The InterTribal Bison Cooperative opposes a plan to transfer up to 74 bison from Yellowstone National Park to a ranch owned by media mogul Ted Turner.

The Fort Belknap Indian Community asked the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the animals. But the state said the tribe couldn't accept the herd in time, a claim disputed by the ITBC.

“Maybe we could have worked to accommodate [or] work out some arrangement that could have avoided sending these bison to the Turner ranch," Majel Rusell, an attorney for the ITBC, said at a public hearing last night, The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported.

Turner said he will accept the bison for five years, provided he can keep some of their offspring in order to offset the costs of keeping the animals. The herd in Yellowstone is the last genetically pure herd in the U.S.

Bison that wander out of Yellowstone are slaughtered in Montana under a federally-approved management plan that tribes opposed.

Public comments on the bison transfer are being accepted until January 12.

Get the Story:
Activists call for bison on state land (The Bozeman Daily Chronicle 1/8)
Turner bid for Yellowstone bison draws protest (AP 1/7)

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Northern Arapaho Tribe seeks Yellowstone bison (1/19)