The Montana State Hospital in Warm Springs, the state’s only public adult psychiatric facility, is continuing to see high staff vacancies, budget deficits, and shortfalls in health and safety standards more than a year after losing federal accreditation following investigations into patient deaths and injuries.

In a virtual public meeting Tuesday with the hospital’s governing board — composed of top administrators from the Department of Public Health and Human Services and the Warm Springs facility — staff and consultants delivered presentations about safety trends and plans for improvement while touting encouraging changes at the state-run facility. 

The state health department has said that the oversight from the recently created governing board and focus on improving conditions at the facility is part of the Gianforte administration’s commitment to regaining the hospital’s federal certification from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. One of the consultants hired by the state to help oversee hospital operations described that effort in a written report on Tuesday as a multi-year “rigorous journey,” an assessment echoed by members of the group during the hour-long meeting.

The hospital is currently operating at roughly 80% capacity, with about 216 patients residing there, including the geriatric-psychiatry Spratt unit and a forensic wing for evaluating and treating criminal defendants. The hospital’s forensic unit was the only part of the facility with a wait-list. It is licensed for 54 beds, but has operated at a consistently lower census since last year. As of June, it was occupied by 46 people with 70 people across the state waiting for admission that month.

There have been 159 patient falls — one of the key indicators of patient safety that federal investigators flagged in 2022 — recorded across all parts of the facility so far this year. The highest frequency of falls — an average monthly rate of 12.1 per 1,000 patient days — has occurred in the Spratt unit. Staff told the governing board on Tuesday that falls are being tracked and reported more accurately across the facility and are down on the geriatric unit by roughly 25% compared to last year. 

The hospital also reported failing to meet its goal of zero chemical restraints used on patients in the main hospital and geriatric wing. Chemical restraints — defined by the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare as “any drug used for discipline or convenience and not required to treat medical symptoms” — were most commonly employed in the main hospital, where the intervention was reported at an average rate of 8.85 instances per 1,000 patient days in 2023. The practice was less common in the Spratt unit, while the hospital’s forensic unit reported zero instances of chemical restraint this year.

A 2022 clinical resource document created by the American Psychiatric Association said that using medication to treat a patient’s agitation should be voluntary and that medication should “never [be] used as a ‘chemical restraint,’” but noted that the term is poorly defined and misunderstood. Involuntary medications, the publication says, “should be used as a last resort for situations that present as acutely dangerous.”

A spokesperson for the health department did not respond before deadline to questions about how the hospital defines “chemical restraints” and what counts as an “occurrence.” 

Bernie Franks-Ongoy, director of the federally designated oversight group Disability Rights Montana, said Thursday that while eliminating the use of chemical restraints entirely should be a priority, defining and documenting the misuse of medication is often complicated.

“It is difficult to know exactly what the numbers represent without knowing precisely how the term ‘chemical restraint’ is defined under current hospital policies and what the reporting requirements are,” Franks-Ongoy said. “It would be good to know, for example, how many occurrences of chemical restraint were the result of genuine patient safety concerns and how many were based on staff convenience.”

The rate of patient seclusion also exceeded goals in different parts of the facility, sometimes significantly. In the main hospital, hours spent in seclusion per 1,000 patient hours ranged from 16.68 in January to 1.81 in May, far exceeding the goal rate of less than .36 hours.

In the forensic unit, rates of seclusion also varied widely, recorded at .05 hours per 1,000 patient hours in March to 24.73 hours in May. In the Spratt unit, rates of recorded seclusion were much less common and consistently below the hospital’s goal.

The hospital’s quality improvement metrics did not include how many of its patients have died this year. A health department spokesperson did not respond to multiple questions from Montana Free Press about patient deaths before deadline. 

Safety issues resulting in serious injuries continue to occur, officials said Tuesday, with a total of 10 recorded between the main hospital and the Spratt unit so far this year, compared to 14 in the prior year. 

One patient recently ingested a “toxic cleaning agent” brought into the facility by a contractor, interim hospital administrator David Culberson said. The patient was transferred to another facility for a higher level of care and later returned to the psychiatric hospital. That patient has since been discharged, Culberson said, and the hospital has implemented five new safety protocols to more closely monitor contractors entering the facility in the future.

The hospital reported a 37% employee vacancy rate in June, down from 45% last summer. After a hiring surge in January, February and March of this year resulting in a net gain of 39 employees, the hospital reported losing nine staff members in May and June. 

The highest vacancy rates are among registered nurses, with an 82% vacancy rate, and clinical therapists, whose vacancy rate was 72%, according to the hospital’s latest finance and human resources report. 

With high rates of contract staff and traveling professionals continuing to work at the facility, the hospital’s director of nursing, Jocelyn Peterson, told the governing board that Warm Springs is working to extend the length of traveler contracts to 26 weeks instead of 13 weeks to increase training opportunities for short-term workers.

“This way we can give them a couple more weeks of actual training and speak to some of those areas of safety, and things to look for, and kind of give them a better idea of what the facility is like and how important it is to treat our patients and make sure that they’re safe,” Peterson said. 

Culberson also told the board that the hospital is working hard to respond to the passage of House Bill 29, which will restrict the admission of patients with a primary diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, dementia or traumatic brain injury to the Montana State Hospital beginning in 2025.

“That’s a good portion of the folks in [the] Spratt [unit] right now. And we will not only have to turn down admissions, but we will have to discharge everybody with those three diagnoses,” Culberson said. “So it’s a big project we’ve started here with the help of [contractor Alvarez & Marsal] and then the care team in Spratt.”

As of June, the hospital reported overspending its annual budget significantly, with about $93 million in expenses versus its stated budget of $48.9 million, a trend that has continued from 2022. Of the listed expenses, the finance report said roughly $3.9 million was spent on the cost of traveling staff in June, a figure that has fluctuated month-to-month.

The hospital was given nearly $16 million in additional funds by the 2023 Legislature to make facility repairs and upgrades to help regain federal certification. 

Out of that total budget for capital projects, the hospital’s Tuesday report outlined specific uses for $5.9 million, including repairing the HVAC system, replacing fire doors, and other safety and medical upgrades. The report said the remaining $10 million in legislative appropriations will be set aside as “contingency for unanticipated repair projects impacting recertification.”

The group did not receive any public testimony during the designated public comment period. It is slated to meet again in the fall.

The post Montana State Hospital tallies high rates of falls, chemical restraints and staff vacancies appeared first on Montana Free Press.

After years of work, the Flathead Basin Commission released a map this spring identifying the highest potential risks from septic systems in the Flathead Basin. Many populated areas near bodies of water like Flathead Lake and Lake Mary Ronan were identified as “very high-risk,” meaning there is potential for septic systems to leak into the groundwater and, eventually, the surface water.

The commission had hoped the map would be a tool for planners and policymakers. Nutrient pollution is a leading cause of water impairment in the state, according to the Montana Environmental Information Center, and nutrients often get into the water via “nonpoint sources,” such as leaking septic systems or agricultural runoff, that accumulate into larger problems.

The FBC – initially formed by the Legislature in 1983 to help keep clean the water in the Flathead Basin – devoted a lot of attention to nonpoint source pollution.

Now, as part of Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte’s Red Tape Relief initiative, the FBC is no more, combined instead with the Upper Colombia Conservation Commission, or UC3. The Western Montana Conservation Commission will replace the two groups that were dedicated to different problems in different watersheds. WMCC will extend its focus to six watersheds in western Montana.

In the Upper Columbia River Basin’s case, the former commission there accomplished its main objective, ridding the state of invasive mussels. But in the Flathead Basin, some are worried its needs are going to lose priority when combined with a larger area. 

For that reason, Jim Elser was not in favor of combining the commissions. 

In the Flathead Basin, the main focuses were curtailing nutrient pollution and aquatic invasive species, said Elser, the director of the Flathead Lake Biological Station. 

Since Flathead Lake bolsters the state economy – homes on the lake adding $12 to $17 million in property taxes, according to a 2021 study – it’s a very “lake-focused” basin, Elser said. One reason he agreed to be on the new commission was to make sure he has an “opportunity to call attention to the Flathead and its challenges and importance.”

