>>2754350 (OP)There are two forces at play. The bison is a federally protected species and by introducing range land it basically makes it impossible for rich out of state faggots to buy up huge tracts of public land which they've had their eye on purchasing from the state due to some bullshit with the Burea of Land Management, this includes some of the 3 million acres constituting the Great American Prairie reserve and its expansion. Our governor is notorious for representing these interests because he himself is one of those rich pretend ranching faggots, and even lost a case in a federal court trying to repeal our state's constitution prevent access to the Ruby River. Long story short Montana has a constitutional law that says below the flood plane of the river is public land so if you can access the water from state land, as a fisherman you can access the river so long as you stay near the water. It makes Mt one of the best states to be a fisherman or a river rat. These out of state land owning, "ranchers" are united with the in state heritage cattle ranchers, who rally around an anti-bison sentiment which has persisted through the cattle industry lobbies. For a lot of cattle ranchers their aversion to the bison comes from intense FDA and CDC regulations controlling brucellosis, and the perceived risk bison herds have to transfer the disease to cattle. Like 3 cases of the disease could ban beef exports from the state and collapse their livelihood. Basically the bison unwittingly has made enemies of the most powerful lobbies in the state and unfortunately it means no grazing permits on the prairie.
It's important to distinguish that does not mean Buffalo cannot graze the prairie. It means the genetically pure Bison Bison of Yellowstone (which carry a shit load of Federal protections) won't graze there, for now, this is an ongoing battle and the lawyers aren't done. However, if the goal is prairie restoration, it would be a snap of the fingers to get a herd of Beefalo to graze the prairie to restore the benefits of the megafauna herds. This is what you're buying when you get a Buffalo burger, it's mostly bison with some cattle bred into it to make them more docile and technically not subject to those brucellosis rules I mentioned because they're not wild.
My take is it's almost certainly a move to eventually compete with the reserve for lands that the BLM is going to put up for private sale here soon. It's a rich man's game and whether or not I approve doesn't matter. If it were a matter of fishing and water access I'd be more invested.