220. The Great Buffalo Restoration on the American Prairie, with ‘world’s top bison wrangler’ Pedro Calderon-Dominguez

Pedro Calderon-Dominguez is regarded as an extraordinary horseman. Though as fate would have it, his life took a series of unexpected turns, through wildlife ecology as the first to further Aldo’s Leopold’s work with black bears, into holistic management with some of the legends in Mexico and beyond, and ultimately into working with buffalo. Now he’s regarded by some as the world’s top bison wrangler.

Pedro is currently based at an ambitious project called American Prairie, in the north of Montana, managing its bison restoration program on the Great Plains. We visited him and his brilliant wife Flora a few weeks ago, and were blown away by the presence of the bison again on this country, and Pedro’s subtle connection with them.

Mexican-born and raised, with his own indigenous origins and expert horse-handling pedigree, Pedro was recruited to American Prairie to play this key role in their mission to coordinate and leverage, across varied land tenures, the restoration of 3 million acres of essential grasslands. And it’s turning up some remarkable outcomes, including relationships with First Nations, and connections with the broader bison restoration work across the continent. At the same time, we’d also been hearing about the controversy and discontent amongst some locals feeling like big money from outside is supplanting family ranches. Save the Cowboy billboards line the highway as we approach.

This episode has chapter markers and a transcript.

Recorded 30 July 2024 (intro recorded at Judith Schwartz’s home in Vermont).

Title slide: Pedro with the buffalo (pic: Anthony James).

See more photos on the website, and for more from behind the scenes, become a member via the Patreon page.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden, from Regenerating Australia.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests (thanks to Josie Symons).

Find more:
Tune into a special extra to this episode, Out Among the Buffalo, later this week.

For more on Pedro, tune into Back to the Land with Cody Spencer - World's Top Bison Wrangler - Pedro Calderon Dominguez.

Chapters

• 0:00 Music, Preview, Introduction & Supporter Thanks
• 3:35 The Man From Snowy River
• 5:45 The ambitious story of American Prairie
• 11:05 Pedro’s path among legends
• 13:35 Meeting his future wife at the ranch of Alejandro Carrillo
• 17:05 Learning about the fascinating family story later in life
• 20:20 How this renowned horseman moved to wild buffalo
• 23:30 The Connection With Bison
• 24:35 Working to the time of the animal, not the human
• 25:35 ‘God’s cattle’: The spirit of the buffalo here
• 29:10 Bison Conservation and Cultural Connections
• 32:05 What is the objective here with the buffalo & how are you achieving it?
• 42:35 What’s the overall status of the return of the buffalo on the Plains?
• 44:20 Grappling with the bison’s ‘bad reputation’
• 48:20 First Nations restoring dignity to the bison
• 50:30 Recasting notions of wild & managed animals?
• 52:30 The controversy & campaign against American Prairie
• 57:50 A way for ranchers & buffalo to mutually benefit?
• 59:00 Redefining Land Ownership and Conservation
• 59:00 How is American Prairie financed?
• 1:00:15 Some famed mentors in Mexico & wonders of the open plains
• 1:02:00 Bringing the fences down
• 1:05:30 From mimicking wild herds to the wild herds themselves?
• 1:06:49 Implications for the notion of privately owning land?
• 1:11:27 Bison Conservation and Education Initiatives
• 1:11:27 A personal passion for education work with the tribes
• 1:13:30 Witnessing instincts in people and buffalo
• 1:17:00 Music & closing words

Transcript

Pedro: 0:00

And then one of them like I think that those were the last thing that he was saying was like like it's great the thing that you are doing with buffalo, because, long story short, like bison to us is God.

AJ: 0:24

G'day my name's Anthony James for The RegenNarration, a d-free, freely available and entirely supported by listeners like you. This week, a special giveaway for subscribing members. Maddy and the team at the wonderful Text Publishing back home in Australia have kindly offered us a few copies of a fascinating new book called The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity. It's by New York Times bestselling author Timothy Wineguard, on how our unique bond with the horse has shaped human history. If you're a subscriber with a postal address in Australia or New Zealand and you'd like a copy, just send us a text via the link in the show notes. Be sure to include your name and postal address. It's fitting we're offering the book this week as Pedro Calderon- Dominguez is regarded as an extraordinary horseman, though, as fate would have it, his life took a series of unexpected turns Through wildlife ecology, as the first to further Aldo Leopold's work with black bears, into holistic management, with some of the legends in Mexico and beyond and ultimately into working with buffalo.

AJ: 1:36

Now he's regarded by some like Canadian bison rancher Cody Spencer from episode 215, as the world's best bison wrangler, though the man himself tells me the very best is a Native American bloke by the name of Junior. He's never met him. He just keeps hearing about the stuff he does. Pedro is currently based at an ambitious project called American Prairie in the north of Montana, managing its bison restoration program on the Great Plains. We visited him and his brilliant wife, flora, a few weeks ago and were blown away by the presence of the bison again on this country and Pedro's subtle connection with them.

AJ: 2:20

Mexican born and raised with his own indigenous origins and expert horse handling pedigree, pedro was recruited to American Prairie to play this key role in their mission to coordinate and leverage across varied land tenures the restoration of three million acres of essential grasslands, and it's turning up some remarkable outcomes, including relationships with First Nations and connections with the broader bison restoration work across the continent. At the same time, we'd also been hearing about the controversy and discontent amongst some locals feeling like big money from outside is supplanting family ranches. Save the cowboy billboards line the highway as we approach. So I was fascinated to learn more about the place and Pedro's place in the broader restoration of the buffalo as the great ecological and cultural keystone species of the Great Plains. So let's take a seat with Pedro at his place on dusk, having just round up the chooks goats, dogs and cat to record with some clear air Alone on the farm. Pedro: Oh yeah. AJ: pedro, it's great to be here with you mate, thanks for joining me.

Pedro: 3:43

Thank you, anthony. Thank you for coming all the way up here to visit, and it's been wonderful to meet you.

AJ: 3:49

Sure has, and it's fair to say, the last thing I expected was for us to be talking about the man from Snowy River, yeah, when we got here. But such is your passion for horses, I guess it's led you to all corners, oh yeah.

Pedro: 4:06

Yeah, yeah, no, I I saw that movie when I was a kid. And yeah, it's, it's a really good one and kind of influenced me a little bit, a little bit.

AJ: 4:09

There we go, at least with the whip and and the brumbies yeah, no, in a literal fashion, hey with the whip, your mentor having gone there and learned those techniques and brought them back. But we'll get on to your other, more recent passion in buffalo shortly, but I just wanted to take a moment to grant us in where we are like. It's been weeks since we've seen the mountain range, such as the smoke haze, and today it was a red flag alert for fire through this region. Thankfully, as far as we know, nothing further has happened, but I believe there are 60 plus fires in Montana right now, worse fires in Oregon and then California's got its bunch too. So the smoke haze is enormous. It feels like it emphasizes what you're up to and, I guess, what's defined your life. Do you feel that when you wander around and it looks like this yeah for sure.