Flathead Lake is known for its pristine water quality. Kate Sheridan, executive director of the water quality advocacy group the Flathead Lakers, said the biggest threat to the lake, other than something like an oil spill from the railway, is contamination from septic systems. Sheridan said headway was being made on that problem, and progress is going to need to continue as people keep moving to northwest Montana.

“We just don’t want to lose focus on the Flathead because we feel that this area is incredibly valued both ecologically and economically to Montana,” Sheridan said.

Sheridan said the new commission bringing on more watersheds brings their individual needs and concerns. She brought up the Clark Fork River Basin – a designated Superfund site included in the WMCC’s purview – and how that compares to Flathead Lake, which doesn’t have such considerable issues. She said she hopes the focus on Flathead Lake won’t diminish, although she’s optimistic about the way the new commission is taking shape. 

Aquatic invasive species, like zebra, quagga and dreissenid mussels, were the main focus of the former UC3. Such invasive species were anticipated to have a negative economic impact on Montana – one study estimated a loss of $230 million – if they took hold in the state’s rivers and lakes. 

After the first identification of dreissenid mussels in the Tiber Reservoir in 2016 – about 50 miles east of Shelby – there has been no physical evidence of mussels in Montana since 2017, said Phil Matson, head of the water quality and invasive species program at the Flathead Lake Biological Station and former UC3 member. 

Every year boats pass through inspection stations across the state with living or dead mussels attached, Matson said, but there’s been no evidence of the invasive species in water samples.

But Matson, who has been nominated by the UC3 to serve on the new WMCC, said boat inspection records show that mussels could be coming back in full force.

“The problem’s not over,” Matson said. “These boats are coming from all over the place, and those are the main threats.”

Despite the success curbing invasive species in the state, during the last meeting of the UC3, one identified downside of the commission was that it covered too big of an area and that its resources were spread too thin. 

Mark Bostrom, administrator of the Conservation and Resource Development Division at the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, said the biggest hurdle now is trying to figure out how to handle an even bigger area with many issues that continue to demand attention.

“That’s the challenge, trying to do a consolidation on a bigger area and not grow government,” Bostrom said.

Bostrom, a former member of the FBC, said he’s excited about the new WMCC. Working with a former colleague on the UC3, they often asked each other, “Why do we even have these two commissions?”

Mike Koopal was one of the researchers who developed the septic risk map and is a former FBC member.

Koopal said the map overlays physical risk — things like how nutrients from septic systems can move through the soil and how far the residue from septic systems is to ground and surface water — with septic permit data from Flathead County, which included the age of each system. 

What the map shows is that there are more than 30,000 septic systems in Flathead County and roughly a third of them are older than 30 years, Koopal said. The average lifespan for an appropriately functioning septic system is 25 to 30 years. 

“It’s an issue that’s only going to grow in scope and size,” Koopal said. “We will have more septic on the landscape as more and more people move to Montana. And at the same time, the existing septics on the landscape are aging.”

Koopal said the new commission has a great opportunity to expand the map.

From an administrative perspective, Casey Lewis said combining the two commissions simplifies many things — projects, budgets and all the overlap in between. Lewis will be the new executive director for WMCC, a position she previously held at both the UC3 and the FBC.

Lewis is excited about the new commission and she sees a possibility to take the FBC’s mission and expand it west of the Continental Divide. She said the WMCC won’t lose track of issues in the Flathead.

“I anticipate septic systems and septic leachate to be a topic we continue to work on, and, ideally, we will expand the septic risk map to all of western Montana,” Lewis said in an email.

The post Will the reduction of red tape put conservation success at risk? appeared first on Montana Free Press.

Keane had lived on the plains 16 miles north of Loma, Montana, for 14 years. He married into the farm and he and his wife grew wheat, canola, flax and hemp. They kept chickens, but not cows. To the best of Keane’s knowledge, the closest grizzlies lived some 150 miles west in Glacier National Park — certainly not in the wide-open ranchland of north-central Montana. He reasoned that the bear followed the Marias River, which flows east from Glacier County, near the Blackfeet Reservation, and runs along the edge of the Keane farm. “I guess he happened to smell the chickens and came up out of the river bottom,” Keane said.

At the time, Keane’s grizzly sighting was the easternmost in the United States in more than a century. He had heard murmurings around town that the bears were moving closer, “but you just don’t expect one to be in your backyard,” he told me. As the grizzly pulverized his poultry, Keane dialed up the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to report the animal. But before the officer could make it out to his farm to apprehend the grizzly, a neighbor drove by in a loud pickup. The bear took off, and Keane was left to assess the carnage.

When the state’s grizzly bear management specialist for the region investigated the scene, he surmised that the bear was a 3-year-old male that had been moving toward the area, traveling about 10 miles every day. The official set a trap next to Keane’s coop, but the bear was never caught.

After the encounter, the state official installed an electric fence around his coop to protect the ruffled survivors. Keane started carrying a pistol with him on his tractor. “I catch myself looking over my shoulder now,” he said. “It makes you think twice about what else is out there.” After the incident made the local news, Keane was criticized by others around town. “One guy said we should have known better to keep chickens, being in bear country and all. Well, we aren’t in bear country. But maybe we’re starting to be now.”

“I catch myself looking over my shoulder now. It makes you think twice about what else is out there.”

TODAY, KEANE’S RUN-IN would not be newsworthy. Just a year after his sighting, another grizzly was photographed in the Big Snowy Mountains, about 100 miles southeast of the Keane farm. In the Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide ecosystems, bears that have been isolated from one another for more than 100 years are venturing out of their respective regions, slowly reclaiming old territory.

The grizzly bear, despite what most people think, isn’t a species unto itself. Rather, it’s one of two living subspecies of brown bear found in North America, the other being the Kodiak bear (Ursus arctos middendorffi) in Alaska. Grizzlies (Ursus arctos horribilis) once ranged as far south as central Mexico, where they were known as oso plateado, silvery bears, for their grayish fur. An estimated 50,000 grizzly bears lived in the contiguous United States when the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through in the early 1800s. But European settlers trapped and shot these bears until fewer than 1,000 remained. The southern edge of the grizzly’s range eventually contracted from Mexico to the southern border of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Grizzlies also disappeared from the Pacific Coast. In California in the mid-1800s, the bears were still so common that a $10 bounty was placed on their heads. Restaurants fried up greasy grizzly steaks and served them for less than a dollar. But by 1922, there were only 37 grizzly populations left in the contiguous U.S., and 31 would vanish within just 50 years. Survivors sought refuge in the remote forests of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Washington.

The grizzly’s gains in recent decades are the result of swift human intervention followed by natural expansion. In 1975, all grizzlies living in the Lower 48 of the United States were protected under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service later designated six ecosystems as the focus of recovery efforts: Greater Yellowstone, Northern Continental Divide, Cabinet-Yaak, Bitterroot, Selkirk and the North Cascades.

Through taxes and donations, Americans spent millions of dollars to restore grizzlies — financing recovery planning, private land easements, and educational programs designed to teach people how to live with an animal capable of eating them. Critically, they also funded the relocation of bears. In the 1990s, scientists augmented the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population in northwestern Montana by transplanting a handful of Canadian bears into the ecosystem. The descendants of those bears are now wandering into the Bitterroot Range, near the Montana-Idaho border, which has been devoid of grizzlies for decades. Biologists had initially planned to move some Canadian bears into the Bitteroots, too. Now they think the grizzlies may repopulate the ecosystem without their help.

Today, grizzlies number just below 2,000 in the Lower 48. Their population has more than doubled in half a century, and, as evidenced by Keane’s encounter, the bears are no longer content to roam within the boundaries we’ve contrived for them. Yellowstone’s grizzlies have tripled their range in recent decades and are now moving north out of the national park. Meanwhile, grizzlies in the Northern Continental Divide recovery zone are heading south. The populations are now only about 50 miles apart, the closest they’ve been in more than a century. Scientists expect that the bears will join up in less than a decade — two islands becoming a continent.

