Meeting Your Prayer Half Way: Jason Baldes, founder of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (With the Buffalo)

Welcome back to the Wind River Reservation, home of the Eastern Shoshone and Arapaho Nations. And, the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative (WRTBI), a tribally led non-profit founded in 2023, here at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in current day Wyoming. We left off part 1 of this series last week, as we met the Initiative’s founder, Jason Baldes, and prepared to head out on the plains, to meet the buffalo and hear their, and Jason’s, stories.

It was in the lead up to the Tribe’s Sundance just 2 years ago, that they sourced meat from their own buffalo, on their own land, for the first time in nearly 140 years. That’s all part of enacting a broader vision of buffalo living as wildlife (not livestock) once again, protected under Tribal law. 

And this vision doesn’t stop at Wind River either. Jason is also VP of the InterTribal Buffalo Council – where 87 Tribes and growing are currently involved in efforts to restore the buffalo, and all that entails - from the re-acquisition of land, the return of rivers and other wildlife, along with the health, language and spirit of many Nations.

Join us in the side-by-side as we hear the brilliant story of what’s happening here, including how it came close to never happening. About half way in, we head over to feed the orphan buffalo Ruby, and hear about the old Shoshone grandmas, before ultimately arriving back at the herd for an incredible unexpected face to face encounter.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 16 June 2025.

You can hear Jason’s good friend, Pedro Calderon Dominguez, with the buffalo at American Prairie, for episode 220, Lakota woman Kelsey Scott for episode 222, and the series from the Osage Nation starting episode 261.

Title slide: AJ & Jason as our visit wound up (pic: Olivia Cheng)

See more photos on the episode web page, and for more behind the scenes, become a supporting listener below.

Music:

Regeneration, by Amelia Barden.

The RegenNarration playlist, music chosen by guests.

Pre-roll music: Heartland Rebel, by Steven Beddall (sourced from Artlist).

Chapters

• 0:00 Meeting Jason and heading out
• 3:39 All this would have been subdivided
• 6:05 Where the opposition to this work comes from (that often surprises)
• 10:25 Support growing from non-tribal people
• 12:25 Breaking news: the Shoshone Tribe officially designates buffalo as wildlife again
• 13:50 Pulling up alongside the herd
• 20:25 Buffalo’s keystone role amongst the pronghorn and other wildlife
• 21:05 Jason’s father and a family history of restoring wildlife (in ways that were controversial at the time)
• 24:05 Finding Wind River more conducive to buffalo restoration than Yellowstone
• 25:20 Profound lessons from navigating politically difficult situations (& the challenges of the current federal administration)
• 31:05 Tapping the great mystery
• 34:05 Meeting your prayer half way (Jason’s own journey to healing)
• 36:35 All of this was really close to never happening (hitting rock bottom)
• 38:35 The elder
• 40:25 A transformative trip to Africa and the fuel that keeps him going
• 44:35 Cultural field harvesting with a mobile unit – ‘it’s not a hunt, it’s a harvest’
• 46:05 A culture modelled on the buffalo
• 49:25 Partnering with Medicine Fish in the Menominee Nation to guide next generations
• 55:05 Re-acquiring lands through the buffalo
• 59:35 How white understanding and support kicked in here
• 1:01:55 Relating to a pivotal Australian case right now on managing as wildlife
• 1:05:05 A paradigm change in ownership and property
• 1:07:35 Buffalo leading the way to restoring the Wind River itself?
• 1:11:05 A grip on what’s real? (Thinking about the state of the nation)
• 1:12:35 Pulling the fences out from the 5 properties pieced together
• 1:13:50 Meeting a growing number of allies and financial supporters
• 1:15:30 Soul-searching to be ok with those who don’t agree
• 1:17:52 Meeting Ruby and the Orphan Horse
• 1:19:05 Thinking about the old Shoshone grandmas
• 1:19:55 A tour and vision for these traditional lands
• 1:24:45 A childhood memory seen in the young today
• 1:25:45 Ancestral stories and language restoration
• 1:30:20 Feeling a bit lost growing up
• 1:32:50 Feeding the young horse and buffalo calf
• 1:38:09 Other enterprises?
• 1:39:34 Jason’s travels in NZ on fire research
• 1:40:05 The bulls approach
• 1:41:13 Indigenous peoples reviving culture and food traditions everywhere
• 1:41:55 Watching the big bulls
• 1:43:10 Planning a tribal buffalo summit
• 1:44:15 Observing the calves – ‘babies all over the place’
• 1:45:05 Feels like yesterday the first 10 arrived
• 1:46:55 Up close with the buffalo
• 1:48:17 Tribal buffalo films coming out and winning awards
• 1:49:05 Peaceful giants
• 1:52:05 Eco-tourism grant and vision
• 1:54:05 87 tribes collaborating in restoring buffalo as a Council
• 1:57:12 Coming through in artwork
• 2:00:27 A music story

Transcript

AJ: 1:05

G'day Jason. How's it going?

Jason: 1:08

How are you Good to meet you, man.