Pedro: 4:59

Yeah it's. I mean, being here, you feel connected with everything At at the same time. You are in a really, really, really remote place. You're still connected to everything, like this. This two days that you've been around, it seems that it's like cloudy, but it's actually just smoke. Yeah, for miles and miles and miles away, and coming from Canada, from coming from the Rockies.

AJ: 5:26

Canada too, that's right, yeah, and northern Canada at that.

Pedro: 5:29

Yeah, every time that they have a really big wildfire in Canada, we are able to see it here, all the smoke coming down, and then, yeah, as I was telling you that, you feel that you are in a really, really remote place, connected with everything.

AJ: 5:46

It is an amazing place to be, and I guess I'm thinking about that worsening trajectory and the heat waves that have sort of preceded these fires, and how a lot of what has prompted American prairie, I gather and you'll work with the bison, but let's start with the prairie as a whole it's a lot of what's prompted that to come into reality is responding to those trajectories of climate disruption and so forth.

Pedro: 6:15

The general or the long story short, because the company has 22, 23 years now, 22, 23 years now. So it starts with some researchers, ecologists, rangelands and grassland ecologists that they were trying to identify which ones were the main areas worth to protect in terms to preserve biodiversity for the grasslands for North America. And in order to do that, these researchers and ecologists from 20 years ago, they were trying to identify which ones were the sites not in the best ecological condition, ecological condition, but that those sites that still like intact in terms of what nature meant to be. So, for example, instead of trying to preserve areas that were already farming or transformed to another land use, and they focus on these big, big, big areas that are still used for grazing, for example, because Great Plains grasslands, the natural vocation of those places is grazing, they need to be grazed. So at the beginning, world Wildlife Fund, wwf, beginning World Wildlife Fund WWF helped to identify which ones were the areas worth to preserve in a large, large scale. So they came with eco-regions for North America. So you will find the Northern Great Plains, the Central Great Plains, the Chihuahuan Desert, the Sonoran Desert. All those are classifications that they start to develop to try to identify and try to get like more structured knowledge about what was worth to save on each area right, worth it to save on each area right. So one of the the emptiest areas in North America is this one here in the northern Great Plains. Other one is a Chihuahuan desert in terms of human population, in terms of human population and in terms of vast chunks of land that create a continuous landscape. So it's a not fragment, fragmented landscape.

Pedro: 8:47

Yeah, so, because in other parts of the world there's another nature reserves that are amazing, but the potential for expansion or the potential to connection and to create habitat corridors that are ecologically Viables are really scared around the world.

Pedro: 9:11

So they identified the Great Plains, northern Great Plains, right here in Northeastern Montana, as one of the potential sites to create this vast ecological Reserve, if you want to call it that way. And I'm not. And I'm not talking about the properties of American prey, I'm talking about the whole area with all the private ranchers, the, the, the conservation organization there's two or three around, it's just not us and then the, the agencies from the government that has the Charleston-Rosser Wildlife Refugee, the UL Bend Wildlife Refuge. So the whole area is like an icon for that idea or that dream to have, like a vast landscape to create habitat continuity. So they decide that they want to do that. They want to create a large grassland reserve in northern Montana and at the beginning they start with one property and then another one and then, almost at the same time, they decide to start the conservation herd and that gave the next step to the planning and the connection of all the properties.

AJ: 10:28

Yeah, that important point about the joined up nature of it all will only come more to bear when we talk about the Buffalo, I imagine. But I guess first thing to say is so the goal is ultimately a three million acre swathe of land, as as I understand it, and it's about what is it about now?

Pedro: 10:46

500,000? We are close to 500,000 acres, but the goal is that those three million acres that you can read or learn or heard. It's a collaborative effort between our properties, neighbors and other wildlife refuge around the area.

AJ: 11:05

Got it, so how did you come to be here?

Pedro: 11:08

Well, I was working. After 20 years, 20 more, 22, 23 years of working in the Chihuahuan desert. I learned how to work buffalo, how to work bison, how to work buffalo, how to work bison, and I was trying to combine that with all the knowledge that I developed through time for grassland ecology, grazing management, soil health, trying to integrate all these regenerative ideas and because you learned with some of the best in holistic management and other and uh and low stress stockmanship and so forth in Mexico in Mexico.

Pedro: 11:50

Yeah yeah, my, my mentor I have. I've been really really fortunate and it's been an honor in life to to have really really good mentors that just happen to be on the way.

AJ: 12:03

Really good mentors that just happen to be on the way.

Pedro: 12:05

I like. That just happen to be. When I started my career and I started in college for wildlife management, I was able to work with one of the best wildlife managers in Mexico Alberto Lafon is his name he's close to 70 years old now, I guess and he mentored me in wildlife, ecology and conservation for four years and then on my master's, I had another great mentor that was part of the society for ranch management, carlos Ortega, and he guided me for three years as well, and then after that, with those foundations, I started to reach more knowledge by myself. And then I came through holistic management instructors and then stockmanship, low-stress bison handling and low-stress stockmanship instructors, and just meeting great, great people along the journey.

Pedro: 13:02

So at some point my wife and I we left Mexico. We were working on the Mexican bison conservation herd. We left that project and we moved to Oklahoma to work with a friend in cattle ranching and we loved it. We really loved to work with cattle. I love it, but my heart is with the buffalo. So after a little bit of working full-time with cattle, I I decide that I want to come back to bison and the opportunity arise to come up here to montana, and and here we are so you said your wife is with you in mexico.

AJ: 13:38

Is that where you met? Yeah, how did that happen?

Pedro: 13:41

she's not from mexico, no, she's Mexico, no, she's from New York. She's from New York. She's a marine biologist from New York. At the beginning of her career she worked a little bit as a marine biologist but then turned more into kind of a management of conservation projects and programs. So she decided to move to Mexico.

Pedro: 14:09

Before we met and she was working for the Mexican fund for the conservation of nature and she was hired at the beginning. They hired her for a project that never happened. So they got the funds to start this, this program I don't remember about what, but it doesn't really matter because it never happened. And when she was already there in Mexico her boss told her okay, well, you are becoming more like on my right hand here, but that project that I hired you, I think it's not going to happen.

Pedro: 14:42

But we have this huge interest in regenerative ranching. So if you want the reins of that project, it's yours and you and one of another good friend from that same company are going to be in charge to travel northern Mexico and identify which ones are the stakeholders in Mexico for regenerative ranching. So she started to travel northern Mexico and by the time I was running my nonprofit with another two friends and we were doing precisely that thing, like stewardship for several partners like Savory Hof, from Sierra Gorda, uh, bird conservancy of the rockies, our own consultation practice, and then, uh, we were working like that and there come to the zine alejandro carrillo that I don't know if he's been in your podcast, but he hasn't, but I'm looking forward to the day at some point he's to be like I can call him, and so he's a good friend.