The return of the grizzly bear from near-extinction is one of America’s unlikeliest comeback stories. The bears are among the slowest-reproducing mammals in North America; they require vast tracts of habitat (an adult male grizzly can have a home range of 600 square miles); and they kill people. Bringing back the grizzly required humans to overcome their fear of predators and champion the return of a known man-eater.

And the grizzly remains a fearsome animal. The bear is 800 pounds of muscle and fat, with sharp canines and 4-inch-long claws. It’s extremely defensive, always ready to neutralize a perceived threat. A human being is little more than a rag doll in its immense jaws. Though humans have protected the grizzly from extinction, public sentiment toward the subspecies remains divided: Only the wolf inspires more hatred and mistrust. And as grizzlies expand into places they haven’t inhabited in more than a century, they are crossing not only geographical and political boundaries but thresholds of tolerance.

By 1922, there were only 37 grizzly populations left in the contiguous U.S., and 31 would vanish within just 50 years.

I ENCOUNTERED MY FIRST Yellowstone grizzly outside a resort hotel near Jackson, Wyoming, in 2015. Next to the stone facade, a portly man wearing a furry brown onesie was waving at passing cars. The bear costume’s head was perched above his own, and two fangs protruded over his mustachioed face, almost as if the man had been partially consumed by the bear and was now helplessly peering out of its open mouth. In front of his chest, clasped between wooden claws, he held a placard that read: “I’m Worth More Alive Than Dead.”

I approached the bear, notebook in hand.

“I got this costume just for this event,” the man beamed, performing a small twirl. “Grizzlies are my absolute favorite species! I always feel more alive when I’m in grizzly habitat.”

Extending a paw, he introduced himself as Jim Laybourn, and said he had shown up on behalf of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, a nonprofit dedicated to conservation in the state. Inside the hotel, dozens of federal, state and tribal representatives were gathering to discuss the possible removal of federal protections from the Yellowstone grizzly population. If the states — Wyoming, Montana and Idaho — regained management authority, they were likely to legalize a trophy hunt.

The debate over Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone’s grizzly bears has dragged on for more than a decade. In 2007, when the population numbered more than five hundred, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared it recovered and removed protections. But environmental groups disputed the government’s assessment and took the agency to court, where a judge ruled that Fish and Wildlife had failed to adequately analyze the impact of climate change on whitebark pine, a key food source for Yellowstone’s grizzlies. Average temperatures in the region had increased by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1950s, and the greatest warming was occurring at elevations above 5,000 feet, where whitebark pine grows. (In 2022, the tree was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.)

Federal scientists launched their own investigation into the grizzly’s food sources. They agreed that whitebark’s precipitous decline had caused bears to forage at lower elevations, making run-ins with humans more likely. And reduced cub survival rates, which had begun to slow grizzly population growth in 2002, coincided with the whitebark decline. However, the scientists also found that Yellowstone grizzlies relied more on meat than other populations, and that many bears already lived in areas without much whitebark pine. They proposed that cubs and yearlings were dying not from a lack of whitebark pine but because too many grizzlies were crowded into too limited an area.

Federal officials had again recommended the removal of Endangered Species Act protections for the Yellowstone grizzly population. Laybourn, a lifelong Wyoming resident, declared that despite his costume, he was not a “bear-hugger.” He was most concerned about the economic ramifications of a trophy hunt. “Our tourism economy here is based on bears. I work as a guide myself, and I’ve taken hundreds of people to see grizzly bears,” he said. Scientists funneled past us into the building, carrying hefty manila folders. Laybourn held the door open with his toothpick claws, an inadvertent ursine bellhop. “I want to make sure we have a robust population,” he continued. “Whenever we take people out to see the wildlife and geysers, every single person asks me, ‘Are we going to see a bear today?’”

FROM THE THREE BEAR LODGE to the Beartooth Barbeque to the Running Bear Pancake House, businesses near Yellowstone rely heavily on the ursine theme. “Grizzly X-ing” mugs are well stocked at every souvenir stand. And bear claws — a sweet Danish pastry — are sold in almost every bakery within a 100-mile radius of the national park. But there are still those who long for an actual bear claw.

At his office in eastern Oregon, I met Steve West, the host of the TV show Steve’s Outdoor Adventures. West was huge in both height and girth — the kind of man who might stand a tiny chance against a grizzly in a fight. A trimmed sandy beard created the mirage of a jawline on his round face. On the day I met him, he wore a plaid shirt that pulled tightly across his chest and a camouflaged ball cap with his TV show’s logo on it. West explained that he had started out hunting for meat — deer and elk, mainly — and made his first foray into trophy hunting in the 1990s with black bears and grizzlies in Alaska. Part of what had made bears so attractive was the risk. “Grizzlies are hunted because they’re a challenge,” he said.

West was a connoisseur of charismatic megafauna, and had bumped off beasts around the world. Oryx in Namibia. Water buffalo in Australia. Musk ox in Canada. Exotic glass-eyed trophies decorated the wood-paneled walls of his office.

“Stalking a grizzly bear is completely different than going after anything else,” West observed as we moved through the halls. “There’s the man-versus-bear thing that comes into play. Yeah, I’ve got a rifle or a bow, I’m holding an advantage of weaponry, but there’s still an element of danger.”

West told me he supported a mix of management approaches to brown bears. He thought there should be places off-limits to hunters, like Brooks Falls in Alaska, where thousands of tourists can watch brown bears fish for salmon from wooden viewing platforms. At the same time, bear hunting is permitted in other parts of the state. “Alaska is the perfect compromise,” he said. I asked West whether he would hunt in the Yellowstone ecosystem given the chance. Without a pause, he replied:

“I’ll buy the first tag.” 

“Grizzlies are hunted because they’re a challenge.”

IN 2017, following years of highly contentious meetings, the Yellowstone grizzly population lost federal protections for a second time. Then-Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called the delisting “one of America’s great conservation successes, the culmination of decades of hard work.” Less than a year later, Wyoming and Idaho announced trophy hunts. The two states held lotteries for a total of 23 tags, each of which would enable the winner to bag a bear. 

More than 8,000 people entered the lotteries, each paying a fee of less than $20. A few hunters gleefully anticipated killing the region’s best-known bear, Grizzly 399, who was often photographed ambling along park roads with two or three cubs in tow. World-renowned wildlife photographer Thomas Mangelsen entered the lottery, hoping to spare a bear’s life by winning a tag and then shooting with his camera instead of a gun. Miraculously, Mangelsen won a tag; Steve West did not.

Following the announcement of the grizzly’s second delisting, environmental groups and the Northern Cheyenne tribe sued the government, challenging the decision to remove protections from the isolated Yellowstone grizzly population rather than prioritize reconnecting populations across the West. Another lawsuit, filed by the Crow, Crow Creek Sioux and Standing Rock Sioux tribes and the Piikani Nation alongside other tribal leaders and societies, alleged that the federal government ignored legal requirements to consult with tribes about the decision. Since 2016, more than 100 Indigenous nations have signed the Grizzly Treaty, committing them to the restoration and revitalization of grizzly bear populations throughout North America.

“Our people have been separated from the grizzly since we were forced onto reservations, but we have not forgotten,” then-Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Chairman Brandon Sazue wrote to me. “In our genesis, it was the great grizzly that taught the people the ability for healing and curing practices, so the grizzly is perceived as the first ‘medicine person.’ … It is no coincidence that the spiritual reawakening of Native people on this continent has coincided with the modest recovery of the grizzly since the 1970s — a recovery that will end with delisting and trophy hunting in a return to the frontier mentality of the 1870s.”

Just before the trophy hunt was scheduled to begin, the judge presiding over the environmental groups’ lawsuit brought down the gavel. He ruled that the federal agency had exceeded its legal authority when it removed protections from the Yellowstone grizzly. The judge wrote in his decision that it would be “simplistic at best and disingenuous at worst” to not take into account the five other populations of grizzlies outside of Yellowstone. With the bears so close to closing the gap, losing protections would be an enormous setback for the subspecies. If the Fish and Wildlife Service was going to succeed in delisting the iconic bears, it would need to rejoin these island populations, creating genetic linkages that would ensure long-term survival. The trophy hunt was canceled, and protections were restored.