AJ: 1:09

Nice to meet you. Yeah, how are you doing? That's my wife, olivia.

Jason: 1:12

Hello, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. And that's Yeshi, that's Jason. Hi, yeshi, hi, nice to meet you. How are you guys doing?

AJ: 1:18

We're doing good man.

Jason: 1:18

How are you Thanks for these guys helping out?

AJ: 1:30

AJ, here for The RegenNarration, your independent, listener-supported podcast exploring how people are regenerating the systems and stories we live by. Welcome back to the Wind River Reservation, home of the Eastern Shoshone and Arapaho Nations, and the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, a tribally-led non-profit founded in 2023 here at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in current-day Wyoming. We left off part one of this series last week, just as we met the initiative's founder, Jason Baldes, and prepared to head out on the plains to meet the buffalo and hear their and Jason's stories. All right, you got everything, everything.

Jason: 2:09

We'll jump in this red one here.

Speaker 3: 2:11

Cool.

Jason: 2:15

You can go in either one you want.

AJ: 2:17

You want to come with us?

AJ: 2:18

Yeah, I'll get the door for you.

AJ: 2:21

You might remember, jason had just come to us from preparations for the coming Sundance, which reminded me it was in the lead-up to their Sundance, just two years ago, that the tribe sourced meat from their own buffalo on their own land for the first time in nearly 140 years.

AJ: 2:39

That's all part of enacting a broader vision of buffalo living as wildlife, not livestock, once again protected under tribal law. And this vision doesn't stop at Wind River either. Jason is also VP of the Intertribal Buffalo Council, where 87 tribes and counting are currently involved in efforts to restore the buffalo and all that entails, from the reacquisition of land, the restoration of rivers and other wildlife, along with the health, language and spirit of many nations. So let's head out in. The side by side, we pull up and turn the engines off in 10 minutes or so to hear the brilliant story of what's happening here, including how it came close to never happening, and about halfway in we head over to feed the orphan buffalo Ruby and hear about the old Shoshone grandmas, before ultimately arriving back at the herd for an incredible, unexpected face-to-face encounter Right on, right on OK.

AJ: 3:50

Thanks for having us here, man. Yeah, you bet Really appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 3:53

Yeah, glad to make fun.

Jason: 3:56

Yeah, thanks, this was going to be the original town when the reservation was opened up for homesteading. This was a hotel that was built in 1920, that was on the stagecoach route and this was subdivided into ten acre plots, and that church used to be out in the middle of the field. That swapped. If we didn't buy it, it was going to be subdivided into ten acre plots again. Oh, my goodness. So we were really glad to be able to prevent that from happening.

Speaker 3: 4:30

Yeah.

AJ: 4:35

When was that? When was the port?

Jason: 4:37

2019. Oh, pronghorn are out here too, we like the pronghorn 2019. Yeah, yeah, there's been some, so you can see them right there. Oh yeah, beautiful, they've been hanging out with the buffalo a little. They had twins. Some of them had twins recently.

AJ: 4:53

I read some of this in some of the newsletter stuff. Hey, yeah. Even one you had to bring up because the mum didn't like.

Jason: 5:00

Yeah, we had one last year and we got little bull calf and he's out with the herd. Now you can't tell which one he is, but the other one this year, she's five weeks old now. She's over at my house. I've also got a little orphan horse. Yeah right, so they're being bottle-fed together. Oh wow, and I just started integrating them back with another horse so he can start to learn about being a horse and then the buffalo can go up and see the calf too.

AJ: 5:36

That's outstanding To the horse and buffalo going through this process. Do they connect?

Jason: 5:42

Yeah, they're pals. If we get time we'll go over there and look at them. Cool, this is them the other night. Oh, that is gorgeous.

AJ: 5:54

You've got to love it.

Jason: 5:55

Yeah, I mean, you've kind of got to pinch yourself every day. It's pretty amazing.

AJ: 6:02

I imagine the work's not always easy, but they're the rewards, huh.

Jason: 6:07

Yeah, it's certainly challenging. There's some bulls there. Yeah, certainly challenging. You know, you wouldn't think that there would be the level of opposition to something like this that there is. It's overwhelming support. But you're just always kind of surprised by the people that don't support something like this. How can you not?

AJ: 6:40

Where do you find that opposition and where is it surprising, I suppose, in that way.

Jason: 6:47

Well, I suppose that it's from cattle industry, the cattle producers, and I think it has to do with competition for grass, it has to do with the idea that the West was won. There's still semblances of manifest destiny, and I guess that's understandable. You know that the racism is still out there, but we don't realize the own level of our own colonialism. If a tribal member is a rancher, he has a hard time recognizing that that was a lifestyle that was imposed on his grandparents and now he's embracing it. Okay. But if you understand history and you understand what was brought to our people here, it was to colonize us. It was to Christianize us. It was to assimilate us. It was to destroy our language. Our was to assimilate us. It was to destroy our language, our cultural ways of knowing and belief systems. And so it's a bit ironic when you have tribal cattle producers preaching about their livelihood in the cattle industry and not being able to recognize the irony in that.