Pedro: 15:50

He was one of the first ranchers to start to work with us on those projects and at some point Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature did this workshop at Alejandro's ranch and Alejandro and the Mexican Fund invited me because of the job that I was doing there. So we got there and then Alejandro asked me if I can give one evening this natural horsemanship demonstration to the people that was at the workshop and the only one that was really hooked to the exercises and go inside with the horse and feel okay, being uncomfortable with a horse, was Laura, my wife. Wow. So at the beginning I was like was like oh, this crazy girl from new york, I don't know what is she doing up here. And she was down here and she went on desert. But but after that day it was like click.

Pedro: 16:53

So yeah and later on they hired me to manage that bison ranch in mexico and she was running the program for them.

AJ: 17:02

So we were managing that ranch together and that's how it happened, fascinating, and you all brought a background. Then what's your ancestry?

Pedro: 17:12

look like From my mom's side. You go like three, four generations back, then you can go all the way to the Toltec Indians in central Mexico. So my grandpa was from this town in central Mexico named Jojutla Morelos, and they never told me about my ancestry but I knew. So I started to do some research and at some point Jojutla Morelos was kind of a reservation for the Native Americans in Mexico during the during the colony years with the Spaniards yeah.

AJ: 17:50

What era. Are we talking then?

Pedro: 17:52

What era? Well, we'll be like 1600.

AJ: 17:56

Yeah, yeah and then Early days, basically Mm-hmm yeah.

Pedro: 18:00

Yeah, and then, well, you know all the people in Mexico. I have a friend here in the reservation with the, ani Nakoda, and he asked me where I come from and I say, oh, I'm a Mexican. And he said, oh, so you are a mixed blood. And yeah, we are. So most of our people in Mexico has European and native blood, like mix it. So a lot of people from france, germany, italy and huge amount from spain. So from my mom's side is that from my dad's side, they came from spain. It's really. It's really interesting because at the beginning they were like a landlord in an island in the caribbean and they just did like the wars to the island, just cut all the trees for the paper industry. And then I learned all this from from a cousin that I have there and he was telling me more or less the, the story of the, and he's really curious that after I don't know 100, 200 years I became an ecologist. So interesting.

AJ: 19:12

Yeah.

Pedro: 19:12

So then my grandpa, from my dad's side, he moved from that southeast Mexico to Mexico City to start to work in the newspaper and but the interesting thing here is that he on those year they move all the newspaper on donkeys so of course he was in charge to hurt those donkeys across Mexico City with the newspaper. What do you know when he was a kid? Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe that's why I learned how to. I know how to herd animals. That's what I'm wondering with all these stories is.

AJ: 19:49

Are there threads that we didn't even expect? Yeah, there is one.

Pedro: 19:53

Yeah, that one. And then from my mom's side, uh, I have an uncle that was, uh was, big in the mexican army with the cavalry, the mexican cavalry.

AJ: 20:03

So I guess one of those loose jeans yeah, so the horse was the first passion and you and you learned a lot from a guy called bob kinford about that, what alejandro asked you to demonstrate that day, that horsemanship. But then what made you?

Pedro: 20:20

fall in love with the buffalo. I think that the challenge, yeah, the challenge, uh, with bison I mean, there's all these principles from the great horsemen all the way back to xenophon that was on the era of alexander the great one was one of the first horsemen and and you read all these traits on of horsemanship from the old schools in France, old schools in Spain, and then you start to relate all the high level of horsemanship with the cowboy horsemanship or the vaquero horsemanship developed in America and not just in the United States, I mean the gauchos in South America, the vaqueros in Mexico and the Bucarus in northern United States and Canada. But so all the traits are similar in terms of how to deal with a horse in a natural way, with trust and respect. And then you can translate that to the school of stockmanship, like the way that they teach stockmanship, like I say they are the gurus of stockmanship, like the way that they teach stockmanship, like I say they all the gurus of stockmanship bob williams, tempo grounding, steve cody with hebar, bob kinford. But the way that they teach and talk about this stockmanship is totally related. But you can find the relation with the horsemanship principles like if you know a little bit about that right away, yes. And then the horsemanship like the mystery of horsemanship right, the horse whisperers and all these things, the men from Snowy River, yeah Is that they are really good on field timing and balance.

Pedro: 22:02

So if you know that an animal that, like a heavy board, will respond to pressure and release, so you put pressure to ask for something and at the moment that the animal does it, you release the pressure and that's the gift for the animal, that's the reward and there's a shot of dopamine on that reward for the animal and it feels good and you gain their respect and all that, but the development of the feeling or feel that you have to get to release the pressure at right at the time. That is correct. That's what, what is like kind of an addiction once that you start so with with horses, depending of the horse, you're going to have spooky horses. I have worked with Mustangs and with quarter horses and rest ponies and you will identify the different levels for that. And then we cattle as well. I mean depending of the breed, depending of the selection that they had, but at some point a horse and a cattle will just trust you. So if you are good on your work, they will trust you. And if you are good on your work, you can leave the cow or the horse two weeks, three weeks a month, come back, and they keep trusting you. Weeks, three weeks a month come back and they keep trusting you.

Pedro: 23:30

Bison is wildlife. Buffalo is a wildlife species. We've been really good in working with them and tamed them a little bit for 150 years now, but they're still wild. So every time, every time that you work with a bison, it's going to ask you if you are sure about the thing that you are asking to him. So it doesn't really matter if it's a commercial herd, when you deal with them every day, or if it's a wild herd or conservation herd, like the one that we have here. Every time they're going to be testing you as a leader, but with assertivity. So are you sure that the thing that you are asking me is the right thing to do? And you have to manage yourself to convince them that yeah, I'm sure. Please go through the gate. So you saw that bull yesterday, yeah, and he was like you know what? I don't know what you want, I'm just leave. I'm going to leave and bye. But he didn't go too far.

Pedro: 24:30

Yeah, yeah, he stayed in the area, but he was like ah, so in order to work that one, you have to take the time it takes, and work in the time of the animal, not in the time of the human, that's a big one, take the time it takes and work in the time of the animal, not in the time of the human, and and and at some point, yeah, bison efficiency and human efficiency are two totally different things.

AJ: 24:57

I think you could almost say the time of the grass even more than human time. Human times got to tune in yeah, yeah.

Pedro: 25:02

So one, our rule is like no clocks no watches, yeah, yeah and, uh, we work here pretty much with the weather, so we work. Uh, well, I left 5 am today to move some bison, yeah, but then I left that early because I knew that at 8 39 it's too hot for them, it's time to go to the water and that's it. So that's our clock, like working with the behavior of the animal, the weather and what they need. So all those things are the ones that got me hooked to buffalo.

AJ: 25:39

Fascinating. And now to find yourself on the Great Plains. I think of the way they're not just a keystone species and we're coming to realise more and more about that as a Western culture Of course the Native American cultures here knew that full well but also, in that sense, a cultural keystone species as well for those people. But I wonder, I don't know, I feel a sense of it just being with you, being with them. Yesterday, I mean, john muir called them god's cattle. So what was he sensing like there's something very special about them in these places. There's like such a divine connection or belonging. And you sent some of that too, hey, and indeed you work with some of the people who have sensed that for thousands of years.

