Residents of Montana are debating the good of transforming farmland into wilderness that could be used for tourism. We examine the issues.
Featured Image Courtesy: The American Prairie
I found a report from Fox News quite interesting in the last day or so. According to Thomas Catenacci, a group of millionaires are buying huge swaths of real estate in Montana in an effort to return the farmland to wild prairies with bison grazing upon them. My first thought about such a thing is that I’m pleased it’s not China or Black Rock for once. But then I was also happy that we’re moving in the direction of having some of our land be returned to the prairies that it was for thousands of years. Of course, I’m not arguing that we should do that with all of our land, or even most of our land. But if we can put wild bison back on the western prairies, and if we manage that well, especially if it’s private ownership, I just don’t see anything wrong with that.
Now, it appears there are farmers and state politicians who strongly disagree. I take their disagreement seriously. Their claim is that the land will cease to be productive towards providing food for the world and that the bison may carry diseases that could hurt livestock that graze adjacent to the huge area of privately-owned wilderness (think 25% larger than Yellowstone). Both of those seem like legitimate concerns, but I also think they’re manageable concerns. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think that even this size of land will necessarily cause the price of beef to rise. And when it comes to diseases, surely if someone acted in a way that caused cattle to die on other plots of land, that would be grounds for lawsuits. It seems to me that there’s already a system in place to handle this sort of thing.
Opponents of AP have focused their ire in particular on one of the group’s chief proposals to release wild bison onto the property, giving visitors “a chance to witness the majestic species.” UPOM has expressed concern that free-roaming bison may infect surrounding livestock with brucellosis, an infectious disease commonly found in bison and elk populations, which could be extremely costly for ranchers if spread to their cattle.
— Fox News
Now one of the things that I don’t quite understand here, other than I realize this is negative for beef cattle ranchers because they won’t have access to the land, is that if there are potentially thousands of bison on the land, isn’t that bison that can be harvested? I’m serious about that. The natural way that animals like bison eventually die is that they either face predators that kill them or they usually wear down their teeth and have starvation issues. So I don’t see anything ethically wrong with humanely harvesting some of the bison at a sustainable level once the prairie populations grow to a large enough size. And if that’s the case, I think this food issues is made moot. Likewise, as long as disease problems are contained, what is there not to like?
A recent visitor to American Prairie was kind enough to share these two gorgeous photos with us, taken during his time on the PN this spring. pic.twitter.com/iOeg62gYRU
— . (@AmericanPrairie) July 21, 2022
Let me clarify that I don’t know all that much about The American Prairie corporation which is buying up this land. Maybe they are heavily invested in by foreign powers that want to drive out the food production capabilities of the United States. Maybe they’re a front for the Chinese to put genetically modified seeds that will devastate our ecosystems. But outside of those sorts of national defense and safety concerns, I just don’t see there being a huge problem here. Plus, if their goal truly is to build up ecotourism for people to vacation in Montana and see the bison, I’m thinking there’s a great chance for this to add to the economy of the state rather than take away from it.
Listen, we did an article months ago about how Disney was acting poorly by cutting down beautiful forests so they could build solar farms that destroyed the environment. We’ll critique people when they try to earn virtue points and instead damage the planet. Likewise when we don’t drill for oil at at time when fuel is going nuts, I think that’s bogus too — especially in cases where we can do it in an ecologically careful and safe way. In this case with the bison in Montana, I’m honestly all for it until somebody tells me what’s really going on here that should make me be against privately-owned prairie land.
Hopefully all of this goes in a direction that everyone can support. I love the idea of American soil being transformed back into prairie with wildlife living on the land. I also love the idea of farmers growing crops and cattle that sustain us and provide food for the entire world. I’d like to see both of those things happen and tourists going to see both the wild bison and the amazing ranches. Surely we can all get along.
If you know why this is turning into a huge fight in Montana, let me know in the comments down below. Share with us your insights. As always, when it comes to fun, That Park Place is your place for all the latest news and analysis.