AJ: 8:10

Yeah, I guess all the more when it sums to opposition. It's not just okay. This is where I found myself. It's hard to switch over or whatever. And yeah, competition for grass and whatever, but if it does end up being a sort of I don't know what is it, we can't go back, or it's just been so embedded. I'll never forget Stephen Biko. In fact, this is relevant because you've got this transformative experience I heard you talk about in Africa too. But just thinking about Africa, because I remember as a young guy I came across this book by well, it was actually the testimony of Stephen Biko, so him under trial, an African bloke there and there was a passage that I never forgot. It was something along the lines of the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed, what you internalize.

Jason: 9:04

Yeah, that's a good quote. I mean, buffalo restoration is foundational to who we are. It's in our songs, it's in our ceremonies. We even called ourselves the buffalo eaters, the Guchendika. But for the most part, most people still know that and actually, out of the two tribes there's 15,000 tribal members. Less than 5% are ranchers. So the majority of people, tribal people, support this. Yeah, it's a few loud ones, confused ones, that see this as some threat to their livelihood. Now, I get it For non-tribal people who don't have a cultural connection or understanding. How would they know? So you have to educate, you have to inform them, and we have a lot of support from non-tribal people, and that's because they maybe have a little better understanding of their own history. Do they have more compassion and empathy? I don't know, but we do have a lot of non-tribal members who support this. It does seem to be something that's changing non-tribal members who support this.

AJ: 10:30

It does seem to be something that's changing.

Jason: 10:34

Do you sense that? Yeah, I mean, this is the right thing to do. I mean, if there's very little to argue about this and I think people get that I think people are looking for something good or positive happening in the world and this meets that criteria. You know, with everything else going on, the world's in chaos, the country's in chaos, the country's in chaos. This is stability and hope and resiliency, and I think that's what people want.

AJ: 11:18

I'm here with that too. Yep, this is really wet underfoot, huh we have the irrigation season, so there's a ditch that brings water.

Jason: 11:29

Of course, this is agricultural ground and practices, and so when we bought the property, it already had the agriculture. We reseeded it with buffalo grass so that it's more preferable grasses over alfalfa or anything like that. So it is. It is, um, very green and lush. We've had a lot of rain. We're right in that time of year where we need that, so it's a good time to be here. It's going to dry out. August, late July, august is going to be brown. Yeah, it gets hot.

Speaker 3: 12:09

here too it gets hot.

Jason: 12:10

Yeah, well, relatively it's not. We only get a few days over 100 degrees, okay, 91, which was yesterday. That's really hot for us, is it Okay? We like 70s? Yeah, that's our ideal temperature. Yeah, like today, this is a great temperature here today.

AJ: 12:31

Oh, it's beautiful, it's. It's funny, you know, jason, like even as a and as an australian, like what, in a sense, you could say, why would I feel this so strongly? Yeah, but I do. Yeah, there's something about it, and on these lands there's something else there's this there's, there's power in that.

Jason: 12:56

And the story getting the land restored, getting the relative brought home, yeah, I think people really relate to it. With the Shoshone tribe, you know, supporting the designation for these to be wildlife, that's huge, you know.

AJ: 13:10

Yeah, when was?

Jason: 13:11

that About two months ago. Finally, yeah, wow, I've been dreading that Really, the hardest audience to speak to is my own people, so you know, to take a topic like that in front of our people, it's like a firing line and people just vicious negative, wanna bring you down. The vote was 90 to seven. Wow, so overwhelming support wasn't even a question, and so the vote speaks for itself.

AJ: 13:48

You didn't necessarily expect that. I didn't. No, yeah, some calves in there. It's beautiful, they're laid out. I think we have 28 calves, 28 calves. So you started with just 10 in 2016. Yeah, and now there's 28 calves just now, just this year.

Jason: 14:07

So we're up to 140-something here that is outstanding. So we're up to 140 something here that is outstanding. So we're gonna pull over right here and we'll turn off our.

AJ: 14:15

I know the vehicles are kind of driving by, but they're clearly at ease with you guys in these vehicles, even huh.

Jason: 14:24

Yeah, we're out here about every day with them. We don't harass them, we leave them alone and they generally know that we're not out here to. Yeah, they're not habituated but they're acclimated. But there'll be a lead female that'll get nervous with our presence and she'll start walking off Really and then they'll kind of trail out behind you. Traffic jam around here.

AJ: 14:55

Comes in bursts. Huh, yeah, it does.

Jason: 14:56

I think it's because of the construction over by.

Jason: 14:59

Riverton where they let them by. And then they're yeah, we're 10. In 2016. We had the first calf born in 2017. We added kind of a new batch of animals that came from some conservation population. They started with the first ten from the Neil Smith Wildlife Refuge in Iowa and then some from the National Bison Range. We brought some from the Nature Conservancy City of Denver, Antelope Island in Utah, Soapstone Prairie in northern Colorado it's tied to Colorado State University. So I think eight, seven or eight different batches of animals over the ten years, nine years, and then plus what's been born over 60 calves have been born here.

