For Immediate Release February 9, 2026
Contact: Patrick Kelly, Western Watersheds Project, (208) 576-4314; patrick@westernwatersheds.org
Western Watersheds Project Protests BLM Decision to Block Bison on Public Land
MISSOULA, Mont. – Western Watersheds Project today filed a formal protest challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) proposed decision to revoke American Prairie’s multiple federal grazing permits for restoring bison on public lands in Montana. The BLM’s decision reverses years of work, reinterprets long-standing legal standards, and kneecaps bison recovery as a political favor to the public lands livestock lobby.
After years of environmental review, public process, and the agency’s prior approval authorizing native bison on public-land grazing allotments, the BLM narrowed the definition of authorized livestock to exclude the already-permitted bison. This unprecedented agency action follows a letter sent to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum from Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, joined by Senators Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy and Representatives Ryan Zinke and Troy Downing, urging Burgum to block bison grazing on public lands in eastern Montana and return the allotments to cattle use.
“The Trump Administration is undermining years of bison restoration, ignoring environmental reality, and telling Americans that restoring bison – a native species that shaped the shortgrass prairie for thousands of years – is a less appropriate use of these public lands than a for-profit cattle operation,” said Patrick Kelly, Montana/Washington Director for Western Watersheds Project. “It’s outrageous.”
Scientific evidence demonstrates that bison and cattle interact with western landscapes in materially different ways, with important consequences for waterways, biodiversity, and land health.
“People who visit Montana’s remaining shortgrass prairie expect their public lands to be managed for clean water, resilient soils, and the common good,” concluded Kelly. “Instead, the Trump Administration is determined to toss aside carefully-reasoned decisions in order to hand control of public lands to their favorite industries.”
The BLM’s proposed decision was also protested by the Coalition of Large Tribes, which noted the implications of the decision for Tribal interest, including unlawfully excluding tribally managed bison from federal grazing permits, undermining treaty-protected interests, and setting a precedent with serious consequences for tribal sovereignty, cultural survival, and tribal bison restoration on public lands.
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Western Watersheds Project is a non-profit environmental conservation group founded in 1993, that works to improve public lands management throughout the western United States in order to protect native species and conserve and restore the habitats they depend on.