Pedro: 26:31

Yeah, and it's definitely a unique sense of vulnerability that I work with. When you feel vulnerable, that you cannot feel it in other circumstances, because when you work in an office job, there's nothing that can eat you or kill you. Well, more or less.

Pedro: 26:55

Metaphorically yeah, and when you work in in a rural environment that doesn't require to work with wildlife, then you create the experiences. But you create those experiences. You are not helpless out there. Yeah, and definitely when you are here working in remote, vast landscapes, you feel that sensation to belong to the nature more like like right there, like it's on the surface all the time. So with the buffalo is like you are close to them and then they look at you and even that you know that there's no danger. You feel that adrenaline going. Oh, yeah, yeah, because because it's, it's. I think that is because of evolution like we are just animals, like two-legged.

Pedro: 27:53

And I was with my mentor for wildlife management in chihuahua. Uh, he told me about the story of this great tracker in Mexico, tracker and trapper. So this old man, his name was Chico Toño Caro, that's the last name. Well, chico Toño was his nickname, but he and his family, they are like renowned trappers in northern Mexico. They are like renowned trappers in northern Mexico and on his years he was able to trap grizzly bears, mexican gray wolves, jaguars, and what he told us was like how do you know if the animal that is around is a coyote or a wolf, or if it's a cougar or a jaguar. So he told us that with a gray wolf and with a jaguar, even if you don't see it, your skin start to feel like a chicken skin, wow. And then you will have all this chilly sensation from the back of your neck all the way to the back of your feet, and you are not even looking at the animal, you don't know what is there, but your body reacts that way. And I had the fortune to work a little bit, just a little bit, with Mexican gray wolves in Mexico and that happened. And then it happened again with buffalo. It did Back in Mexico. We need to move some bison out from this mesquite bushland. That was really tall, so I knew that there were a hundred bison in there. I could hear them but I was not able to see them. And the same sensation happened to me, like, like you feel vulnerable.

Pedro: 29:50

In my case and I think, in the case of people that work with bison for conservation of production, that's one of the experiences that connect you more with the animal in terms of cultural aspects, with our neighbors here, with the, the First Nations, the people from the tribes. The connection that they have is like ancestral, religious, cosmical, like a survival dependency from the animal. And we just have this one of my partners, corey Williamson, in American Prairie. She just organized a really nice experience with a couple of our friends from Fort Becknap last week and we went to visit one of the ranches and they gave us a talk about how they see the place with their eyes.

Pedro: 30:45

Like these places by the Missouri River with the Judith River connects there, but for them they have different names the Judith River is the White River and the Missouri River is the Big River. And then those were like a sacred hunting lands for them and they speak for three hours like because we are good friends, really good friends with them and they were talking about different stories and interpretation of nature in places. And then one of them like I think that those were the last thing that he was saying was like like it's great the thing that you are doing with buffalo, because long story short, like bison to us is god there you go and and you cannot talk more about that I mean that that's it, that's it, that's it, that's it.

Pedro: 31:39

It doesn't matter what religion you practice. If you don't practice any religion, that okay. But when you hear someone with that history that everybody knows that history from the Native American and the buffalo and the European people in America and when they close the speech saying that for them the buffalo is God and that's it, it's like okay so, with that in mind, what are you trying to achieve here with the buffalo, and how is it connecting with that heritage?

Pedro: 32:16

well, there were, depending what you read, between 30 and 60 million buffalo roaming on this land and these grasslands. They evolve with buffalo, the way that they graze. I like to think that all this regenerative grazing movement around the world is based on mimicking what those huge herds of wild ungulates used to do In Africa, in Asia and northern Eurasia, like Kazakhstan. On every place they have their own ungulate grazer that used to be millions and millions. So up here in North America was bison and there were another ungulates grazing Like elk, mule, deer, pronghorn. But the relationship that you can find between bison and the rest of the wildlife species is more clear, that is, is really visible.

Pedro: 33:28

So on regenerative grazing, we talk a lot of the about the animal impact, right? So you want to create density, you want to reboot the ecology of the soil. You have to put all those nutrients in the salt through the manure. You want to break the crust with the hoof impact. You want to create water cups with the hooves and the saliva has vitamin b. That creates a recycling of the, of the, the nutrients and all that.

Pedro: 34:02

So you can mimic that with cattle, with goats, with horses, with donkeys, but the way that the bison wallows and creates those disturbing areas is unique and there were reptilians. That depends on those wallows and then the way that they shed. With the wool that they shed you will find nests from the birds up here in the Great Plains that they use those nests to. They use the wool from the bison for nesting. And then you will see the wool and then the manure on the dens of prairie dogs burrowing holes.

Pedro: 34:50

So the relationship is like more rounded and you think about okay, well, a guy last week just told us that in Montana you have the hottest hot and the coldest cold. So last week we were 112 here, yeah, and back home in Chihuahua, in the Chihuahuan Desert, they were 83, 90, maybe 93. And we were 112 here, Fahrenheit, and then in the winter we reach a week minus 44 outside of my house, right here. So you can see how and how. Bison, like we call it, like ecological keystone, key species, but because, not because of the grazing effect that they had, but also because of all the benefits for other species.

AJ: 35:48

Fascinating and year-round that they lived through that and had ways to eat and flourish through it.

Pedro: 35:55

It's just extraordinary. So what we are trying to do in American Prairie with the bison herd is precisely create all those broken links and ecological relationships, not just to restore grasslands but but also with the for the rest of the wildlife species here. So we we do like we have two herd and then one of each one is 400 and and the places where they have they they can sustain maybe the triple of that. So a thousand or 1,500 each property. Right now we are in 400. We have a grazing program for them.

Pedro: 36:36

What we do is like we work with the stocking rates that are correct to maintain those animals through the whole year, because we don't know if we're going to have a drought we're going to, we don't know how severe is going to be the winter, how deep is going to be the snow, and then we don't hay. Well, we hate for for collaboration with neighbors and we use that hay a little bit during handling, but we don't feed the bison during the winter. We don't supplement, we don't give minerals, we don't give salt. We don't feed the bison during the winter. We don't supplement, we don't give minerals, we don't give salt, we don't give protein. Uh, they are bison out there. So one thing is that is that that we want to create a conservation herd that is close to what bison used to be in terms of evolution and adaptation.

AJ: 37:22

Yeah, and I have heard stories too from some of the tribes that they've been amazed at how their behavior is just locked back in just got straight back on to what they did before, like it's in them still it's in them still.

Pedro: 37:36

Yeah, you let them, they they will come, become bison, even if you work them for a specific purpose, like rotational grazing, regenerative grazing, and then you let them by themselves three months you come back and they are as wild as the beginning.

AJ: 37:53

How big are you looking for the herds to be here ultimately?

Pedro: 37:57

We like to have from three to five hundred a thousand, sorry, three to five thousand, yeah, like all together, the, the herds together.

AJ: 38:06

Right now we are close to thousand, but we work based on the availability of the terrain that we have to raise the bison and then, similarly, then I guess you've got in mind with how you work with others, including the tribes, yeah, yeah, so to build, to build that.