The ruling was a victory for the environmental groups and tribes who had fought hard to keep the animal protected indefinitely. For others living in close proximity to America’s growing grizzly population, it was anything but.

“Our people have been separated from the grizzly since we were forced onto reservations, but we have not forgotten.”

BLACK BART is the only bear Trina Jo Bradley doesn’t mind having around. The enormous jet-black grizzly, pushing 900 pounds, has lived on her ranch on Birch Creek for close to six years. He’s well-behaved, Bradley said, and keeps his brethren out: “Normally, we get bears coming through here pretty thick in March, heading out from the mountains down to the prairie. Since he’s been here, we’ve seen way fewer bears.”

Ranching is in Bradley’s blood. She was raised on a cattle operation some 16 miles south, near Dupuyer Creek in Montana. Her father was a hired rancher, which meant that Bradley and her brothers were put to work at a young age. They rode horses and herded cows. Any free time was spent mucking around outside — but always within shouting distance of the house, and with a guard dog. There were bears near Dupuyer, she said, even back then, in the 1980s and 1990s. Glacier National Park wasn’t too far away, and occasionally a grizzly from the Northern Continental Divide population would wander out and kill one of their cows.

Bradley went south to Casper, Wyoming, for college, where she studied agribusiness. At 22, a car accident forced her to return home to Montana, where, while recuperating, she met her husband. Instead of going back to school like she’d planned, she moved onto his family ranch, where she’s raised three daughters along with Angus cattle and quarter horses. When her father-in-law bought the Birch Creek land back in 1956, there were very few grizzlies in the area, she said. The first livestock loss happened in the 1990s when a bear killed a calf. Authorities promptly trapped and removed it. “That was the last bear they saw until I moved here. I’m pretty sure the bears followed me from Dupuyer,” she said.

As Montana’s bears grow in numbers and expand their range, they are spending more time on private land, leading to more encounters with humans and domestic animals. In 2019, for example, the state made more payments —$261,000 — to ranchers for livestock killed by predators than in any previous year, with nearly twice as many animals suspected to have been killed by grizzlies than wolves. In 2021, when ranchers reported 78 kills by wolves and 119 by grizzlies, payouts topped $340,000.

As Montana’s bears grow in numbers and expand their range, they are spending more time on private land, leading to more encounters with humans and domestic animals.

Bradley’s sage-green farmhouse is surrounded by some 3,500 acres of hayfield and private pasture, where she and her husband run about 250 cows. The house’s living-room window looks out over rolling hayfields, toward the snowcapped perimeter of the Rocky Mountains. From this vantage point, Bradley often watches the bears go by. “Grizzly bears are super cool, and I love seeing them,” she said. “But I don’t love seeing them in my yard or in my cows.”

Though grizzlies are around nearly every month of the year, her ranch hasn’t lost many of its domesticated animals to bears. Perhaps she has Black Bart to thank, or perhaps, she said, “our cows are just mean.” A neighbor less than a mile away, she said, loses between 15 and 20 calves to bears annually.

A few years ago, Bradley was appointed to Montana’s Grizzly Bear Advisory Council, a state-run initiative with the aim of “listening to Montanans” and “following their interests while also conserving bears.” She was passionate about protecting agriculture, and wanted to ensure that farmers and ranchers got the assistance they needed to cope with the grizzlies in their midst. “Pretty much everybody here is just tired. We’re tired of grizzly bears. We’re tired of conflicts. We’re tired of not letting our kids play outside. We’re tired of having to sacrifice our paychecks for the public’s wildlife.” This was one of the most common arguments I heard from livestock producers: Liberal urbanites want predators back on the landscape, but they aren’t suffering the consequences of a grizzly in the backyard. “It’s not like camping or backpacking,” Bradley said. “We don’t have a choice. We have to go outside. We have to take care of our cows. And there’s probably going to be a bear there.”

As long as grizzlies remain under the wing of the Endangered Species Act, state wildlife managers are unable to relocate or euthanize bears that kill livestock without first consulting the federal government. Ranchers believe this limits their ability to get rid of the bears causing problems. (Environmental groups and scientists have long questioned whether grizzlies are responsible for as many livestock deaths as states allege.) State and federal officials have discussed removing protections from the Northern Continental Divide bears, but perhaps chastened by the Yellowstone debacle, the Fish and Wildlife Service recommended in 2021 that all grizzlies in the Lower 48 remain listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

“Grizzly bears are super cool, and I love seeing them. But I don’t love seeing them in my yard or in my cows.”

Bradley disagreed with this assessment. “Grizzly bears no longer need to be protected. They’re not unicorns,” she said.

“How many bears do you think is enough, in an ideal world?” I asked.

“I think when the grizzly bears were put on the Endangered Species Act — there were only like (300 to) 400 bears in the entire state then — that was enough.”

Many ranchers want tougher punishments for encroaching bears. They want them removed from the population right away, not given multiple chances to redeem themselves after attacking livestock. They want more funding for conflict prevention measures. (In 2021 and 2022, Fish and Wildlife provided a total of $40,000 for grizzly-deterrent fencing, with the state chipping in $5,000.) Bradley had set up an electric fence around the chickens and goats in the yard, but it wasn’t feasible to put an electric fence around the entire ranch. For now, she’d have to rely on Black Bart to scare off the others.

“He’s the best guard bear there is.”

CHRIS SERVHEEN first laid eyes on a grizzly in the Scapegoat Wilderness, near Helena, Montana. He was in his early 20s, backpacking with college friends, when they entered a meadow and caught sight of a bear tearing up a huge stump, looking for insects. “We stayed there for a while, just watching him from the trees,” he said. “Grizzlies have this ability to burn into your memory so that you remember everything that was happening when you saw them. It’s really amazing how much you can remember, even years later. … That’s the magic of grizzly bears.”

Servheen is arguably the foremost grizzly expert in the United States, having served as the Fish and Wildlife Service national grizzly bear recovery coordinator for 35 years until his retirement in 2016. He was the guy in charge of making sure bears didn’t disappear from the Lower 48, and evidently, he did a decent job of it.

Servheen grew up on the East Coast, but, inspired by the National Geographic wildlife specials that captivated him as a child, he moved to Montana to study wildlife biology. He began by researching eagles under the mentorship of famed biologist and conservationist John Craighead. Servheen pivoted to grizzly bears for his Ph.D., three years after the subspecies landed on the endangered species list. After finishing his doctorate in 1981, he accepted the newly created position of grizzly bear recovery coordinator, but he wasn’t optimistic about the bear’s prospects: There were only about 30 breeding females left in the Yellowstone population. “It’s important to recognize we were really close to losing grizzly bears at that point,” he said.

For more than three decades, Servheen was a constant presence at bear meetings. Whether in Yellowstone, the North Cascades or the Cabinet-Yaak, his nearly bald head stood out among the Stetsons. In 2015, still working at the agency, he maintained that the Yellowstone population, and possibly even the Northern Continental Divide population, should be delisted. The grizzly group had met its ecological recovery goals, and, provided the population was managed carefully after delisting, the bears were guaranteed to be around for a long time.

“The objective of the Endangered Species Act is to get a species to the point where protection is no longer required,” Servheen told me at the time. “The purpose is to fix the problem.” In the case of the Yellowstone grizzly, he believed it had been.

During Servheen’s final years as the grizzly recovery coordinator, he began to worry that the federal government was bending to the will of the states rather than serving the grizzly’s best interests. As the agency prepared for the second delisting, Servheen had written some guidance on how best to manage grizzly deaths once the population lost protections, essentially putting safeguards in place that would stem any future population decline. If too many bears died, for example, these measures would ensure that the population regained protections. But his document came back with such safeguards removed. This, he felt, eroded the credibility of the recovery program and made delisting “biologically incredible and legally indefensible.” Knowing it would be up to him to defend such a plan in the face of a lawsuit — which was all but guaranteed — “I quit.”

“Grizzlies have this ability to burn into your memory so that you remember everything that was happening when you saw them. It’s really amazing how much you can remember, even years later. … That’s the magic of grizzly bears.”

