. And they'll strike out east, you know, out onto the Great Plains. And like what people lose track of is historically, that was a Great Plains animal. Custer and his chief scout bloody knife.

I mean, they killed a grizzly out in South Dakota. Right. I mean, grizzlies were, you know, you think of all these big grizzly mullings like Hugh Glass. When he got mauled in the story that was told in the Revenant, he got mauled out on the plains. Like, they were a plains animal. When Lewis and Clark ran into grizzly bears, it was out on the plains. Every day in May of 1805. You'd be like, you'd be going down these big valleys.

You mentioned choke cherries and stuff. You're traveling these big valleys and you'd read Mountain Man accounts. They'll run into like nine grizzlies in a day out on the big valleys out on the plains. people would be like, oh, they got pushed into the mountains. They didn't get pushed into the mountains. Just the ones that were on the planes are gone. And there's someone, they didn't like migrate to the mountains. That's like a misconception to be that they were there.

They remained there where they're not is on the planes. But now and then one will strike out and he'll head east. And when that happens, oftentimes people are like, good Lord, it's the end of the world. But you guys had a grizzly a number of years ago turn up. But I remember you were like a rare voice to be like, cool, a grizzly. Well, yeah. Amid a lot of like hand wringing about what it's like the end of civilization as we know it. Well, you know, I think other, aren't some of our neighbors were happy to see them too.

But yeah, yeah, and it hasn't just been that one. We've spotted a number in that area for sure now, like even a mom and and cubs. So. No, they're coming. Yeah, no, they're coming. They're coming. And they're coming exactly where we, how we thought they would come. And that's why, you know, one of the things we didn't touch on is the way that American Prairie works.

with neighboring landowners. And one of those ways, I talked about the 25 families that run 8 to 10,000 head of cattle on our properties. But we also work with private landowners through a program called Wild Sky, where we make payments basically rent for wildlife through our cameras for conservation program. And so if someone sees get a mountain lion on a camera trap, they get a check for that mountain lion in a camera trap. And what we're recognizing is that this wildlife is there. in the middle of these working lands and that these landowners are providing

that habitat and we cost share on habitat restoration projects too including the reason I brought this up is because we have a range riding program that is right there in the in the breaks where those grizzly bears were and there haven't been any issues with those grizzly bears in the Missouri River breaks

but that was definitely up now yeah there were me we we are our visitors were seeing We're seeing evidence of grizzly bears and there have been bears in some of the island mountain ranges around there too. But, but yeah, it was a day we celebrated in terms of advocating for bearproof dumpsters and educating our visitors about carrying bear spray and immediately putting bear boxes at all of our public facilities out there because, you know, we don't we don't want that any conflict, of course, and nor do any of our neighbors. So, but yeah, they're moving east. And here's why I didn't ask about, you guys are like, you guys are not in on, like, you don't participate in any kind of predator management programs. Like you don't, you don't do any predator management on your lands.

You're sort of like just not comfortable with it. Like, what's the sort of, what's the viewpoint on it? You don't view, you don't, I mean, because I guess because you're not, you're not in the livestock business necessarily. It's not a huge issue for you. Yeah, and we want to see everything restored to the landscape. Do you view that if you look at stuff like declining mule deer, right? Or like protecting bighorn sheep, do you ever, do you ever weigh that out to be like what is that if mule deer, if you're taking steps, like you don't want human harvest of mule deer, right? But for both those species, isn't it disease?

With meal deer? No, it's habitat. Predation and habitat. So if you were looking like, let's say you were looking at a species of concern, okay, it would be mule deer, harsh winters, that's an issue. Predation's an issue. Habitat loss is an issue. What if you looked at a thing like mulean, you thought like as a species of particular concern,

we want to like help build and recover muleeer during low points, you would never make the calculation that even if you knew empirically that predation from coyotes on mule deer fawns was having a population level negative impact you would not participate in predator man you would not participate in coyote management to to bring up mule deer numbers those are just not conversations that we're that we're having yeah those are just not yeah those are just not the the reality out there on that. You're not looking at it at that kind of detailed level. Yeah.

What else do you want to talk about or things that you wish I had asked you about? You know, I think we've covered a good range of topics. How best do people go find out more about your organization? There's great information on our website. And this year will be improving the visit pages. So it's clearer how to rent a, facility, how to get a hunting reservation, how to go out and experience the landscape. One of our colleagues, he's currently feeding on one right now, and I've been eating some of it

too, is he, his wife had a permit to hunt the buffalo on your guys' place. Another one of my colleagues, every year he goes with a veteran. Yep. He participates in a veteran hunt. Yeah, we didn't, we, we, we, we, I mentioned that 370 bison have been harvested, but I didn't, I didn't, I didn't go into the details of how popular that program is. And so every year we do have, public application. Yeah, it's a public application, 20 to 30 opportunities every year and thousands and thousands of people apply.