Jason: 15:48

So if they've got an ear tag, they came from somewhere else. If they've got no ear tag, they been born here. So if they've got an ear tag, they came from somewhere else.

AJ: 15:51

If they've got no ear tag, they were born here I'm so curious about that, in terms of when they come here, they I mean I've heard this elsewhere, that and it looks like it happens here that they know what to do that memory like because they come from everywhere. You might think there'd be conflict. You might think they might not relate to the land. Like that they might struggle, but there's memory.

Jason: 16:16

They have. You know it's innate for them. You know it's ingrained genetically how to be what they need to be. It's not like livestock that's been genetically made dumber and more reliant upon man. They don't need man.

Jason: 16:33

One thing we always do in bison conservation is if you're starting a herd or you're bringing in new animals, is that you only bring in yearlings or two-year-olds or three-year-olds because they're matriarchal. The young ones will integrate into an existing population if they're young. If they're older, they're going to want to go back to what they know, and there's been a. You know, you hear about buffalo breaking through fences and running off, and that's probably a 7 or 8, 10-year-old animal that's just trying to find its way home. Whereas if you start with a young population, they're going to learn what's available to them, grow and mature and know where the water sources are and the plants are, the minerals and the dirt are, and so then they become part of the landscape and, as you like, for here, as we acquire more ground, we can open it up and they learn it. And so, incrementally we've grown from 300 acres to now 2 000 acres for these animals and then at some point, you know thinking beyond that opening, opening it up to a larger landscape, they'll learn it and they'll utilize what's available to them.

Jason: 17:52

But these animals have nowhere to go back to. This is what is home to them, so that's why it works. We don't really have breaches of the fence, because they have food, they have water, they have the mineral needs and they have each other. Main thing is each other. They're a herd animal, so they need that. However, the bulls you know the satellite bulls will hang off by themselves and the main herd will kind of roam around, but as they grow and mature they're gonna start developing family groups.

Jason: 18:32

And because none of these animals are really over 12 years old, this is still a young, growing population and we maintain a natural female to male ratio which is about 60-40 or 50-50. And that ensures that during the rut, during the mating season, that the buffalo themselves are the ones choosing who who breeds. Therefore not genetically manipulated by any of our needs. You know we don't. We don't have a reason to selectively breed for anything. That's their job. That's them as wildlife, having the ability to exist as buffalo without our intervention. And that's part of that paradigm shift of thinking differently not of buffalo as livestock, buffalo as livestock and buffalo as wildlife, wildlife where they can exist as such, and you know they don't need our help. All they need is the land, space and ability to exist.

AJ: 19:41

Yeah, man thinks they got to control everything, and then we make things hard for ourselves. Arguably.

Jason: 19:46

Yeah, it's like why would you want to do that? Why make it harder for yourself? These guys don't really need all that much help. It's way easier than cattle production.

AJ: 19:57

There's even Aboriginal folk at home I've heard say don't plant trees, let nature plant the trees. But yeah, create the conditions where nature can plant the trees, yeah, and don't be stripping them out or whatever. Yeah, but yeah, the ways we think, even in solving stuff, that we have to fix it. That it's on us to fix it. Just seeing the pronghorn dash across the field, oh yeah. Yeah, it's a beautiful sight too. I've seen that. It's been a really distinctive feature of Wyoming that we've seen, Not in other states as much, just Pronghorn.

Jason: 20:32

This is Wyoming is the last place for Pronghorn.

Speaker 3: 20:35

Is that?

Jason: 20:35

right, yeah, and we had a pretty drastic winter two years ago where, in the state, over 200,000 deer in Pronghorn died because of the snow. Well, had Buffalo been there, they'd cut the trails through the snow that allow the deer and pronghorn to be able to eat in conditions that are like that. So another example of how buffalo could have prevented, been preventative to that. But yeah, in my father he was a biologist. Well, well, he's a retired biologist, he's 83 now. When I was growing up there were no pronghorn or bighorn sheep on this reservation, so he worked for the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He was in a unique position as a tribal member but alsoa federal employee working to uphold trust responsibility for tribes. So as a biologist, he was working to protect fisheries, water, wildlife.

Jason: 21:38

And in the 80s it was controversial then too was to create a game code that would protect or create seasons and bag limits for hunting. Now, indigenous people, we always hunted year round, that was always how we fed ourselves. But you put us on a limited land base. With modern tools and technology, we drastically reduced the number of wildlife. So the game code was to set seasons Controversial, but what was predicted would happen did, and that would be that our wildlife populations would increase and we'd have better hunting opportunities and easier ways to sustain ourselves with management, and that's what happened. We now have significant exponential increases in deer pronghorn elk. So I was a little kid and got to witness and participate in the gathering of pronghorn and bighorn sheep, and then we brought them back to the reservation and released them. My dad told me that I'd be able to hunt a pronghorn in 10 years, and they did so. Well. I was able to kill my first one eight years later and I've harvested a pronghorn ever, every year. Since how old?

AJ: 23:00

were you then 11.?