It wasn’t the triumphant ending to his career that Servheen had imagined. “The grizzly bear recovery program is one of the most successful stories in the Endangered Species Act. They’re a challenging species to recover, and we did it,” he told me, “but all the political bullshit that happened right at the end kind of spoiled it.” Now, rather than spending his retirement fishing, Servheen had made it his mission to bring attention to the risks confronting grizzlies. I asked him if he thought grizzlies should still lose federal protections.

The answer was a decisive no. “For years, I was an advocate for delisting,” he said. He believed that the agency had gotten Yellowstone’s bears to the point where protections were no longer needed. And he hoped states would take on this responsibility with maturity and grace. But lately, “the actions of Montana’s Legislature have proven that the states are no longer able to be trusted when it comes to managing large carnivores.” Servheen pointed to a disconcerting trend in the West that he dubbed “anti-predator hysteria.” The Montana Legislature, for example, had approved a spring hound hunting season for the state’s black bears — a practice that had been banned in Montana for a century. Servheen perceived this as the state sliding backwards into a Manifest Destiny mindset. “It’s really horrifying to me to see this. If they weren’t still (federally) protected, one can only imagine what Montana would do to grizzlies.”

I asked Servheen how many grizzlies he thought the United States could feasibly handle. Some conservation advocates believed we could happily live with as many as 6,000, and lobbied for the bears to be returned to California, the Grand Canyon and the Southern Rockies. Then there were people like Trina Jo Bradley, who wanted far fewer bears than there were now. Most people weren’t willing to give a numerical answer, focusing instead on the genetic health and connectivity of the populations. However, Servheen — the scientist — was ready with an answer: 3,000 to 3,400 grizzlies, at least 1,000 more than estimated to now be living in the Lower 48.

The Yellowstone ecosystem and Northern Continental Divide, he explained, could support 2,000. The Bitterroot could hold 300 to 400. The Selkirks and Cabinet-Yaak could take another 150 bears. And the North Cascades could support up to 400 bears — though there were none present at the moment. But Servheen warned that, amid anti-predator sentiment, we could begin to see an overall population decline, not an increase. “Grizzly bears are special animals,” Servheen said. “They have low resilience. They live in special, remote places. And if we’re going to maintain grizzly bears, we have to behave and treat them in a special way.”

In February 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would again review whether to remove federal protections from the grizzly bears in both Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Continental Divide ecosystems. Whether or not grizzlies continue to grow their numbers in the Lower 48 — and, eventually, close the gaps that exist between populations — depends now on our behavior and our politics.

Excerpted from EIGHT BEARS: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future, available July 11 from W.W. Norton.

Author Gloria Dickie, a former High Country News intern, is a climate and environment correspondent for Reuters. We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

Copyright © 2023 by Gloria Dickie. Used by permission of Gloria Dickie, care of The Strothman Agency LLC. All rights reserved.

A federal judge in May dismissed the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe’s lawsuit against the state over the collection of an online sales tax after the state informed the tribe of the existing tax reimbursement process.

Filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle in December, the tribe argued tribal members should be exempt from the collection of 6.5 percent sales tax in online purchases, in addition to exemptions for in-person purchases on the reservation.

In June, Jack Fiander, the tribe’s general counsel, said the lawsuit was rendered “unnecessary” upon further investigation. There is an existing process for reimbursement from the state, and tribal members can notify online retailers of their tribal status before the payment is made and have the tax removed.

“The process already existed, but it seems to me ideally it should have been on the state to send out a notice to various online retailers that tribes at these locations are tax exempt,” Fiander said.

The federal law exempting enrolled tribal citizens from paying sales tax states the goods are exempt if “delivered to or the sale is made in the tribe or enrolled tribal member’s Indian country.”

Fiander argued that those requirements created an unnecessary hardship due to the remoteness of the 315-citizen tribe.

Located 30 miles up Highway 530, the reservation is near only a handful of brick-and-mortar retailers. The closest town is Darrington with a population of 1,400. Forcing members to pay for a 100-mile round trip delivery of an item from Seattle, Fiander explained, was not worth the tax exemption.

The suit also alleged the sales tax was a form of discrimination against the tribe. Tribal Council Chairman Nino Maltos Jr. called the tax exemption a sovereignty issue.

But in February, John Ryser, then-acting director of the state Department of Revenue, filed a motion to dismiss the case.

In an 18-page document, Ryser argued the tribe failed to state a claim for which relief can be granted. The motion also outlined the mechanism already available to refund the sales tax and explained how to work directly with online vendors to remove the tax preemptively.

Ryser’s motion to dismiss argued the “Tribe has failed to allege facts or law that support a preemption claim for declaratory or injunctive relief.” Ryser’s motion also stated the tribe’s allegations are “insufficient” to show intentional discrimination based on race, as the lawsuit alleged.

In May, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez tossed the case, stating the tribe failed to properly state a claim.

With the case dismissed, Fiander said the tribe plans to “work directly with online vendors” in the future.

“The problem with the refund policy is you have to wait,” Fiander said. “The easiest way to (remove the sales tax) will be between the consumer and retailer — to contact the internet seller and provide them proper documentation and tribal ID.”

A spokesperson for the state Department of Revenue told the Herald that the department “appreciates the court’s decision and is awaiting further developments, if any, in the case.”

Kayla J. Dunn: 425-339-3449; kayla.dunn@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @KaylaJ_Dunn.

This article was published via AP Storyshare. 

The post Judge dismisses suit over sales tax, tribe agrees appeared first on Buffalo’s Fire.

Deaths by drug overdose in Montana continue to rise. 

Nearly 200 people in Montana died due to drug overdoses in 2021, the last year that comprehensive data is available, according to the state’s health department. That’s nearly 40 more lives lost than in 2020 and 80 more than in 2017. 

Yellowstone County, the state’s most populous, had the highest number of fatal overdoses, followed by Missoula County. 

Neither autopsies nor toxicological testing are performed on every person who dies from an overdose, according to Jon Ebelt, a spokesperson from the Montana Department Public Health and Human Services, so even those numbers could be an undercount.     

Health care practitioners, law enforcement agencies and others attribute the increase to the proliferation of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can be up to 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. 

And there’s no sign of the trend slowing. During the first quarter of 2023 year, Yellowstone County reported 41 calls related to opioid overdoses, followed by Missoula County with 32 and Cascade County with 28, according to a report from the state’s emergency medical services. Across the state in 2022, there were 1,041 opioid overdose-related 911 responses by EMS agencies, an average of 87 per month, up from 76 per month the year prior. 

“What’s happening right now is that people are literally walking down that path in the dark. They have no idea what is going to be laced, what is going to be a dose that could kill you.”

Nikki Russell, peer mentor, Montana Peer Network

And Narcan, an over-the-counter nasal spray that reverses overdose effects, has become a household name. Clinics and local health departments around Montana are training the public on its use, and advocates and officials are encouraging people to carry Narcan if they believe they might know someone using opioids.

For years in Montana, methamphetamine has been the drug most gravely impacting communities. A public health department report from August 2020 determined that the number of deaths, hospitalizations and emergency room visits related to methamphetamine had all increased substantially since 2015. Crime related to methamphetamine use also increased.

Montana also suffers from an alcohol-induced death rate far greater than the national average. The alcohol-induced death rate in 2019 for adults over the age of 25 was 30.9 per 1,000 residents, compared with 17.3 per 1,000 nationally, and 18% of high-school students in Montana reported engaging in binge drinking, 4% higher than their national peers. 

But the arrival of fentanyl, a cheaper and more potent opioid, has created a new crisis. While methamphetamine and alcohol are still more prevalent, the rate of deaths from opioid-related drug overdoses in Montana nearly tripled between 2017-2018 and 2019-2020, according to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services. Nikki Russell, who struggled with substance abuse for nearly a decade and now serves as a peer mentor for Montana Peer Network — a statewide nonprofit that helps people struggling with addiction — said it felt like things changed overnight. 

“It felt quick. I absolutely feel like I turned a corner and there [fentanyl] was,” Russell  said. “I was hearing about one [overdose] after another after another.”  

