Comment on FR Doc # 2026-09387

As a native keystone species, bison play an important role in maintaining healthy prairie ecosystems. This includes shaping the land through grazing, movement, and natural behaviors that create habitat diversity and support a wide range of life on the prairie. Their return directly correlates to the restoration of ecological processes exhibited in short grass prairie ecosystems that existed prior to the induced disturbances of the 19th century and continuing to this day. Managed bison grazing not only supports diverse ecosystems and assists in maintaining strong water and land health, but also supports local western communities maintain natural heritage and ties to the land. Simultaneously, managed bison grazing remains compatible with responsible grazing, recreation, wildlife conservation, and other public benefits on these lands, reducing the possible effects of overgrazing by cattle too often exhibited across western states. Bison grazing also allows a flexibility; that management decisions can respond quickly when landscapes are degraded. American Prairie’s Bison on the landscape create meaningful public benefits for hunters and western communities, upholding the multiple-use mission of public and state trust lands by recognizing that conservation remains an equally important use of these lands, while simultaneously providing unique public hunting opportunities that directly puts meat on the table for Montana families while allowing people to connect with the state’s wildlife, history, and hunting traditions. Few examples remain in the west where there is a conflux of opportunities for conservation, tribal buffalo restoration, recreation, and other public benefits on public and state trust lands as exhibited on American Prairie’s lands. Decisions regarding these lands should be guided and influenced by science, land health, and local management experts, not based on adopting regulations that limit grazing permits only to “production-oriented livestock,” or similar fanciful verbiage. Grazing operations that meet stewardship standards and comply with permit conditions should be evaluated indifferently, regardless of whether the grazers are cattle or bison. In summation, management decisions should be based on science, measurable land health, maintaining strong standards for land and water health. public benefits, and stewardship, not political theatre and cronyism.