Pedro: 38:23

That's part of our program. Yeah, collaboration with partners, and we have a strong collaboration with the First Nations, with the tribes, and you supply a number of them. Yeah, and in the measurement that we are able to do it, every year we try to send some bison to supply another conservation herds or business herds from the tribes.

AJ: 38:46

Yeah, so that's interesting. So there's a conservation and harvest. I mean, again, the way it used to be, it was everything. They're God, but they didn't not eat them, they were everything. I mean, I've heard even the analogy they were the economy, they were the wealth. So how much, I guess, are you seeing all of that play out now, and even play out here? Is there harvesting going on here? Is it part of what happens elsewhere as part of the return?

Pedro: 39:15

Yeah, the harvest that we manage is more to create experience for the public. So we don't do commercial harvest, we do this public harvest and it's opportunity for anyone around the world to come here and harvest a bison in a vast landscape.

AJ: 39:37

So it's a hunting scenario.

Pedro: 39:38

So it's a hunting scenario. We normally harvest I don't know, know any number from 10 to 30 every winter and we we give an orientation to the hunters like it's a raffle.

AJ: 39:54

So like the other systems.

Pedro: 39:57

Yeah, for the other animals so you, you will, you will go. I mean we, we have this website when we publish the openings for the raffle, yeah, and then it's I guess maybe March, april, and by June we already know which ones are the winners of that year. And so we offer some specific places on that raffle for native americans and then for montana residents and then, uh, countrywide, and then the whole world is that right? Yes, I mean, it's not cost to get into the raffle and if you win, then there's a quote to come here and because of the use of the facilities and the time of the staff for the orientation and stuff, but that's it.

Pedro: 40:52

And then we do the orientation. We give a kind of an explanation of the general behavior of the bison and since in winter the, the roads are really limited here, then we also do kind of a orientation how to, how to move across the landscape, what to expect and what to do if we need to go and rescue. And then they do the harvest by themselves. So we call it harvest. We have a public harvest.

AJ: 41:18

Okay, and the idea behind the prairie too, is that the public are welcoming, just general punters like me not to hunt. Is that right? Yeah, that the public can be part of it. There'll be visitation, I guess like a national park, but it's not, is that?

Pedro: 41:34

sort of the idea it's like a national park, but it's not To answer all those questions more precisely. I think that we should check with one of my co-workers. Yeah yeah, sure, like full on on that yeah but, yeah, the the one of the one of the heavy goals is to to open the prairie to the public. Yeah, to anyone in the world. So if they want to come any day of the year to hike, to camp, to hunt on the, on the hunting-defined areas.

Pedro: 42:04

We work with the state of Montana to define that. So the state of Montana is the one that is calling. Okay, this BLM allotment has this permit for this. How many mule deer? So it's welcome, and that's Bureau of Land Management for those who don't know. Further afield, blm Bureau of Land Management, so yeah, and then Montana Fish and Parks. So we collaborate with all of them to define the hunting areas, but it's open to anyone to come here.

AJ: 42:34

So what is the state, would you say, of the return of buffalo to these plains as a whole? I mean, we were in Yellowstone and there are a few thousand there now. I believe it's spectacular in the Lamar Valley there. How are you seeing the project as a whole, where it's budding up everywhere, in the tribes, in the national parks, here at the prairie? What's the state and trajectory like? Where are we heading?

Pedro: 43:02

Yeah, it's complicated and maybe it's going to take another 20 years to see the effect of bison scattered on the plains in northeastern Montana. But the other day one of these ecologists that started with the idea of American prairie Curtis Friese, he was telling American prairie Curtis free sea. He was telling me, okay, well, you know what, if you think about it, after 20 years there are five or six bison herds at less than 200 miles from one to each other. So he said, okay, grassland National Park, just 100 miles north from here in saskatchewan, a conservation herd then us. Then forbeck nap has 2 000 bison just across the street. Is that right?

Pedro: 43:53

so, and that goes out to black feet further west further west yeah, no, if you go like by the whole high line, then you have 100 miles west there is Fort Peck with a conservation and a business herd, and then it's Oz, and then it's Fort Begnap, and then it's Rocky Boy, and then it's Blackfeet, so pretty much all the border with Canada. In less than 100 miles from one of each other there's a considerable bison herd Amazing.

AJ: 44:25

Yeah, and it sounds like a lot of the concern, certainly with what I've learned at the Blackfeet, is that trying to get the continuity of landscape so the migration patterns can return. They go to all sorts of lengths to even help them cross roads at the right times and stuff. But fences are obviously another part of the thing and disjointed property so, but fences are obviously another part of the thing and and disjointed property. So here's another swathe of land where you guys are working at at having a joined approach and I know they've been working at it too. It sounds tantalizing if there's this many spots and they're not that far apart, like what if you can connect the whole, the whole lot. Is that too crazy? It is it is.

Pedro: 45:10

I don't know if that's gonna happen really eventually, but what I, what I, the way that I see it, and it's pretty much following the idea which that I have at the moment that I start with to work with conservation herds is like, like bison is considering, really problematic, uh, in terms of management. Yes, uh, it's going to broke fences, you're going to escape away is going to uh a problem and whatever. No, and a lot of that that we're still seeing across the bison territory in North America is because of, well, not all the plays, but on those cases where bison has a really bad reputation, it's because of the lack of management. Yeah, and and I I kind of identified this in back in mexico when I start to work with buffalo there the lack of management creates problems, because you need, in order to help the bison, you need to have certain level of control with them, and if you want to save them and you want to promote the bison as a conservation tool, as a regenerative tool, as a part of the ecosystem, then the bison have to behave well, right, yeah, right, those gangster years don't have to behave well, right, yeah, right, they, they, they, those gangsters years, uh, uh, there's there on the book of teddy blue abbott.

Pedro: 46:49

Uh, this was a cow puncher from england that moved to nebraska when he was a kid and then he moved when he was 16 years old he moved back to texas and then he grew up moving cattle from texas to montana and at the end he he established as one of the first ranchers around here the judith basin and he has a really nice book named we point them north, and he's talking about his life moving cattle from texas to montana. And when they were moving cattle up here up north to Montana, they will stop south of the Missouri River because they were afraid of the great northern herd. So this northern herd was a huge, huge bison herd, wild bison herd, on the mid-1800s. Well, the cattle drive years were 1870s, around 1870s, 1880s. So during those years they were afraid of the great northern herd because these bison, these gangsters, like three million together, they would just run across the plains. They will just run across the plains and they didn't care if you were trailing cattle or there was a caravan of pioneers, wagons. They just like, yeah, roll them over. Yeah. So those years are gone, but the reputation still here, like they might become problematic and and then I'm going to marry that with a book that I was reading about the bison movement in the First Nations. The book is Buffalo Nation, tatonco Yate, the Buffalo people. It's in Lakota, so they are working to restore the dignity to the bison. So in that book you will read all the efforts from the First Nations and the tribes, the Intertribal Buffalo Council, to save the bison among the tribes and create this food sovereignty program and all that Really cool.

