Seasons of the National Bison Range

AN AUTUMN WIND SWEEPS DOWN FROM RED SLEEP MOUNTAIN. It rattles gates and sings through the head-high steel fences of the bison pens. Spectators on a raised platform snug their coats against it, while United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) staff and local volunteers clatter back and forth on catwalks above the tub, the chutes and the squeeze. Down on the ground, a 900-pound cow is getting mad. She drops her massive, wooly head and grunts deeply. She kicks out and rings sheet metal like a bell. When she finally heads down the chute it’s fast, a dusty blitz that makes a busload of school kids take a half-step back. She thunders out of the pens to join a herd of 50 bison in a little pasture. They graze along the far fence line, looking dark against the grass. This is the annual roundup on the National Bison Range in Moiese, Mont.

People come in droves for the roundup, but for the rest of the year the range is relatively quiet. A few tourists buy passes at the visitor center and drive the 18-mile loop road. Stuck between Missoula and Glacier National Park, the Bison Range tends to be treated as a break from the road, a two-hour field trip, or a stop on the way to somewhere else.

Wildlife photographer Don Jones, I learn shortly after piling into his Subaru, sees it differently. We wind uphill from the visitor center on Red Sleep Mountain Drive under a hazy sky. It is cold enough for jackets, and fall gilds bushes in the small draws to Pauline Creek.

“I came here for the first time in 1972,” Jones says. “I was 12, visiting my brother at the University of Montana. I saw this place and fell in love with it.”

Since that first transformative day, Jones has returned consistently to the range in all its seasons. It began as recreation, but for the last 15 years he has worked this landscape as a professional wildlife photographer. On this day, a camera with a 2-foot telescopic lens sits ready on the backseat.

As we crawl our way upward by gravel switchbacks, I begin to understand Jones’ devotion. Ahead is the enormous grassy hump of Red Sleep Mountain, the backbone of the range. Behind us the foothills roll away in a series of gentle curves, dotted in places with bison wallows. Beyond them the Mission Valley is covered by the geometry of agriculture. At this season the contrast is pronounced: The range is brown, steep and empty, while the valley looks uniformly green and thoroughly settled.

It’s no coincidence that the range feels like an island: Funded by a 1908 congressional appropriation, the National Bison Range marked the beginning of large-scale wildlife conservation efforts in the United States. Sited on land purchased from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the 18,500-acre range provided a safe haven for a species pushed to the brink of extinction by rampant hunting and habitat fragmentation. The original herd was built by purchasing animals from private bison ranches across the nation. Today, 100 years after the range’s establishment, the herd numbers around 350 animals and boasts a high level of genetic diversity.

Jones rounds a corner and brakes to a stop. Fifty yards away a four-point mule deer lifts his head from browsing to give us a level stare. I expect Jones to reach for his camera, but he doesn’t. Looking out the window at the buck he says, “What I like about this place is that you can find just about anything. Right there,” he gestures uphill at a copse of trees, “is where I saw my first elk.”

This landscape holds a lot more than bison, scenery and grass. In addition to elk and deer, the range supports antelope, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, black bear, coyote, mountain lion and bobcat, as well as a slew of smaller mammals. Don ticks off the species on his fingers, then leans forward to scan the sky through his windshield: “We’ve got a dozen species of raptors here. Once, I saw 30 snowy owls in the same field.”

He puts the car in gear, and we keep climbing.

At 4,885 feet we reach the pinnacle of the National Bison Range and stop to stretch our legs. The ground drops precipitously from the road’s edge. The Mission Mountains jut upward on the eastern horizon to form a gray and jagged skyline. In the middle distance a grassy bench is dotted with bison.

A breeze blows out of a forested draw, carrying the faint smell of elk. We stare at the tree line, all ears and eyes. Nothing moves. There is no noise but the wind. “We won’t see them,” Don says with a shrug. “That’s the thing here — sometimes you go all day and never take a picture.”

Finding wildlife on the range can be frustrating at times. People used to vacationing on Forest Service and National Park lands tend to chafe under the range’s strict rules, particularly one that prohibits leaving the roadway except on two short nature trails.

Driving the loop road, I’ve seen a dozen spots worth exploring. The fact that I can’t run roughshod over every inch of Red Sleep Mountain is significant. It is a constant reminder that this is a managed landscape, not a wilderness. It is built to serve the needs of bison, not people. It is ringed and divided into pastures by sturdy fences, and grazed rotationally to keep from destroying the grass in any single spot. The range’s specific mission — rare in a state where the vast majority of public lands are managed for multiple uses — is a large part of what makes it so unique.

Although protecting bison has remained the primary goal, management strategies have evolved through time. One hundred years after its creation, the range is still changing. As Bill West, the National Bison Range project leader, notes, “The idea in the past has been to save the animal, but protection of the animal and the landscape is where we’re headed in the future.”

To this end, the USFWS is developing a more holistic approach to managing the range and a broader interest in conservation throughout the Mission Valley. They are buying easements on neighboring lands, and attempting to address habitat and noxious-weed issues that threaten what remains of the valley’s native grasslands.

There’s a lot of work to be done, but USFWS staff won’t be going it alone. An agreement with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, signed this past June, marks the start of a new era on the range. The document, known as the Annual Funding Agreement, outlines a course toward collaborative management on the property. Though relations between Bison Range staff and the tribes have been contentious in the past, officials from both groups are hopeful about the new plan.

“We’re known nationally for excellence in wildlife management, and we’re looking forward to working side by side with the Fish and Wildlife Service on the Bison Range,” states tribal spokesman Robert McDonald.

Jones and I descend the loop road into the Alexander Basin, now. We roll off the mountain to cross a wide bench speckled with bison. A bull ambles across the road in front of us, makes a surprisingly nimble leap across the borrow ditch, and heads off through the windswept grass. A hundred yards out, one yearling chases another through the center of a herd.

After another mile, Jones stops near a pair of whitetail bucks descending from the road toward Mission Creek. They seem unconcerned as he climbs out of the car, sets up a tripod and snaps away. He shoots for a few minutes and then we drive back to the visitor center, completing our loop. As we pull into the parking lot I ask why he continues to photograph the Bison Range instead of somewhere like Yellowstone or Glacier National Park.

“I’ve stayed because my heart’s in it,” he says. “I always have a good day here, even when I don’t get a perfect shot.”

I thank him for the tour and climb out of the car. He waves, makes a U-turn and heads up the road toward Red Sleep Mountain to see it all again.