Department of Interior considers vacating APR grazing permits

A coalition of Montana counties has petitioned the Department of Interior (DOI) to vacate a 2022 decision that allows American Prairie Reserve (APR) bison to graze on BLM allotments.  In response, DOI Secretary Doug Burgum on December 9 took the extraordinary step of assuming jurisdiction over a review of the 2022 decision.  The result of this move portends to be a major blow to APR’s plan to establish a 3.5-million-acre private nature preserve in the heart of Montana.

In a detailed filing with DOI, the Montana Natural Resource Coalition of Counties (MTNRC) points out that BLM lands are reserved for livestock grazing and cannot be rewilded.  Furthermore, BLM regulations give grazing preference to “cattle, sheep, horses, burros, and goats.”

MTNRC contends the 2022 decision to allow APR to graze bison on BLM grazing allotments contravenes BLM’s own rules and regulations and should be vacated.

APR has also disingenuously claimed to be a livestock operation, thereby qualifying for BLM grazing preference.  Those claims were exposed as false, however, in the release of private correspondence between APR President Sean Garrity and then-Governor Steve Bullock.  In a September 5, 2017 letter to Bullock, Garrity writes that APR’s objective is to “create the largest nature reserve in the continental United States (that will) result in wild bison one day inhabiting the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and eventually the surrounding areas.”

APR’s plan to remove 3.5 million acres of Montana land from agricultural production is viewed as an existential threat to the ranching communities in their target area.  Without preferential treatment from BLM, APR’s plan to rewild and depopulate this area will become more difficult.