Pedro: 48:56

But what stick to me was like return the dignity to the bison. So I was thinking like, yeah, it's a wild species and at the moment that you develop this control with them because that's how I like to call it, not control on them or over them, you have to control with them, you have to go with them. Then you are able to do these amazing things that people are doing with bison in South Dakota in the 777 Ranch or the Wild Idea guys Northern Bridger here with Matt Scogland. All those great things that they are doing with bison regenerating grasslands and nature and feeding the world is because they develop a certain amount of control with them. The world is because they develop certain amount of control with them. So in our case, with conservation herds. That's what we are trying to do, like they are not this unicorn animal that you're gonna throw in the landscape and it's gonna fix the deal by itself.

Pedro: 49:57

So we develop this control with them, to move them around, to maintain them inside of the properties, to follow the grazing patterns, to take them to places that we need, that they need to be restored by animal impact and all that. And I think that at the moment, if we keep working like the conservation herds, the tribal herds, in order to develop that control with them, to return their dignity and really prove that real value of the bison, then we are able to see more and more bison herds in large landscapes eventually.

AJ: 50:40

That is profound and I was telling you yesterday this whole notion of I mean, it's just the terminology, isn't it? But semi-wild, semi-managed, it's just it's relationship when it's in this form, and the story out of the kimberley in western australia with the donkeys which are regarded as pests. So one station that's had this sort of relationship, building with donkeys there that then graze the upper ranges and extraordinary regeneration taking place with cattle down below and the donkeys up high, but they've been ordered to shoot those donkeys despite the decades of extraordinary results, just because it's a compliance issue, right, and he's trying to. Well, they're going through a mediation process, but it's so hard to bridge when the terminology doesn't match. It's like no, they're not fenced, but they're operating as a herd and they trust me and they're doing what we need them to do and the results are amazing for all of us. They're not getting chased and culled mercilessly and so that dignity point, I think that's another way.

AJ: 51:59

I think that station would very much you, I mean, I even hear it in the tribes, in some of the tribes at least with the way they viewed their relationship with buffalo through antiquity was not that they were just out there like that, they were shepherding. I think I've even heard words like that that there was a relationship and their observation was so acute, et cetera. And of course the dignity was there, it was God, as you said earlier, so acute, etc. And of course the dignity was there, it was God, as you said earlier. So I was so fascinated by that and its relevance to other contexts, like even that one over in Australia with the despised from, from that government point of view donkey, and all the potential that might lie in that everywhere. So when we talk about all this work going on, and then I find as I'm coming up to the prairie I'm seeing signs saying save the cowboy, stop American prairie. What's that come from?

Pedro: 52:55

At the beginning of the company there was a misunderstanding of what we were doing, of what we were doing, and the ranches that we started to purchase were ranches that were already on sale, but then, like a newcomer, then an outsider, and a newcomer buying land is like this is weird, what is going to happen. So at the beginning was a misunderstanding of what we were trying to do and people become like afraid to lose the properties, to lose their way of living, to lose their ranches and their neighbors.

Pedro: 53:39

I guess, yeah To their mind. Neighbors, I guess. And yeah To their mind. Yeah, funny thing to see is that those ideas came from, I don't know, 300 miles away. Really, they weren't exactly around the area.

AJ: 53:54

Yeah, Well, that's it. I've heard it from maybe not 300 miles, but a ways.

Pedro: 53:58

Yeah, a ways yeah.

AJ: 53:59

Yeah, but it's this consistent theme of we've lost the family, ranches, we've lost community. But yeah, I'm hearing you go on about the misunderstanding.

Pedro: 54:12

So once we start to work through the years in the area with the community, that all those problems were like solved little by little. And so what you see, when you see on all those signs, I can tell that it's pretty much like the heritage of those years that they they remain there from, like a remnant, remnants from those years, uh. But we we're still having cattle in American Prairie With Cody Spencer. I gave him the number of 10,000, but I just learned that we have 13,000 cattle grazing in American Prairie properties. So we manage the grazing programs with our neighbors, the grazing program with partners. All of them are cattle producers, private ranches that that work with us, and some some friends from the tribe as well. I don't remember if they're still working with the cattle grazing program or not, but uh, yeah, we're still working with cattle, uh, and we're still working with with the ranchers on the area.

Pedro: 55:23

Yeah, and here in the valley where we are, we have really, really, really good relationship with other neighbors like the, the visits, the demons, the fringes, uh, we, we, we partner with them in in projects like for haying for the winter, for helping in brandings, for moving infrastructure uh, fences, checking fences, or moving animals. Hey, I have a crazy bison again in my yard. Okay, I'm taking out. Oh, I have some of your, your heifer cows in my backyard, okay, well, can you take them? Yeah, I take care of them, okay. So it's like a community, it's like a a community.

Pedro: 56:05

That another thing that is worth to say is like when you live, like live in a remote area where you are 50 miles from town the closest way to the highway is 30 miles and you have five inches of rain, you are stuck for a week. You have four, five inches of snow, you are stuck for a week. You have four, five inches of snow, you're stuck for a week. You have to wait for the people from the city to come with the plows to let you go to get groceries. So it's pretty remote and you truly, truly depend on the relationship that you have with your neighbors in the community and fortunately we have a really good one.

Pedro: 56:51

Last winter one of my partners he's the maintenance manager he found one of our neighbors with his truck, with a cattle trailer full, that he slides because of the snow. He asked for help. My friend helped him, but he is a kind of off-road geek so he had this special bungee for recovery operations, and so the neighbor was so excited to use that new rope from my friend that at the end he bought one, yeah, and and then another neighbor. He got stuck in the snow and then his daughter went to help him. She got stuck in the snow and she got another option to call for help, but he called us. So that means trust, right.

AJ: 57:39

Yeah.

Pedro: 57:40

And it was late night, like 9, 10 pm in winter. So that's dangerous. So we rely on each other around the valley pretty much.

AJ: 57:51

I notice, even with some of the tribes, that they've had their own need to navigate relationships with tribal ranches with the reintroduction of the buffalo and again reading about the black feed this was in liz carlyle's brilliant book healing grounds that a key circuit breaker for them was I think it's still in tow is a local processing plant for harvest multi-species and that that was a way that ranching and and buffalo restoration, the camps were sort of brought together because it's it referred to the things you mentioned earlier, you know, food sovereignty, better health outcomes, the spiritual health and and landscape restoration, but in a way that then enabled even cattle ranches to get terms of trade back on on the ranch, like not to have to be shipping animals off to wherever and you never know what happens with them afterwards, etc. All those things that ranches struggle with. That there was this mechanism that actually brought the camps together. That sounds really interesting. Yeah, see what comes of that.

AJ: 59:00

I wonder how does the financial context work for the prairie then? So donations set it up, some of it's buying when there's opportunity, then there's leasing and leasing out. I believe leasing in, leasing out, collaborating with rent neighbors, ranches, blm, bureau of Land Management, government agencies and so forth. So it's all these different mechanisms. Is there a commercial aspect at all or it's just maintaining that fundraising to keep this going?