Those opportunities are weighted to Montanans and they're weighted to the seven counties that we work in. So harder to get one of those if you're not in the state. But those are immensely popular. His wife got one. But they don't live here in town, but his wife got one. Yeah, well, she was really lucky then. Well, Gallatin County wouldn't be weighted, so she was just one of them. Is Park County weighted?

No, no. She just got lucky, love. Yeah, she just got lucky. And then the other thing we do is we donate harvest to other nonprofits to auctioner them off. So as an example, the Glasgow Reds baseball team up in Glasgow, along with a rifle that was donated by a local rancher, that opportunity to harvest a Bison on America Bray went for over $30,000. Oh, really?

Yeah, raising money for that for that. organization. Our body that works here, it goes with the wounded veterans. I'm not sure what organization he goes with. Wounded warriors, I believe. Could be. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely, definitely put in for that. It's an annual late winter thing that they go. Yep. Yep. There are a couple, there are some organizations that we've partnered with year after year like that. But yeah, I mean, if anyone has an organization that they want America Free to support, give us a call and also put in for those put in for that drawing every year. And you, so people should go check out your website.

Yeah, website's the best place. What is your, what is the website? Americanprary.org. Oh. Two eyes and prairie. It's easy to find. Two eyes and prairie. Allison Fox, thanks for coming out on the show, man.

Yeah, thank you. Really appreciate you having us back. Yeah. No, you could, well, I should, I don't want to say you can come on anytime, but you can come on almost every time. Well, thank you. That's very generous of you. Yeah, especially these new stuff to talk.

talk about. We didn't talk about your bison tattoo now. No, it's fading out. I'm a fake one. I really thought that was why that you got that in my honor. Well, the deal, I've talked about this all the time, but the deal is my wife and I, we were going to provide like a service by being the last untattooed American couple. Oh. My husband, my husband and I are part of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The select few American couples. And then. Now you're telling me my kids are also not going to get tattoos. I'll get into that in greater detail later. Well, but no, I appreciate you being, I mean, you know, coming on and being such a good sport about asking a bunch of questions.

Yeah, no, happy to. I appreciate, we appreciate the opportunity to tell the story. I guess the other thing I would say is, you know, we in 2021, we opened our Discovery Center in Lewistown. And that's really the headquarters of the organization. We've got about 15 staff based there. that facility is open for public events. There's an exhibit hall. There's a children's area.

We have a new blackfooted ferret. I was going to ask about that. Yeah. So go in and visit it. Go to an event there and meet our team and ask any question you have about American Prairie. That is we are committed to being open and transparent and available. And it's been amazing to see that having that physical place where people can go,

we called it a discovery center because it's not quite a visible. visitor center, it's not quite a community center. It's both. And that's why we chose the word discovery. But it's open and go talk to members of our team. Do you guys have any blackfooted ferrets on the ground? We don't. We don't. So we don't have the extent of the prairie dog towns are not large enough yet to support blackfooted ferrets. There are blackfooted ferrets on Fort Belknap. That's the closest population now. And they have been there for decades. God, I would have just feel that you have enough prairie dog colonies for Blackfoot affairs. So they need huge area. They need huge areas. Thousands of acres. And we're working toward that. We're absolutely working

toward that. But, um, but, but not, we, we don't have them, um, any now. So some little football field size town isn't going to do it. Nope. Nope. Um, you need a towns that are big enough so that some plague out, they can, they can go to other towns. You need to, I see what you're saying. Yeah. A connected network. Yeah. If he's like down in the valley floor hanging out and like I said, like maybe something, a couple football fields, but then all of a sudden you realize there's not one left because they got, because they all died. Yeah, they need to be able to move to other, other populations. But we do, we have an ambassador ferret at the Discovery Center.

You can point at him and be like, someday. Yeah, right. No, I mean, it's the National Blackfooted ferret center in Fort Collins, which has a captive breeding program. And some ferrets prove themselves able to survive and be reintroduced to some of the reintroduction sites around the great plains and some do not.

And so our little guy bandit eats two rats a day instead. Is that like, is there a permitting problem? Like, let's say you just wanted to try it out and cut one loose. Cut a, not cut one. Cut 10 on them loose.