For example, the Northwest Montana Drug Task Force, responsible for covering six counties, including Lincoln, Lake and Flathead, equaling roughly 17,600 square miles, made 56 fentanyl-related arrests in 2022 and removed more than $2 million in illicit drugs from communities. Throughout Montana, there were 488 opioid seizures by law enforcement in 2021, nearly double the number in 2017, according to the Montana Board of Crime Control. 

Ka Mua, a nurse practitioner at Ideal Option, which operates nine clinics across Montana that provide medication-assisted treatment to treat opioid dependence, said she has seen a significant rise in the use of fentanyl among patients in the last 18 months. 

Among the many risks posed by fentanyl, according to Mua, is that the symptoms of withdrawal — intense nausea, fever or debilitating muscle aches — can start much quicker and be much more intense than with other opioids. 

More than half of patients at Ideal Option clinics across the state test positive for at least two substances, and 24% test positive for three or more. That circumstance, called polysubstance use, often reveals that people don’t know how their drugs are getting cut or mixed. It’s not uncommon, then, for people to think they are taking one drug but to learn later that it was laced by illegal manufacturers with fentanyl, which is partly why the overdose risk is so high, Mua said. 

According to research from the American Journal of Public Health, 61% of fatal overdoses nationally in 2021 that involved methamphetamine also included opioids such as heroin or fentanyl. 

There’s “no way to measure the correct dose of fentanyl as a street drug,” Russell said.

“At the time when I was using substances, it was a dangerous road, but I could kind of see where I was going, even though I was, so to speak, lost,” Russell said. “What’s happening right now is that people are literally walking down that path in the dark. They have no idea what is going to be laced, what is going to be a dose that could kill you.” 

THE ROLE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT

Steve Holton has worked for the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office for more than 25 years, and he’s been the sheriff for six. While substance use is nothing new in the Bitterroot Valley, he said, the pervasiveness of drugs and the impact substance use is having on the community is notably different. 

“Fentantyl is definitely on the rise, even down here,” Holton said. “We’re seeing a lot of distribution. It’s super easy to get. It’s super pure. There was a time when our problem was methamphetamine labs, and that is simply not the case anymore.”  

Although the number of fatal overdoses in Ravalli County is low — according to the public health department, six people died in 2021 — Holton said those numbers don’t adequately reflect the threat of the drug crisis in the community. 

All deputies in the sheriff’s office carry Narcan, and Holton said access to naloxone — the generic name for the medication — has prevented many overdoses from resulting in death. But he cautions that people shouldn’t assume that low fatalities means overdoses are uncommon. 

“People tend to have a that-can’t-happen-here attitude,” Holton said. “I don’t think people understand just how prevalent the dangerous drugs are in Ravalli County.”

It’s not uncommon for law enforcement officials in Montana to be some of the first on the scene for a drug-related health crisis. Montana comprises more than 147,000 square miles and in 2020 had 1,676 sworn police officers and 103 law enforcement agencies. Some of those agencies work together to serve as part of the state’s six drug task forces. 

That’s a lot of area to cover with few people. Such remoteness makes responding to possible overdoses or investigating the origin of drugs in the community difficult, Holton said. Emergency calls “are a long ways away from each other, so to get people the help they need, law enforcement is often the answer,” he said. 

REDUCING STIGMA 

A compelling and growing body of research, including from the National Institute of Health, shows that criminalization of drug use prevents people from seeking treatment, which can push people struggling with addiction even further to the margins of society. 

As a result, there has been an increasing effort nationally to reduce the prominence of traditional law enforcement in moments of mental health crises, including for people who may be using drugs. Missoula and Flathead counties, for example, have both created programs within their police departments that pair mental health counselors with law enforcement officers. 

Community organizations are stepping up across the state, too. Safe syringe exchanges, like those offered by Missoula’s Open Aid Alliance, and medication-assisted treatment clinics are becoming more common. Those interventions are considered part of harm-reduction practices, a school of thought that aims to reduce the stigma around drug use. 

“People tend to have a that-can’t-happen-here attitude. I don’t think people understand just how prevalent the dangerous drugs are in Ravalli County.”

Ravalli County Sheriff Steve Holton

Advocates say public health interventions such as needle exchanges reduce some of the potential harm that drug use can cause. People struggling with addiction, they maintain, should feel comfortable seeking treatment and support. Russell added that the stigma around substance abuse, especially in rural communities, often discourages the people she works with from joining support groups, seeking help or taking advantage of existing resources. 

The Montana State Legislature is doing work of its own to reduce the number of opioid-related drug overdoses in the state. A bill signed into law in May exempts fentanyl testing strips from the list of illegal drug paraphernalia so that people can better avoid unknowingly consuming the powerful opiate when they are using other substances. 

Fentanyl’s hold on communities in Montana, experts agree, has forced something of a reckoning in how society can best help drug users prevent overdoses. 

“If somebody’s not alive, how can they recover?” Russell said. 

The post Fentanyl use in Montana driving spike in overdose deaths appeared first on Montana Free Press.

More than 450 people have so far lost health coverage through Wyoming Medicaid or Kid Care CHIP as the state moves away from pandemic-era measures, the state health department reported at the end of June. Thousands more are expected to lose coverage over the next nine months. 

The largest factors in losing eligibility were age, residency and income, according to Wyoming Department of Health spokesperson Kim Deti. 

The health department has estimated that between 10,000 and 15,000 residents could lose access to Medicaid programs this year as it conducts a yearlong renewal process. Some free medical clinics expect the increase in uninsured residents to further strain resources. 

That annual process was put on hold during the pandemic to ensure coverage for more people in exchange for a temporary increase in federal funding. Starting in April, Wyoming health officials began removing people who no longer qualify, but a more complete picture of these “procedural removals” is expected to come out next month.

Early reports from Montana show more than 70% of those at risk of losing coverage simply didn’t provide requested information to health officials.

Wyoming’s health department started updating people’s contact details back in March, the agency stated, to make sure those who are still eligible get the renewal notice. 

“Because of the pause, our clients have not received these notices by mail over the last three years,” Lee Grossman, state Medicaid agent and senior WDH administrator, said in a March press release. “We know living situations may have changed during that time for many people.”

Income has been one of the largest factors in losing eligibility so far, but thousands of Wyomingites already fall into a “gap” where they make too much to qualify for Medicaid in the state but too little to afford private insurance. To shore up this gap, 41 states have expanded Medicaid, but Wyoming lawmakers have yet to do so, often citing concerns that the federal government won’t hold up its end of the bargain to help pay for it.

The state estimates Medicaid expansion would insure about 19,000 people over two years. 

To ensure they get a renewal notice, Wyoming Medicaid enrollees can update their contact information at www.wesystem.wyo.gov or by calling 1-855-294-2127.

The post Hundreds lose Wyoming Medicaid and Kid Care coverage appeared first on WyoFile.

Piccola Cucina has five restaurants: three in New York City, one in Ibiza, Spain, and one in Red Lodge, Montana, population 2,200.

Red Lodge anchors one end of the spectacular Beartooth Highway and is a gateway community for Yellowstone National Park. Visiting the park requires driving through Beartooth Pass, which, at over 10,000 feet, closes for the winter. The town is primarily a summer destination, and Piccola Cucina Ox Pasture (the delineation for the Montana location) is seasonal as well. 

This restaurant outpost is thanks to the urging of guests at a New York City location, residents of Red Lodge who wanted to bring the dining experience to their hometown. Chef Benedetto Bisacquino ventured from the city six years ago to check out the possibilities.

Finding Community — and Diners — in Rural Montana

“We were curious, but weren’t supposed to stay long,” he said about that first visit. “But people really enjoy what we are doing and this town is like home now.”

‘What they’re doing’ is serving deliciously authentic Sicilian and Italian food. Bisacquino is clear — no dishes that aren’t served in Italy. That excludes American favorites like chicken parmesan and fettucine alfredo. At first, almost everything was new and different for patrons, even the lasagna with meat sauce and bechamel. 

“Last year, all the people in a big group ordered the yellowtail tuna and I couldn’t believe they all liked raw fish,” he said. “After six years, so many people trust what we are doing that they will try all of our plates.”