Jason: 23:02

but the buffalo was always missing he always told me if you're going to work on buffalo, make sure you bring him back as wildlife and not livestock. Told me, if you're going to work on buffalo, make sure you bring them back as wildlife and not livestock. They should have been brought back in the same way. Pronghorn and bighorn were that you get that wildlife in their habitat and you bring them to their new habitat. We had to start on 300 acres with these because they were seen as competition for cattle production. So unless they have that classification or status above livestock, then that's how we can prioritize ensuring they can exist, because the cattle production. Those are individual cattle producers. These are the tribe's buffalo and so why doesn't the tribe have a priority on how lands are managed over the individual?

AJ: 23:57

And so it's that paradigm shift. Yeah, did your dad consider it was a bridge too far to deal with the buffalo back then?

Jason: 24:06

No, he tried Really. Yeah, towards the tail end of his career he did a habitat assessment of the entire reservation which basically showed this reservation has more habitat for buffalo than Yellowstone does Really. Basically, animals bison in the late 1800s were forced into Yellowstone and they were so isolated that they were hard to get to. That's why that population grew there Out here they were millions of them but they were wiped out. So towards the tail end of his career he worked on that.

Jason: 24:40

But for him and during that period of time the elected leaders of the two tribes were comprised of cattlemen who directly benefited from the management of the two tribes, were comprised of cattlemen who directly benefited from the management of the reservation being prioritized for cattle, and so he had a very difficult time convincing leaders that buffalo were somehow important on the reservation, even though they were a small contingent of the population. They had really say over how lands got utilized. So despite the conservation success stories like the very first wilderness in the United States, the game code in the 80s, protecting wolves and bears in the 90s Buffalo's wildlife is not that much different Fighting the longest-running court battle in the history of Wyoming over who controls water on the reservation. So we've got a long history of fighting for land, water and wildlife, if we can elect the right leaders and if we can navigate the federal trust responsibility part.

AJ: 25:48

Yeah, How's that going now? Oh dude yeah.

Jason: 25:51

How's that going now? Oh dude, yeah, not very good Really. We got a meeting. I'm on the board of the Intertribal Buffalo Council as well. We got 87 tribes across the country, so we've been working on some legislation that would help codify the trust responsibility the Indian Buffalo Management Act. We were very close in the last Congress, but the new house rules and the people in that administration make it difficult. But we got a trip over there in two weeks to meet with the acting assistant secretary of Department of Interior, which is a meeting that we've been trying to get for a while. So we'll see. Okay, I don't know how, I don't know if we have to just ride this out or something happens. It seems like something's got to break, you know, yeah.

Jason: 26:53

I think it did yesterday with the largest protest against Trump in the history of the nation today yesterday. Largest mass protest in the history of the country was yesterday.

AJ: 27:06

It does feel that this isn't a country that would roll over no, so we'll see what happens I think, the I think the good will prevail so you know, what I found really interesting is listening to the people who voted for him, at least the ones who, but these haven't been hard to find who are thoughtful, and some have even said things like I, I feel and this is going back a bit right, it's going back to around the election maybe and then up to 100 days, in the first 100 days thing they were still saying really thoughtful things like including empathetic, like I hate the thought that my countryman, fellow countryman would be, would think I've unleashed something. That scares them. You know things like that. So I've been really interested. That scares them. You know things like that. So I've been really interested in listening to them and to hear how they might change as things roll out.

AJ: 27:56

I haven't heard much of it yet. I mean, these poles are diving, so they've got to be out there. But it does make me wonder. In your experience and then growing up with your old man, it seems like it's been part of your life too that you've found yourselves in situations that are politically tough and you've had to find ways to navigate that deftly. It makes me wonder. I mean, arguably that's the skill we need most right now in the world is how do we deal with each other without ripping each other's throats out when things get tense or when we're confronted by something? What have you internalized in that? I mean even to get a 97 vote like how was that achieved in bringing people together like that?

Jason: 28:58

Well, most Shoshone people know that how important Buffalo was for our grandmas and grandpas. You know, we went through the boarding school era. We went through the reservation era. We went through the reservation era. We've gone through multiple eras of history with the United States government and personally I've kind of invested in understanding a lot of that history and was fortunate because through my dad's work I had to familiarize myself with why things were the way they were for him. So I've been a bit of a student of history and trying to understand that. And on the surface it's easy for Shoshone people to know that buffalo were important to us. But most of us are not ranchers. Most of us have been subject to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, subject to corrupt leadership, subject to these things. But foundationally it's no secret that buffalo were that important. The 90 to seven vote it was surprising, but not unexpected Like I knew. It was there and we just needed people to show up, the right people to show up and, as it is, be the same way for the Northern Arapaho tribe too.

AJ: 30:20

I was going to ask.

Jason: 30:21

Yeah, we come from Buffalo people. Most tribes did, and so if we still have the songs, if we still have the ceremonies, that's the foundation for it, and most of our people participate and still practice those ceremonial belief systems. The ranchers don't, and so this buffalo is providing a voice to a demographic of our tribal members who've never had a voice. It's big, isn't?