Pedro: 59:31

Yeah, it's maintaining the fundraising. We are a non-profit, so our business is conservation and land restoration. Yeah, like conservation, like in terms of preservation of the land and to keep the nature natural, and I don't want to say keep it wild. This is the thing, isn't it? Yeah, I don't want to say it that way, keep it healthy, yeah, yeah, and then create opportunity for the people to see it. Yeah, yeah, that's one the experience.

Pedro: 1:00:02

The experience, the opportunity for people to see it, because you can read a lot about all the ecological efforts conservation, restoration, regeneration, regeneration, the my mentor in holistic management, mario pedraza. He called it the the brown revolution, not the green revolution. The brown revolution because you you work with the soil nice, and so you can read and you can find that information and that kind of experiences in all different scales, like even if you go to a backyard in a city and these people is having their own garden. You can see the regeneration there, right. But the experience to see the open range, no fences for miles and miles, continuous landscapes, birds, pronghorns, mule deers, bison this morning I saw I was looking for this bison herd and then I decided to cut across by a creek and I saw a pronghorn running with three mule deers together. I never seen that in my life. That was really cool because it was a mixed species and so that's so cool that that's that experiences.

AJ: 1:01:22

Those experiences are really hard to find and but wouldn't it be something if they were less hard to find?

AJ: 1:01:31

yeah, so we are, we are trying to do that we are trying to build that, and that's what we offer to hear it be new and exciting for you on any given day, like this morning. That speaks to me too right that even for you in the heart of it, come alive, like that feel some of the sensations you were talking about earlier, and I certainly do too. The fences is an interesting thing, isn't it? So you're using innovative fencing to get this thing going and I and presumably there'll be places for that even as part of this big vision. But, yeah, less fences and more living landscape, with people here in relationship with it. That seems an enticing vision for everybody, and indeed perhaps I mean I think of first nations and and the rest of us more recent arrivals here the way those relationships need mending and maybe there's a vehicle here to do that too yep, through these animals.

Pedro: 1:02:31

Yeah, shared visions yeah, shared visions and and it's part of the management thing like we even, even since we were Flora and I when we were in Mexico, we were always dreaming how to remove all the fences from the interior of the ranch. Yeah, really. So, in terms of habitat continuity, connection, ecological corridors, like fences are like like a really big limiting factor. So we have all our properties had a really, really, really good perimeter fence and it's a wildlife friendly fence. I was explaining to you that it's allowed, it allows to go. The antelope can go under, the sage grouse can go through it and mule deer can jump through it.

Pedro: 1:03:12

But it will hold bison because of the electric piece that has on it. That's the perimeter fence that we have, but then the interior fences. We are removing most of it. And then in terms of management and in terms of what I do, like the low stress stockmanship, the insinting migratory grazing approach, you don't want fences because they mess with the flow of the movement of the herd, and that clicked to me. I was talking, I was telling you yesterday about the Billy, finan and Bermudez and Almeidas and all those people in Mexico that start with the holistic management there, and one of them, that joined up with Savory when he first came across.

Pedro: 1:03:58

Yeah, and one of them joined up with Savory when he first came across. Yeah, yeah. So the grandson of Billy Feynman that was the one that brought Alan Savory to Mexico is a friend of mine, tabo Bermudez, tabito Bermudez. Tabo was his dad and Tabito Bermudez called me one day I don't remember if I was at his ranch in Coahuila, me one day. I don't remember if I was at his ranch in Coahuila and he was.

Pedro: 1:04:23

We were talking about the management of the bison herd in Chihuahua and I was telling him my plans about start to work in them, like herding them around the property, and then I think that I'm going to build this fence to create this paddock here, and then this and that. And he said, huh, but don't you think that that is going to mess with the whole flow? And he said, because if we do this thing in my ranch, I think that I'm going to remove fences. And he was already with a really, really good paddock web in there. I don't know how is the management now.

Pedro: 1:04:56

The Valle, colombia, is a ranch really famous. But then I was like huh, so yeah, and then, with time and experience, that I was working in other ranches herding the cattle in this case beef cattle. Yeah, the fences were messing with the flow all the time, all the time. So, yeah, if you are going to do do like, if it's a conservation herd, you don't want fences. If it's a production herd and you are going to do the instinctive migratory grazing, you don't want a lot of fences.

AJ: 1:05:29

Yeah, it's so interesting on so many levels. I think about how the fences then, yeah, they get in the way of the flow, so it creates more work, more force, more need for control, the spiral that way. And it's interesting to think about the ways the buffalo are so adapted to here and the ways that then it reduces the workload, and when you get to be able to work with them the way I saw you do yesterday, it's easier. And it's interesting to me that regenerative agriculture, with its mimicking of wild herds, it's like, well, some sometimes maybe we should just do more of the wild herds. Why mimic them? They're there, but then what would that infer? And what would that infer for making things easier, letting nature do its thing and taking a load off humans? Again, knowing how much ranchers and farmers feel the stress and the workload. Yeah, it's a big issue in agriculture. There's promise on that front too, I'm imagining.

AJ: 1:06:30

I'm thinking of the ways to bridge those divides and restore the dignity and so forth. There seem to be natural draws, or invitations, if you like. Do you think? Yeah, for sure. You see that. It also makes me think.

AJ: 1:06:48

I'm so curious about this as a, as a last thing for us to sign off on almost is the whole ownership piece, because I think of, okay, the prairies, fundraising to pick up properties and then work with others family ranches are shouldering the burden in many cases, certainly, obviously, the privilege of owning their places. We're talking about restoring corridors for keystone species and then the cultures with them and the reconciliation between us, these sorts of things and I. I think a lot then about where our ideas of ownership end up, or what we might think about in terms of where they might end up. If we need to be so precious about the idea of this is mine, and is this some of the loosening of the chains? I'm thinking big, obviously, but I I wonder, when I see all this happening, bubbling up in different quarters, if we're just loosening the chains of that idea of I own this bit of nature yeah, I, I'm following you, but I I don't think that that's the case in and not even here in this area.

Pedro: 1:08:12

Uh, I mean, I have work in mexico and central states, up here and in Canada with ranchers and with conservation organizations and I think that, because of the harsh environment and the extremely difficult circumstances that people and the extremely difficult circumstances that people doesn't matter if it's a pioneer or Native American or outsider coming to work with conservation the harsh conditions that you have to embrace and go through to make your living makes you really humble and it teaches you really fast that the land is not yours yes, it is on paper, yes, but but it's like, yeah, when you are uh, when you have this uh ecocentric way of thinking, like like conservationistologist or wildlife manager whatever, or regenerative agriculturist, or regenerative agriculturist.

Pedro: 1:09:20

You think in yeah, improve the land for the future of the world and to the planet. And then you talk about the global warming and you talk about the potential of grasslands to capture all the….

AJ: 1:09:36

Greenhouse gases yeah.