An Authentic Sicilian Experience at Piccola Cucina

Bisacquino is a stickler for authentic ingredients. For example, Bucatini Cacio E Pepe (bucatini pasta with pecorino cheese and black pepper) has only a few ingredients and relies on the high quality of each one. Since these are hard to find in rural Montana, he imports a lot of things from Europe: octopus, giant wheels of pecorino cheese, artichokes, and yellow tomatoes. It makes the dishes truly Sicilian. He complements them with locally-raised 16 oz. grilled rib eye, since Montana is known for its world-class beef.

Piccola Cucina offers more than a taste of Sicily; it also offers an experience of the culture. The ambience is boisterous, with music and dancing accompanying the food, and the chef and staff – many with an Italian accent – mingling and talking with the guests. It adds to the feel of adventurous dining.

Bisacquino grew up in Sicily and started working in a restaurant kitchen at the age of 13. In the following 29 years, he has worked across Europe and in Egypt, including a stint cooking French food in Switzerland. Ten years ago, he was invited to New York and a return to the cuisine of his heritage at Piccola Cucina. His goal as a chef is to make the best food and make people happy. “This job is hard work, and feeling people love what I am doing makes it worth it,” he said. 

Business is Booming, and Rural Charm Abounds

The arrival of the restaurant was well-timed, catching the cusp of a growth surge in Red Lodge. The beautiful, quiet mountain town was a strong community forged through hard winters. In recent years, the increase in seasonal residents and tourists has generated a hopping summer scene. People spend a couple of days in town while visiting Yellowstone. Guests from Billings, Bozeman, and Cody visit for a long weekend, or drive two to three hours just to eat at Piccola Cucina. In the first year, 13,000 people dined at the restaurant in three months. Two years ago, they served 25,000.

Since the New York locations tend to slow down in the summer, Bisacquino says some of the staff shift to Red Lodge for the season. “New York is beautiful but everything goes so fast there,” he said. “Red Lodge is a break, a chance to enjoy the summer a little bit. It offers a different way to work.”

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The post A Taste of Sicily in the Mountains of Montana appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

The bison’s massive front- and hindquarters rested on a blue tarp to protect them from dirt and other contaminants. Gut piles left by other hunters, frosted with March snow, dotted the hillsides around Falcon. As she field-dressed the animal, tourists headed to the park passed by less than half a mile away. “We’re using our space that we have always used,” Falcon said. “We’re just using it again now with an audience.”

Falcon’s harvest is a revitalization of Indigenous knowledge and culture. But the hunt is also a public lightning rod — part of an ongoing controversy over managing an iconic species that tribal nations, the federal government and the state of Montana all have deep and different interests in.

“We’re using our space that we have always used. We’re just using it again now with an audience.”

AT LEAST 27 TRIBES have historic ties to the Yellowstone region. In the late 19th century, the United States government forced them out as part of a nationwide effort to exterminate and assimilate Indigenous people. Treaties between tribes and the federal government in the mid-1800s established reservations across the region, but maintained hunting rights in places deemed “unoccupied.”

At the same time, bison, which once numbered between 30 and 60 million in North America, were deliberately slaughtered en masse, part of the campaign to clear the land of Indigenous people: “Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone,” U.S. Army Col. Richard Dodge reportedly said in 1867. By the early 1900s, fewer than two dozen wild bison remained, deep in Yellowstone National Park.

Thanks to federal conservation efforts, bison rebounded in Yellowstone — and tribes began to reclaim their rights to harvest them. In the mid-2000s, the Nez Perce Tribe wrote to Montana’s governor, claiming their right to hunt bison on Forest Service land adjacent to the park. The state acknowledged the tribe’s sovereignty. “Today, after years without meaningful access to bison, the Nimiipuu are reconnecting with bison in the Greater Yellowstone Area, re-asserting our sacred relationship with the bison, and exercising our treaty-reserved right to hunt bison that was secured by our ancestors and promised by the United States,” the tribe said in an emailed statement. Over time, more tribes followed; last winter, eight tribal nations hunted bison outside Yellowstone, some from as far away as Washington and Oregon.

Tribal hunters entered a contentious landscape. For decades, the state of Montana, federal agencies and conservation groups have gone back and forth through lawsuits, legislation and protests over how many Yellowstone bison there should be, and where. Bison and elk in the region harbor the country’s last reservoir of a disease called brucellosis, which can cause cattle to abort and become infertile. While there have been no confirmed cases of wild bison spreading brucellosis to domestic cattle, the state still spends more than a million dollars every year to prevent its spread. If Montana loses its brucellosis-free status, it could forfeit another $10 million or more per year. Tribes, wildlife managers and park officials developed three methods to keep the park’s bison numbers down: hunting outside Yellowstone, transfer to tribes, and capture by park officials for slaughter.

“Today, after years without meaningful access to bison, the Nimiipuu are reconnecting with bison in the Greater Yellowstone Area.” 

By 2022, Yellowstone bison numbered about 6,000 — the highest since recovery began. During particularly harsh winters, when ice and deep snow block forage, the animals migrate north, searching for food. Last year, winter came on strong and early, and buffalo appeared in locations that they likely hadn’t grazed in a century.

That meant they had to pass through Beattie Gulch and other federal land, where hunters waited. Conservation groups have long criticized the park’s bison cull, but this year’s high harvest amplified that tension. Videos circulated online showed gut piles lining the road, blood streaming down the brown dirt as the offal thawed. Billboards popped up across the state, reading: “There is no hunt. It’s slaughter!” One local organization, the Gallatin Wildlife Association, wrote to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, urging the federal government to “renegotiate how (tribal) treaty rights should be enforced in a modern society.”

Bonnie Lynn, who lives across the road from Beattie Gulch, is a longtime hunt opponent. Monitoring the harvest from cameras placed around her property, she said she’s seen injured animals fleeing into the park, dozens of hunters in a firing line — even people unintentionally shooting toward each other and the road. She’s also concerned about ecosystem health: Lead poisoning from bullets can devastate raptors and other scavenging birds. “To watch this on a daily basis is emotionally draining,” she said.

Lynn, like many others, blames this year’s high harvest on federal and state mismanagement. In May, Jaedin Medicine Elk, a Northern Cheyenne tribal member and co-founder of the group Roam Free Nation, wrote an open letter to tribes that harvest Yellowstone bison. (The Northern Cheyenne Tribe hasn’t participated in the modern hunt.) “I don’t think the buffalo could go through another winter like this one,” he wrote. He said state and federal governments respect tribal treaty rights only when it directly benefits their agenda — in this case, serving Montana’s livestock industry. Bison need more room to roam, he wrote. When that happens, a respectful hunt can begin.

 

 

AT THEIR HOME in East Glacier on the Blackfeet Reservation, more than five hours north of Beattie Gulch, Christen Falcon and her partner, Wyett Wippert, threaded nylon rope through the edges of a bison hide and pulled it taut, like tightening shoelaces. This was the couple’s first experience tanning a hide on their own. Chatting about the harvest with friends and neighbors, they tossed scraps of fat and meat to their dogs, Binks and Noi. “Gonna have all the neighbor dogs over here,” Wippert joked. “They’re comin’!”

Falcon said there’s a running joke about Yellowstone bison hunters in her community: They aren’t real hunters, people say. The hunt is roadside, and the animals are accustomed to tourists wielding cameras, not guns. Still, she said, it’s better than the alternative the animals face: Many of them likely would be slaughtered by the park anyway.

Falcon works for a nonprofit that focuses on Indigenous-led research. The bulk of her and Wippert’s harvest will go to a study she’s leading that will analyze what happens when tribal members consume a completely traditional diet. Animal parts with special meaning, like the tongue, will go to knowledge-holders. Ultimately, she sees the Yellowstone harvest as a blessing; it helps everyone who hunts and receives meat connect to land, culture and identity. “That’s what sovereignty is — taking care of yourself,” she said. “And that’s what we’re trying to do here.”

 “That’s what sovereignty is — taking care of yourself.”