AJ: 30:54

it.

AJ: 30:54

Yeah, you know, I've often observed and I'm talking a whole decades long journey of my own, but even just this decade, with the podcast going around Australia and now here and beaming in occasionally other parts of the world is that it's not felt trite to say that the wind's at your back when you're doing stuff like this, partly because of what you're saying before, like the buffalo, do the work, just let them.

AJ: 31:26

But also there seems to be a bigger thing at play where that and you're talking about here, I think, with ceremony and songs that are remembered that there are bigger forces. You could even say power, powerful forces, that well, you know, we'll just take that 90 to 7 vote as a as a touchstone for this, but could talk about a range of ways it manifests. But the ways that people can be reached in really powerful ways that they themselves feel and don't need to be coerced or convinced or whatever, that when you're tapping that, well, arguably that's the key to tap that domain. I wonder what you think about that. That if you are just fighting on that, I don't know more rational, superficial level, there's an inevitable war. But if you can get under it to human instinct, buffalo instinct, where they connect that there's more on offer.

Jason: 32:28

We call it the great mystery that there's more on offer. We call it the great mystery the power of the unknown, the power of creator, the spirits however you want to call it that there is energy in the cosmos and our ways of knowing and our belief systems. It's all in those ceremonies, it's in what those ceremonial leaders say, it's in the way that they've been told to carry on specific protocols. All of our ceremonies have some level of suffering that you have to endure in order to achieve and it's that reciprocal relationship. You don't take without giving. That's why we pray before we take a buffalo, or it's why you put tobacco down when you take a plant, or if you're going to go and ask somebody for a favor, you give something. This idea of relationality and reciprocal relationship is evident in what we are taught in those ceremonies. And for me, I had to dig down very deep to find my own level of healing and I looked to ceremonies to find my pathway through that and I've come to understand a bit more about meeting your prayer halfway and also be careful what you ask for, because I prayed very hard for my own healing. I suffered for several years through fasting and finding my pathway through those protocols. So for me, this is grounded in ceremony, but I had to be willing to meet my prayer halfway first in what I've learned about how everything ties together. And so for my foundation, for my belief systems, my values, what I'm trying to put forth, it's grounded in ceremony, it's grounded in prayer and the importance of our belief systems and values and language and songs and ceremony.

Jason: 35:05

It isn't, it's not monetary, it isn't superficial. For me, it goes something much deeper and that, I think, is what they provide. That's everything we have here is because of them and what they've done. And I don't know if they came to help me in a dream or came to help my uncles or my grandmas or my grandpas in dreams, but this is a result of prayers that have been cast well, well before we ever got started, and that is that reciprocal relationality of our connection to the cosmos through ceremonies, of our connection to the cosmos through ceremony. People very, very long, long time ago prayed for this and somehow it works itself out.

AJ: 35:57

I'm curious then was there a time in your life where you really got that, I suppose.

Jason: 36:04

So I think I was probably about rock bottom in alcoholism and drowning my shame and sorrow and guilt or whatever it was I was carrying around by the bottle and, you know, sitting in the back of a cop car, you know, getting thrown in the slammer. Yeah, all of this was really close to never happening because of my own choices in drinking and alcohol and that pathway. So, yeah, all of this was really close to never happening and I thought to myself you know I'm in a very lucky, fortunate position to be able to work on buffalo restoration. Yeah, I worked very hard for it through academia. But here I am talking about how buffalo are healing and how much we need it, and I'm not willing to accept that myself. I'm not willing to accept that myself. So I had to dig down real deep and do what I needed to do and find the help that I needed. That was about eight years ago now, so right around the time we brought the first ten, I was struggling with my own stuff.

Jason: 37:29

They were bringing the medicine and I was confronted with some pretty tough decisions. But I was able to find the help through ceremony to get myself where I needed to be, in sobriety and recovery. And then the blessings just keep coming.

AJ: 37:46

Yeah, there you go.

Jason: 37:47

And here we are 140 buffalo grown from 300 acres to 2,000, but actually adding 17,000 across the river over there. So you know 300 acres to 20,000 acres and over 250 collective buffalo. Now the two tribes, with a decision by general council to move towards wildlife, continuing to raise funding to buy fee lands back so they can go back to tribal ownership. Yeah, we've come a long way in nine years. Yeah.

AJ: 38:24

We're there. I really want to talk more about those, all those bits and pieces too, but we're there. When you came to ceremony like that and made that choice, were there people around you that you could turn to, that guided you through?

Jason: 38:41

Yeah, there was a gentleman who was an elder and he had been passed down the bundles of medicines from the old timers that carry with them the protocol and the knowledge and songs and things that he's a healer. So I went to him and told him I needed help and him and his son who's since been passed that way the old-timer he passed away a couple years ago. But yeah, I went to that family and to that father and son for help and yeah, I go to ceremonies there at least once a week now Sometimes twice a week. I help now in part of those ceremonies. I know the songs. So because I've gone through some of those protocols, then some things will be passed to me. But that's really not. It was never my intent. I just needed help and what what happens is when, when you seek help, you eventually become the helper, and I never, never, knew that wasn't my goal or intention at all. But now others need that similar type of help. You know Someone's trying to get you right.