Pedro: 1:09:39

And then you go to the families ranching families they also are thinking how I'm going to improve this land for my future generations and you can see how their perspective is like this is well, yeah, it's on my name, but this is not mine. I just borrowed it for my lifetime and have to have it ready or in better conditions for the next generations. So, yeah, I can see how you can watch or hear that those comments that this is my land and no, you cannot, do not trespass. And I used to work with my former boss in Oklahoma. We have those signs like private property, come through your own risk. That's right.

Pedro: 1:10:25

But then then you learn that it's like they are protecting the land for their families in the future. So they are not thinking that they own it, but they want to protect it for the future. So I always see things with the best perspective that I can like. Why, why is like this? Why is like that? I don't know if that's because I like to start quotes or whatever, but it's like I like to see like the lateral thinking is like all the time going on in my head like yeah, okay, so totally, yeah, this is rude, but why, why?

AJ: 1:10:59

okay, guys, this is what you're expressing is exactly what I'm hearing too, and that makes me wonder the whole notion of private ownership. Where does it end up if so much of the sentiment is as?

AJ: 1:11:14

you've described and as I'm witnessing too. I mean, it's an open question, isn't it? But I think probably a necessary one to be thinking about more. And geez, by the sounds of your experience too, it's coming on. All right, pedro, to close up, you work with education programs too, I believe from listening to you with cody oh, just for fun, yeah, just for fun, yeah, just what? Just personally, not as part of the peri activities, no, just personally really yeah, I, I like to teach, I, I always like to teach.

Pedro: 1:11:47

I actually on my younger years, after college, I pursue like academic career so I help my, my advisor, for seven years, like in college and then in my master's, teaching some classes in the university. And then I like to do trainings and I work as a holistic management instructor for a little bit, giving workshops. So I like to teach. And then here in Montana I've been helping a little bit the the Fort Beckknap College, the Anina Cora College there and the Buffalo program mainly so I, the the professors there are really good friend of mine and we start to work together because of the relationship with American Prairie and then just because I enjoy working with the kids Well, they're all them in college but I keep calling them the kids so relative yeah, so yeah, that's my involvement more like in a formal education programs.

Pedro: 1:12:54

Like I help them a little bit with training. But then every time that we do handling here, bison handling then the students from the college come to help and I like to give instruction to them, like to to be better doing what they do and explaining to them every, every, every part of the handling and and put them to work and and also with the other tribes, our friends from the Cree-Chipewa tribe in Rocky Boy. They are really good friends and we also work in training with them every time that we handle bison.

AJ: 1:13:35

When we said before that the instinct of the bison kicks in.

Pedro: 1:13:38

You've seen similarly with some of these young people yeah, yeah, and and I don't know if it's instinct or is the respect that they have for the animal that that is like I was telling you that, that there's more like a deeper need to work bison.

Pedro: 1:13:59

And yeah, and this is the, the final goal is not the market, or well, it is, but, uh, depending if it's a business herd or a conservation herd, but but the final goal for working bison with the tribes is, like that richness in culture and values that they have. Is that true? For?

AJ: 1:14:22

you too.

Pedro: 1:14:27

Oh, yeah, yeah yeah. Cody Spencer was asking me about this dance between regeneration, conservation, herds, production, and it's really difficult to me. When I see bison that are working amazingly, regenerating grasslands, but they are in a hot wire paddock of three acres at 500 animals density, I can see that they, they are not happy. So and and I might, I might uh going to receive a lot of bad comments from my, my partners, from venera to grazing with bison. But but I can read bison and I don't like when they have just a herd of yearlings, a herd of heifers, a herd of dry cows, a herd of bulls, because of they, they of dry cows, a herd of bulls because they have to work with the market. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Pedro: 1:15:23

Like I like it, I like that world, but it's just that it doesn't align with my beliefs of what a wildlife species that is serving to the human. To feed the world and to restore the land deserves, yes, so that's why I'm more hooked to ideas of working buffalo to feed the world and to restore the land deserves, yes, so that's why I'm more hooked to ideas of working buffalo for those purposes. All for conservation, but maintaining the social structure intact, yes, and it takes more work because it's less mechanic. You have to think about how to deal with the whole different town there and families all together in the bison herd. But at the end it's more satisfactory knowing that they're still as close to nature as they can be and there are some good examples about that outside of the conservation world and they are doing really great.

AJ: 1:16:15

There you go. Yeah well, a lot of the regenerative ethos I hear is have the animals be able to express themselves, their natures. So it's not contradictory to that ethos either Again, more win-win on offer. And which was the tribe that recognized you recently for some of your work? Oh for Begnad.

Pedro: 1:16:37

Ani Nakoda it was.

AJ: 1:16:38

And was that for the personal stuff you were doing then?

Pedro: 1:16:40

Yeah, yeah, both personal stuff and because of the work that we do, but I'm really passionate with that work with them. So yeah, those were the students from the Aninakoda College. They gave me a blanket and a braided sweetgrass.

AJ: 1:16:58

Wow, is that the braided sweetgrass?

Pedro: 1:17:01

we see, yeah, the one that is in my house.

AJ: 1:17:02

Wow, we noticed that that's extremely special. Well, pedro, what's an experience of song or music that's been really significant to you in your life?

Pedro: 1:17:16

I'm gonna say the soundtrack of this movie named the power of one, oh yes, from this kid from africa that becomes a boxer and was mentored by the refugee from the second world war.

Pedro: 1:17:35

That soundtrack because of two things.

Pedro: 1:17:38

One, because later, when I started to study ecology, national Geographic was promoting one of the documentaries and they used as a background that song and they say at the end they will be showing you all the photos about different projects around the world, like gray whales and then migratory birds and several of them, and at the end was a blank dark screen and it says the power of one is anything, the power that you have to make the change.

Pedro: 1:18:18

So that kind of stick with me. And then on the movie, this kid was reuniting the different tribes and they call it the rainmaker. And I like to think that conservation, world production, world urbanization, tribal world, all can be together pursuing the same goal from different positions in the game. I truly believe that because I have seen it and every time that I change locations that seems that he's been like quite regular in the last 10 years, because you never know where life is gonna take you and destiny. But but I I like to see and work through that goal and that song kind of stick with me since I was a kid.

AJ: 1:19:18

Me too, pedro. I like to think like that too. Thanks, man. Pedro: Thanks, anthony. AJ: That was Pedro Calderon- Dominguez on the American Prairie Reserve in Northern Montana. See various links in the show notes and a few photos on the website, with more, as always, for subscribing members on Patreon. That's with great thanks to all you generous supporting listeners for making this episode possible. If you'd like to join us, just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts.

AJ: 1:19:49

With great thanks and thanks also for sharing the episode with people. Whenever you can think of someone who might enjoy it. I'll have a little bonus extra out soon from when I accompanied Pedro out with the buffalo, the wind blew and I didn't have my best mics, but it still captures some pretty special moments on the extraordinary Great Plains. Thanks to Cody Spencer, the bison rancher you heard in episode 215 from Nicole Master's Create program, for introducing me to Pedro, and to Pedro and Flora for your wonderful and inspiring hospitality. The music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden and, at the top, Green Shoots by the Nomadics. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.