Tribal hunters HCN interviewed said their meat goes to family, community members, even schools. An average bison yields, conservatively, 500 pounds of steak and burger, meaning the winter’s harvest of Yellowstone bison equates to over a half-million pounds of lean meat going straight to tribal communities. In places like the Blackfeet Reservation — where census data shows a poverty rate of 31.1%, roughly triple Montana’s average — that can have a real impact on food security and nutrition. Christina Flammond, a tribal member and the reservation’s sole meat processor, waives her 85-cents-per-pound processing fee for hunters who donate half their meat to local food pantries. “I never dreamed of processing this many bison,” Flammond said one April afternoon at her facility, where a handful of bison quarters hung, aging.

BISON IGNORE STATE, federal and tribal land boundaries, so managing them requires getting parties with sometimes diametrically opposed interests to agree. That’s not easy. As last winter began, the state, federal government and tribes hit an impasse. Montana wanted fewer bison while tribal nations argued that more of the ungulates should graze the hills and valleys of the region. In the end, the park suggested there’s no science-based reason to reduce the population and proposed that at most a quarter of it — 1,500 animals — be removed through hunting, slaughter and transfer to tribes.

Tribes, as sovereign nations, set their own hunting dates and regulations. Reporting hunt numbers is voluntary, and no cumulative goals exist. As bison flooded through Beattie Gulch, the total removed from the Yellowstone population — hundreds of animals were transferred to tribes or slaughtered — exceeded the park’s proposed limit. “I don’t want to see multiple years of substantial population reduction like we just had,” said Yellowstone Superintendent Cam Sholly.

“Everybody’s freaking out that there’s Indians eating from buffalo. That’s not a bad thing; that’s actually a good thing.”

James Holt, a Nez Perce tribal member and executive director of the advocacy group Buffalo Field Campaign, said last winter’s hunt shows how Montana’s efforts to minimize the population have “led to every tribe for itself.” Lamenting the lack of a shared vision, he said, “It’s a tragedy of the commons that we’re seeing on the ground right now.” Still, there’s an opportunity for collaboration that centers both buffalo and tribes. He wants to see tribes work together to oversee a sustainable harvest, much the way Columbia River tribes cooperate on fish management.

“Everybody’s freaking out that there’s Indians eating from buffalo,” said Kekek Jason Stark, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa and professor of law at the University of Montana. “That’s not a bad thing; that’s actually a good thing.”

In “Re-Indigenizing Yellowstone,” published in the Wyoming Law Review last year, Stark and his co-authors offered what he called a “road map” to empower tribal voices in America’s first national park. Their vision encompasses more than bison: They suggested that Congress could return the park to tribal management, much as it did with the National Bison Range on the Flathead Reservation. Short of that, the park should empower tribes as partners with true decision-making authority. Since so many tribes with diverse interests have connections to the Yellowstone area, they suggested creating an intertribal commission. Once that work begins in Yellowstone, Stark said, “it’s going to catch like wildfire” on other federal lands.

Right now, only two of the eight tribes with bison-hunting rights are officially part of the conglomeration of agencies and tribal entities that manage the area’s bison, via an effort known as the Interagency Bison Management Plan, or IBMP. Four treaty tribes are also serving as partners while Yellowstone works on a new environmental impact statement to replace its nearly 25-year-old bison management plan. Last year, the park published the alternatives it’s considering, with population numbers ranging from 3,500 animals to as high as 8,000 or more. The state of Montana pushed back immediately, saying all the alternatives were too high and urging the park to withdraw those population targets.

In a June IBMP meeting — the first since last winter’s hunt — bison managers discussed how to move forward. Yellowstone Superintendent Sholly said there needs to be better landscape-level collaboration among all groups that hunt: “It can’t be a free-for-all.” Others, including the chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, agreed. But Ervin Carlson, a Blackfeet member and president of the Intertribal Buffalo Council, said all the talk of the hunt distracts from another way of managing the population: Ramping up the park’s program to transfer living, breathing bison to tribal groups across the country.

The federal government is already in the throes of a massive effort to restore the iconic animal nationwide. A $25 million Interior Department initiative aims to partner with tribes and establish “wide-ranging herds on large landscapes,” to revitalize both ecosystems and cultures. The saga in Yellowstone shows just how difficult it can be to put those ideas into practice. In fact, Montana’s Legislature passed a resolution in April opposing federal bison reintroduction on a wildlife refuge more than 200 miles north of Yellowstone, one of several recent state-led attempts to create barriers to introducing wild bison in the state.

The future of bison management requires governmental policy decisions. But it also depends on the smaller-scale, on-the-ground actions of tribal members like Christen Falcon. “We’re Indigenizing this space,” Falcon said, warming up in a car in March, overlooking the wintry hills of Yellowstone. The dead animals, the publicly visible gore — she understands how unusual it all looks. “We’re showing this Western world that not everything is as it seems.”      

Nick Mott is an award-winning journalist and podcast producer who focuses mostly on climate, public land and the environment. He’s based in Livingston, Montana.

Taylar Dawn Stagner is a writer and audio journalist who’s an editorial intern for the Indigenous Affairs desk at HCN. She’s Arapaho and Shoshone and writes about racism, rurality, and gender. 

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Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that federal investigators found, for the first time ever, a U.S. police department discriminates against not only Black people, but also Native Americans.

The Justice Department also made another first-time finding: the Minneapolis Police Department discriminates against Black and Native people by disproportionately using force during stops.

A two-year federal investigation sparked by George Floyd’s 2020 police murder found MPD routinely uses excessive force and discriminates against people based on race.

Investigators reviewed five years of data — about 187,000 traffic and pedestrian stops from November 2016 to August 2022 — and found MPD searches and uses force on Blacks and Native Americans more frequently than during stops of white people, even when they behave similarly.

“This is the first time we have made a finding that the police department unlawfully discriminates by using force after stops against Black and Native American people,” said Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, during a Friday news conference.

Garland launched the investigation into MPD shortly after he took office in the spring of 2021, and found MPD recklessly, routinely uses excessive force, is inadequately trained and rarely held accountable for misconduct.

Mike Forcia, a Native activist who works at a homeless shelter for Native Americans, said the finding “wasn’t shocking in the least.”

“They spent all that money to come up with what we’ve been saying for years,” said Forcia, who is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Yohuru Williams, a history professor and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, said, “It was good to see that named. I think it was very important to have those experiences validated for the indigenous community, particularly.”

Police brutality is one of the reasons the American Indian Movement was formed in Minneapolis in 1968.

It’s the reason Arthur Cunningham, head of the NAACP in Minneapolis, accused the MPD in 1975 of declaring war on Blacks and Indians, he said.

And it’s the reason why in the 1980s, Native Americans said they were being targeted by police, who justified it by saying they were drunk and disorderly, Williams said.

In 1975, when the state Department of Human Rights held hearings on police and the Black community, Indigenous people said, “that’s us too,” Williams said.

“It’s a longstanding problem with the department,” he said.

Even though Minneapolis has a large number of Native Americans, their allegations of disparate treatment in traffic stops and excessive force get less attention, he said.

“Indigenous folks are still invisible in our community as a whole, even now,” Williams said. “We just don’t — for a host of reasons, all of which are not flattering to our community — recognize the disproportionate impacts on Indigenous people.”

Before Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara was hired, Forcia took him to Little Earth, a housing complex that serves mostly Indigenous people, and explained how the American Indian Movement started. O’Hara asked Forcia to speak at his ceremonial oath of office event.

Forcia agreed, and during the event, he talked about how they were planting seeds of trust, transparency and community — but planting is the easy part. The hard part, he said, is cultivating and pulling weeds.

Forcia told O’Hara he knows what it’s like to have the knee of a Minneapolis cop on his neck: He was paid a $125,000 settlement after getting beaten in 1999 by police who thought he stole a car because “I was a Native American with a jean jacket and ponytail running from the scene.”

One of the officers who assaulted him, Brian Sand, was later promoted to be internal affairs commander.

Last year, Forcia worked with Sand for a May Day Parade. Sand apologized.

“I forgave him,” Forcia said.

This article was originally published in the Minnesota Reformer. 

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