Jason: 40:14

Oh, yeah, my phone's been blowing up all this while the ceremonies, there's a Sundance getting ready to happen down there, so everybody's getting, everybody's looking for buffalo meat.

AJ: 40:24

Ah, there we go. Yeah, that trip you did to Africa then that was as a late teen. Yeah, that's in between being a young kid and this moment in time that we're talking about now.

Speaker 3: 40:36

Yeah, I was 18.

AJ: 40:39

You were 18.

Jason: 40:41

So your dad had work over there or something. Huh, he's a photographer. He really liked to photograph the wildlife and he had as a biologist he kind of gained some allies fighting for water rights here and he joined the board of the National Wildlife Federation. He was one of the longest serving members of the national board members of National Wildlife Federation and actually the first tribal member, and so now I think there's five tribal members on the board of National Wildlife Federation. So he made good connections and good friends and contacts. So he'd been there several times.

Jason: 41:20

And then when I was 18, you know I liked to do art and I played football and liked to do woodworking and auto shop I didn't have any intention of going to college. When I was in high school I actually had the afternoons off but we played in three state championships in football. So I thought I was a good football player and was a good artist. But I didn't have any intent to go to college, especially not for science. I understood the importance of it because growing up with my dad I knew he was a biologist and was always hunting, fishing and knew things about the rocks and landscape. That was always an interest to me, but it wasn't until we got over there, traveled around a bit together in Kenya and Tanzania and witnessing the wildebeest was the light bulb moment, was kind of my life's epiphany, probably realizing that, you know, we could travel that far in amongst this herd of wildebeest and that was less than five percent of what the bison was here. That blew me away. Oh, it blows me away, because we drove for over 100 miles and as far as you can see in every direction is wildebeest. Yeah, that seems like a lot. But for that to be less than 5% of what the bison was here, for it to be so systematically exterminated from 30 to 60 million to less than 1,000 on the continent in less than a hundred years, that is disgraceful and that is awful.

Jason: 43:02

And when I can look at these buffalo right now and I can have a relationship with them, I can raise one up and and integrate it back into the herd. And for that to have been purposely destroyed, that's what gives me the fuel that was gives me the fire to keep going. And because that's an incredible thing to have a relationship with an animal like this that sheds light on the millennia-old relationship that we had living alongside this animal and for it to be nearly annihilated as a means to take our lands. That makes me sick, and so, in order to take that energy and turn it into something good, we have to continue this. We have to continue to show our young people what that means. Continue to create opportunities for more of our tribal students that are going into academia. Make sure that our ceremonial leaders have access to this animal for conducting those ceremonies. That we get it into our diet again to help curb the rates of diabetes and other diet related issues that plague our communities. It's like this is the solution for all of our problems.

AJ: 44:20

It was another symptom of call it war, where rations were the order of the day In Australia too, right. Yeah yeah, and just crap, essentially to survive on, to find a way to survive on Flour and sugar and salt. Yeah, so the layers of it so powerful and with that ceremony aspect, right, you've got a mobile processing unit too, yeah it allows us to be able to culturally field harvest.

Jason: 44:46

You know when we're going to take an animal. We come out here and take it like right here. We don't round them up into a corral and put them on a trailer and ship them off to.

Jason: 44:56

I mean, imagine how stressful that would be. So the cultural field harvest trailer allows us to bring it out. We have our prayer, we have our ceremony right here. Generally a buffalo will present himself. That's the one we take, and then that allows us to process that buffalo right there in the grass, with grass still in his mouth, no stress. One bullet, one kill. And then, when it's hot, you know they're so big that you've got to get that hide off and you've got to get them into a cooler and cooled down. So that cultural field harvest trailer makes that possible. And for tribes, that's how we want to be able to have. That reverence and respect for that animal is to take it right there with his grass in his mouth, with no stress and with its family. You know that's the way it should be. And they don't. You know it's not a hunt, it's a harvest. We want to come out and take one, we pray for it, we take it. They don't run after. That's what I was curious about.

AJ: 45:59

They don't run off it's not like you break the trust.

Jason: 46:01

No, yeah they don't have a reason to run off. They actually mourn and, like elephants, they have a ceremony of their own to uh honor that one that passed. They're trying to help it up. They have compassion, empathy and love for one another that we sure as heck could emulate, and that's how we used to do it, and that's why our societies were matriarchal after the buffalo. That's why we gathered in August so that our babies would be born in May. That's why we gathered in August so that our babies would be born in May. That's why we have the stories and the songs and the teachings that you can see and witness right here in front of you now, that we haven't been able to for well over 100 years, unless we went to Yellowstone. It's not like this.

Jason: 47:01

So, yeah, we have to relearn a lot of that, yeah, and we've got to see it and witness it and bring the kids out and show them how we use the hair or the hooves or the horns and understand their matriarchy and how they raise up these little ones and how the bulls are protectors.