Right. Oh, they're an endangered species. I mean, I'm saying like, if you're like, no, we're going to do three males, seven females. We're just going to like, is that, can you not do it?

Because is that a huge permitting permission issue? Yeah, there's a, Because they're an ESA species? Yeah. Well, and yes, they're an ESA species. And of course, every, America Pry doesn't have the authority to reintroduce any animals, right? Understood.

Except for Bison. But, yes, you would, you, yeah, it would be. Is it impossible or is it just hard? No, I don't think it's impossible. There are reintroduction sites. There are sites in Montana. There are sites in South Dakota and Wyoming and Colorado. I guess there wouldn't be a reason why they couldn't have a private land.

Oh, I said there are, yeah, there are private land sites. I believe that there are sites that are, you know, a mix of public and private land. So. I would wonder about on, on ferrets if, if you have, if the captive breeding program, this is a whole other conversation with a different guests, but this is what I would ask them. If there's a black, if you were a blackfooted ferret expert. Yeah. I would say, is the captive breeding program so successful that you can roll the dice now and then? or is a blackfooted,

is an individual blackfooted ferret of such rarity and value that you can't be risky? Mm-hmm. Do you follow me? I do follow you. I do follow you and I don't know.

It's hundreds of animals in the captive breeding program at least. And so I suspect that they can. They can take a chance. They can take a chance. But, Because, you know, you don't take a chance with a rhino, like a white rhino.

No, you do not take a chance. You don't go, I don't know, turn them loose. See what happens. No, no. But I wonder if you can, like, if there's ever enough ferrets where you can just start trying some stuff, you know. Yeah. Well, and there's a concept of kind of like a nursery site where it might be smaller, but you're training those ferrets to be ferret-like in a, in a wild landscape again. So, you know, we learned the other day.

We had a rough grouse expert on. And rough grouse are not doing well in a lot of the areas in the southern end of their range. And he was pointing out that unlike the wild turkey, rough grouse don't do well with spot reintroductions. They have to bleed out. Oh, interesting. You can't jump ahead. Like they just don't. What kind of distances are we talking?

I don't know. But he said that like they have very poor success rates leapfrogging. Like they need to they need to bleed from. Intact. Expand their habit. Yeah. They need to be like stable populations in good habitat and they need to spread like that. Putting them in a box and moving them forward and dropping them doesn't work for them.

I don't know if it's just that they can't learn the area quickly enough. Yeah. mistakes. They're not familiar. They've got to ease into it. They're too vulnerable or whatever, but it doesn't work like that. So the conservation efforts are focused on expanding habitat. Off core, as you're saying, it has to be off core habitat and move it that way. Like, it doesn't work to jump to leap for all of them. Yeah. But if that was the plan on Blackfooted Ferrets, it's going to be a long road to recovery. Yeah. If you weren't able to establish new fledging populations. There aren't any populations. There's no place. There's very few places.

Does it start from? Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, call me when you get a Blackfoot and Farad on the ground. I'll be curious about that. I'm rooting for that one.

Fierce little animals. Yeah, they're cool. I mean, obviously. I did get it the opportunity once to spotlight when there was a site in the Charlie Russell. And I got to drive around all night. And it was. I've seen about, I'd like to see like one doing his deal. Oh, yeah.

That green eye shine in the middle of the night. Was that how they. Yeah, and then there's a reader that you put over the hole and you stuff some hay down in there. And so you can tell when it's come out and then you get the reader and they know they're all chips so they know. Oh, really? Yeah. They're doing basically a ferret. They were doing like a ferret census every fall to see.

And then capturing the new kits and tagging them. They have a, their eyes show green. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you're driving on the spotlight on the top of the car and looking for them out on the Prairie Dogtown all night long. Are they spooky? Very cool experience.

No, I mean, they're... They're chill. Yeah, no, they're... And they're small, right? They're a couple of pounds and their price a couple pounds. That's a cool animal. Amazing to think about. They eat a prairie dog only lasts them a couple days.

They eat one every three days. Well, it seems like there's plenty of them out there, but I see what you're saying about needing those huge towns. Yeah, well, let alone all the other species that the rattlesnakes and the badgers and the burrowing owls and all the other species that depend on on those prey dog towns and all the ungulates that are eating that fresh growth and they're important part of the ecosystem even though not everyone loves them yeah all right man thanks again yeah thank you appreciate you coming on absolutely thanks for having us hunting demands preparation persistence and gear that will not quit on you that is why i wear first light this isn't about hype it's about no compromise

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