In a holding pen on open prairie, a buffalo herd waited. One by one, the animals were led through a series of progressively smaller pens and chutes. At the other end was a team of veterinarians. To avoid overstimulating the bison, workers spoke in whispers and communicated with hand signals. Their voices were drowned out by the sound of hooves on hard dirt.
Pedro Calderon-Dominguez supervised from a catwalk above the smallest pen, holding a large gray flag. He waved it to capture the bison’s attention, then stopped at the first sign of forward motion. The next gate opened.
Calderon-Dominguez has made a career communicating with animals. He started training horses as a teenager in Chihuahua City, Mexico. As a graduate student, he worked cattle while studying habitat restoration, a combination that led him to bison. Around them, Calderon-Dominguez is always calm. He has to be, he said; bison mirror your energy.
In 2022, Calderon-Dominguez moved to Phillips County, Montana, to manage bison for the land trust American Prairie. He lives on the nonprofit’s land with his wife, a marine biologist, and their four horses, three dogs, goats, chickens and donkey. His friend, rancher Cody Spencer, has called him the world’s best bison wrangler. Calderon-Dominguez said Spencer was exaggerating.
Calderon-Dominguez has made a career communicating with animals.
Millions of buffalo once migrated across the Great Plains. They were — and still are — a source of food and spiritual strength for Indigenous people. In the 19th century, bison were nearly exterminated by non-Native hunters and U.S. soldiers attempting to eradicate the tribes. Today, more than 95% of buffalo in the U.S. are raised commercially. American Prairie’s bison, like most of those at the nearby Fort Belknap Indian Community and Chippewa Cree of Rocky Boy’s Reservation, are managed for conservation. All three are part of a long-running, continent-wide effort to more fully restore bison to the prairie.
At American Prairie, Calderon-Dominguez works with about 900 bison, divided into two herds. Each herd grazes at least 25,000 acres. The bison are wild animals, but not, legally, wildlife. Montana classifies them as livestock, and they graze land leased from the Bureau of Land Management for that purpose.
Every spring, Calderon-Dominguez and his team guide one of the herds from a pasture owned by American Prairie to a BLM allotment. When summer ends, they lead the bison back again. Late in the year, the team corrals most of a herd into a portable facility for ear tagging, nasal swabs and bloodwork. The samples are tested for their genetic makeup and for diseases like brucellosis, for which the herds are also vaccinated.
Each bison weighs up to two tons and can run as fast as a deer. They develop social hierarchies and can remember human faces. Moving them anywhere takes patience.
When Calderon-Dominguez needs a herd to change directions, for example, he gets close on his ATV. (He said he’d rather ride a horse but cannot do so for insurance reasons.) It’s enough to pressure the bison to move without agitating them. He always watches their body language carefully.
“You’re observing that all the time across the whole group of animals.”
“The way they move an ear, the eye is going to follow. Then the nose is going to follow and then the feet,” said Calderon-Dominguez. “You’re observing that all the time across the whole group of animals.”
When the herd turns in the right direction, Calderon-Dominguez drives away. Knowing when to release the pressure, he explained, is as important as knowing when to apply it.
As the animals travel across the land, they improve its ecological health. Their hooves break up the soil and encourage native plant growth. They roll in the dirt, leaving indentations where water pools for birds, amphibians and insects.
But just how far they should roam remains a matter of fierce debate.
American Prairie hopes to rewild 3.2 million acres in central Montana, an area the size of Connecticut, allowing bison to move freely between privately owned parcels, BLM allotments and other public lands. But the effort is opposed by some of the nonprofit’s neighbors and state leaders, who say more space for conservation will hurt family farms and ranches.
“We would never want to see bison in Montana outside of where they’re currently allowed to be,” said Chuck Denowh, executive director of United Property Owners of Montana. The organization produces signs reading “Save the Cowboy, STOP American Prairie Reserve.”
A few months after Calderon-Dominguez moved to Montana, the BLM permitted American Prairie to graze bison on six allotments in Phillips County. The state’s governor and attorney general both petitioned the decision, arguing that public rangelands should be for commercial agriculture. Their protests were denied by the Interior Board of Land Appeals in October 2023, and again on appeal last May.
“Save the Cowboy, STOP American Prairie Reserve.”
Calderon-Dominguez tries to reduce the tension by keeping bison off neighboring property. Ranchers have his cellphone number to call if they see open gates, broken fences or off-premise bison, and American Prairie offers compensation for bison-related damage. So far, the group said, no one has ever requested it.
It’s all a long way from the free-roaming buffalo of the past. Calderon-Dominguez finds hope in the growing number of conservation herds in Montana and beyond. American Prairie exchanges animals with the Fort Belknap Indian Community and the Chippewa Cree of Rocky Boy’s Reservation to maintain genetic diversity, and staff from each bison program often attend the others’ stockmanship trainings. Even some commercial operations, said Calderon-Dominguez, have adopted principles that improve the land and “let bison be bison.”
At the handling facility, the sun was high when the crew broke for lunch at a nearby cabin. American Prairie staff, volunteer veterinarians and a group from Fort Belknap mingled. A private ranch down the road displayed a banner that read “Don’t Buffalo Me.”
Calderon-Dominguez stayed on the catwalk, eating and watching those buffalo. He put a finger to his lips to silence conversation. The bison needed quiet.
This story is part of High Country News’ Conservation Beyond Boundaries project, which is supported by the BAND Foundation.
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