Native tribes forced to eat bison they saved from near-extinction due to gov’t shutdown

Government Shutdown Left Them No Choice

When the government stopped sending food aid checks in November 2025, Robert Magnan drove out to the Fort Peck buffalo ranch in Montana and shot three animals before lunch.

He field dressed them fast and hauled them off for processing. The meat went to tribal members who got partial SNAP payments or nothing at all.

Fort Peck had approved killing 30 buffalo total, about 12,000 pounds of meat.

These were the same animals the tribe spent 30 years bringing back from near extinction, and now they had to kill them because Washington couldn’t keep the lights on.

Trump Administration Cuts Off SNAP Funding

The shutdown started October 1, 2025 and became the longest in American history at 43 days.

President Trump’s administration stopped funding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for November, affecting 42 million Americans.

On Fort Peck Reservation in northern Montana, about one-third of tribal members depend on those monthly benefit checks. That’s almost triple the rate for the country as a whole.

Chairman Floyd Azure watched families go from getting $298 per month to $196, or getting nothing. Montana was one of the states that only sent partial payments.

Families Run Out of Food Fast

Miki Astogo and Dillon Jackson-Fisher had four kids to feed and no jobs. They borrowed food from Jackson-Fisher’s mother for weeks after their SNAP payment didn’t show up.

When they finally got a partial payment in early November, $196 instead of the usual $298, they knew it wouldn’t last the month.

Their car was broken down, so they walked 4 miles into Wolf Point to pick up a box of food from the tribe that included 2 pounds of buffalo meat.

Jackson-Fisher said they had to put food on the table before they could pay to fix the car.

Fort Peck Starts Shooting Buffalo in October

The tribal government authorized the buffalo harvest in October when it became clear SNAP money wasn’t coming. Robert Magnan is the buffalo manager and his job used to be about growing the herd, not shrinking it.

He drove out to the 13,000-acre pasture where the animals graze and lined up shots from his truck window. Each animal dropped fast.

He and his crew processed three buffalo that first morning.

They kept going and had killed half the approved 30 by the time Congress finally passed a funding bill on November 12.

Blackfeet Nation Declares State of Emergency

Fort Peck wasn’t alone. The Blackfeet Nation in northwest Montana killed 18 buffalo from its herd and declared a state of emergency. The Lower Brule Sioux did the same.

So did the Cheyenne River Sioux and the Crow. All of them had spent years building buffalo herds back up after commercial hunters nearly wiped out the species in the 1800s. By 1881, wild buffalo were almost extinct.

Tribes got buffalo from Yellowstone and other sources starting in the 1990s and 2000s. The herds were for ceremonies, for cultural healing, for teaching young people about their history.

They weren’t supposed to be emergency food.

Tribes Across the Country Hunt for Food

In Maine, the Mi’kmaq Nation stocked food banks with trout from their hatchery and moose meat from local hunts.

Tribal Chief Sheila McCormack said they don’t have access to the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, even though they’re eligible.

The shutdown also froze their funding from the Emergency Food Assistance Program. In southeastern Oklahoma, the Comanche Nation started accepting deer meat donations for food banks.

The Choctaw Nation in southwestern Oklahoma set up three meat processing facilities to handle the extra game coming in.

Fort Peck Got Yellowstone Buffalo in 2012

Fort Peck received 63 buffalo from Yellowstone National Park in March 2012. These were genetically pure animals, not crossbred with cattle like most herds.

They’d been in quarantine since 2004 to make sure they were free of brucellosis, a disease European cattle brought to North America. Getting those buffalo took years of work.

The tribe had to convince the Montana state legislature and Yellowstone to allow the transfer. Cattle ranchers fought it because they worried about disease spreading to their herds.

Larry Wetsit, a medicine lodge keeper, said at the time it was a moment of healing from historical trauma.

The Herd Grew to 258 Adults

By November 2025, the Yellowstone herd at Fort Peck had grown to 258 adult buffalo plus 73 calves. The tribe’s goal was to reach 360 adults before doing any culling.

They also had a separate commercial herd of 170 animals that weren’t genetically pure. That herd was used for ceremonies and trade with other tribes.

Fort Peck had already sent 50 buffalo to nine different tribes across six states, including Alaska. The tribe ran a lottery system for buffalo hunts that brought in money and put meat in freezers.

During COVID in 2020, they gave out 76 hunting tags instead of the usual 40 to help with food shortages.

Buffalo Were Supposed to Heal, Not Feed

The buffalo program at Fort Peck was never about emergency food supplies. It was about bringing back an animal that defined Plains Indian culture for thousands of years.

Buffalo were everything. Food, shelter, clothing, tools, spiritual connection.

When they disappeared in the late 1800s, tribes lost more than a food source.

Roxann Smith, who teaches Native American Studies at Fort Peck Community College, said the buffalo were their entire economy.

Getting them back meant teaching young people their language and traditions, cooking old recipes, holding ceremonies that hadn’t happened in generations.

Robbie Magnan said when the buffalo are healthy, the people are healthy. That wasn’t supposed to mean shooting them for ground beef.

Deal Comes Too Late for Half the Herd

Congress passed a funding bill on November 12 that reopened the government and funded SNAP through September 2026. Most states got their money flowing within 24 hours.

Families started seeing full November payments show up on their EBT cards. But by then, Magnan had already killed 15 buffalo at Fort Peck.

The tribal government had authorized 30 and he kept going.

Chairman Azure said they’d keep handing out buffalo meat for now since Montana only sent partial SNAP payments. The deal to end the shutdown came too late for the animals already dead.

Tribes Face Budget Problems Through Holidays

Tribes and nonprofits spent their own money filling the gap during the shutdown. They diverted grant funding, increased commodity food distributions, set up temporary food banks.

Yadira Rivera from the First Nations Development Institute said they won’t get reimbursed for any of it.

That leaves them facing budget shortfalls heading into the holiday season, which is traditionally their busiest time for food programs.

Tescha Hawley runs the Day Eagle Hope Project on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. She used grant money meant for helping tribal farmers sell food locally to buy cattle and stock food banks instead.

The money’s gone and the need hasn’t stopped.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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