WOLFPOINT, Mont. (AP) – On the open plains of the Fort Peck Reservation, Robert Magnan leaned out the window…
WOLFPOINT, Mont. (AP) – On the open plains of the Fort Peck Reservation, Robert Magnan leaned out the window of his truck, placed a rifle against the door frame and “bang!” -A bison fell dead in his tracks.
Magnan and a colleague shot two more bison, also known as buffalo, and quickly field-dressed the animals before taking them away for processing into ground beef and chunks of meat for distribution to members of Fort Peck. Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes in northern Montana.
While lawmakers in Washington DC struggle to fix this record government shutdown that interrupted food aid for tens of millions of people, tribal leaders on rural reservations in the Great Plains are culling their tribes beloved bison herds to help fill the gap.
About a third of Fort Peck tribal members on the reservation rely on monthly benefit checks, Chairman Floyd Azure said. That’s almost triple the rate for the US as a whole. They received only partial payments in November after President Donald Trump’s administration cut off funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the closure.
Fort Peck officials say they expected such a moment years ago, when they supplemented their herd with animals from Yellowstone National Park, despite objections from ranchers. concerns about animal diseases.
“We had brought it up at the tribal council: What would happen if the government went bankrupt? How would we feed the people?” said Magnan, a longtime manager of Fort Peck’s bison herds. “It shows we still need buffalo.”
Treaty obligations
In October, the tribal government authorized the killing of 30 bison — about 12,000 pounds (5,440 kilograms) of meat. Half had been shot on Tuesday. A pending deal to end the shutdown will otherwise come too late, Magnan said. Now that Montana is one of the states that has only distributed partial SNAP payments, Fort Peck will continue to distribute buffalo meat for the time being.
Tribes including the Blackfeet, the Lower Brule Sioux, the Cheyenne River Sioux and the Crow have done the same in response to Washington’s dysfunction: feeding thousands of people on bison from herds that have recovered in recent decades after the animals nearly went extinct in the 19th century.
Food and nutrition assistance programs are part of the federal government trust and treaty responsibilities – its legal and moral obligations to fund the health and welfare of tribes in exchange for land and resources that the US has taken from tribes.
“It’s the obligation they made when they took our land, when they stole our land, when they cheated us out of our land,” said Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians. “There is a lack of humanity in doing this with SNAP, with food.”
Fort Peck tribal members Miki Astogo and Dillon Jackson-Fisher, who are unemployed, said they borrowed food from Jackson-Fisher’s mother in recent weeks after SNAP payments failed to arrive. On Sunday, they received a partial payment — about $196 instead of the usual $298 a month — Agosto said.
That won’t last long, they said, so the couple walked 4 miles into town to pick up a box of food from the tribes, including 2 pounds of bison.
“Our car is in the shop, but we have to put food on the table before we pay for the car, you know?” Jackson-Fisher said.
Elk in Maine, deer in Oklahoma
Native American communities elsewhere in the U.S. are also tapping into natural resources to make up for lost federal aid. Members of the Mi’kmaq Nation in Maine replenished a food bank with trout from their farm and locally hunted elk meat. In southeastern Oklahoma, the Comanche Nation accepts venison for food banks. And in the southwestern part of the state, the Choctaw Nation has established three meat processing facilities.
Another program that provides food to eligible Native American householdsthe food distribution program for Indian reservations, has continued during the shutdown.
Mi’kmaq are among the tribes that do not have the program, although the tribe is eligible. The Mi’kmaq also receive funding for food supplies through the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program, but that money also was tied up by the shutdown, said tribal leader Sheila McCormack.
About 80% of Mi’kmaq tribal members in Aroostook County are SNAP recipients, said Kandi Sock, the tribe’s director of community services.
“We have asked for some additional donations; our farm has continued to do so, but it won’t last long,” Sock said.
The demise of bison, the beginning of famine
Buffalo played a central role for the Plains tribes for centuries, providing meat for food and hides for clothing and shelter.
That ended abruptly when white “skin hunters” arrived in 1879 in the Upper Missouri River basin around Fort Peck, home to some of the last remnants of herds that once numbered millions of animals, said Assiniboine historian Dennis Smith. According to Smith, a retired history professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, the animals were virtually exterminated by 1883.
With no way to feed themselves and the government depriving them of food, the buffalo’s demise ushered in a time of famine for the Assiniboine, he said. Many other Plains tribes also suffered hardships.
Hundreds of miles west of Fort Peck, the Blackfeet Nation killed 18 buffalo from its herd and held a special elk harvest to distribute meat among tribe members. The tribe already periodically distributed buffalo meat to the elderly, the sick and for ceremonies and social occasions. But never before have so many of the 700 animals been killed at the same time.
“We can’t do that many all the time. We don’t want to deplete the resources,” said Ervin Carlson, who directs the Blackfeet buffalo program.
In South Dakota, the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe has distributed meat from about 20 buffalo. The tribe has been working to build its capacity to feed people since experiencing shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic. It now has a meat processing plant that can process 25 to 30 animals a week, said Jayme Murray of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Buffalo Authority Corp. Tribes from Minnesota to Montana have asked to use the plant, but have had to turn some away, Murray said.
A former ‘food desert’ relies on its own herds
The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of central South Dakota recently got its first full-fledged supermarket, ending its decades-long status as a “food desert” where people had to drive 100 miles round trip for groceries. The interruption of SNAP benefits caused panic, said Treasurer and Secretary Marty Jandreau.
Benefits for November were reduced to 65% of the usual amount.
But the Lower Brule have buffalo, cattle and elk in abundance in more than 15 square miles. On Sunday, the tribe gave away more than 400 pounds of meat to more than 100 tribal members, council members said.
“It makes me feel very proud that we have things that we can give back,” said tribal council member Marlo Langdeau.
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Schafer reported from Lower Brule, South Dakota, and Brewer from Oklahoma City.
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