Jason: 47:22

It's like the circles of life and there's a whole lot of metaphor we can put into that, but it's like the little calves are in the center of the circle, and then it's the mothers, and then it's the mothers, and then it's the elders, and then the outside circle is the bulls.

Jason: 47:43

And if you think about that in terms of our own societies, how the boarding school era, how our bulls, our men, were taken away and then the children were taken away, it was like the, and then they were brought back but didn't know.

Jason: 48:04

It's like our elders and our children are barely making it together and our parents and our men are gone and so those circles have been broken and that's why we see, you know the high suicide rates, the high high school dropout rates, low life expectancy, the chemical dependency, the emotional, spiritual damage, those circles are broken. So, this buffalo, as we bring them back and we come to understand and learn and reintegrate, we're putting them circles back and we're building our men up and we're trying to bring our young women, to bring those life givers back, protect our elders and bring our men back to be warriors and that they're the providers and the protectors of our people and not these Hollywood notions of BS that is out there providers, protectors, and it's like them, buffalo bulls. So we have lots to learn about how we reintegrate those things and ideologies again.

AJ: 49:17

I'm really tuning into that. That's a really powerful way to put it, I think. How have you observed that that's going? Do the next generations in that context of difficulty? Can they feel it too?

Jason: 49:31

On a case-by-case basis.

Jason: 49:33

We have to create more of an opportunity to do that. And there's this non-profit over on the Menominee Nation in Wisconsin and they're called Medicine Fish and we helped get Medicine Fish some buffalo and they've started a herd there and then they are also working to take down dams and restore the sturgeon. And part of the way that they are helping these young men heal is by connecting them with song, ceremony, culture, spirituality, but it's through fly fishing and so they're connecting these young men and helping them become leaders. And many of these young men have had the hardest stories and backgrounds that you can come from. But because they've been given opportunity and shown love and shown appreciation and respect, they've really created a way to heal these young men. So we've been partnering with Medicine Fish for a couple of years and wanna be able to integrate more of what they're doing here and perhaps more of what we're doing here and there and share and build and we're trying to heal our communities. We're trying to heal our young men. We're trying to heal our young women and what they're doing there we're trying to heal our young women and what they're doing there we're trying to implement here.

Jason: 51:00

So we've got a couple different youth opportunities, youth camps, youth leadership, where we bring our ethnobotanists and our scientists and our hydrologists and we bring our ethnobotanists and our scientists and our hydrologists and give students an opportunity to understand what those things are. We had a culture climate youth camp the last couple of years where it's a three-day event. You have elementary and middle and high school that come out and then in a couple of weeks we're doing another camp with Ronan Donovan, who's a Nat Geo explorer and he's a photographer and for the couple last years he's worked with some of our tribal youth in getting them engaged with photography and then culture. So we're bringing medicine fish. Ronan Donovan is coordinating a youth photo camp and we're going to utilize our ground up in the mountains to give those young guys kind of a triple approach type of an opportunity to just get better, see more of what we have out there For me.

Jason: 52:17

I got the opportunity to grow up with my dad and as a biologist he spent a lot of time in our wilderness area understanding the lakes and rivers and streams, so I got to be up there a lot of the time on horseback and so part of the nonprofit here here have been trying to build a horse program so that we could take our young leaders into the wilderness for week-long pack trips on horse, because horse culture goes hand in hand with buffalo culture and if we're trying to heal with relationship in Buffalo, we can also integrate horse culture into that, and being able to take kids into the wilderness and have experiences like I did might help formulate some more ideas and opportunities for them, which is why I do what I do, and so I think that's an important aspect of having a non-profit that is doing work like this is that we can bring a unique perspective and opportunities to our communities that really wouldn't happen otherwise.

Jason: 53:32

Yeah, and the non-profit is only what a couple years yeah, february of 23, so yeah, very young yeah, and yet so much has happened just in that period of time I was fortunate to have that platform of platform with national wildlife federation and and then built a built out a network of support base that could bring resources pretty quickly for land acquisition, because NWF can't own land and so it was necessary to not only start a non-profit that could, but also it needed to be tribal led.

Jason: 54:06

You know, national Wildlife Federation is a predominantly white large conservation organization. This is the showcase for how NWF can work with and engage tribes on conservation. So this is this is a keystone project for NWF. But what that did was allow me to tap into some resources that otherwise wouldn't have been there to get it up and off the ground. And then key folks like Xavier and Taylor and Pamela and Albert and our team, once we kind of got off the ground, we were ready to hit the ground running. We've got a lot of fundraising to do for land acquisition and now keeping some sustainability and longevity into what we're building. So the work's just beginning. We're just getting started.

AJ: 55:03

Talking about the land acquisition. It's a great story in itself in many ways, but I think I even heard you say it once that it's land that was stolen that you're having to buy back. So there's still that thing about it isn't there. And I have seen back home and I know this happened over east here a bit as well in this country, where land has just been given back, bequeathed or donated even ahead of dying, just given back, and that the movement of that in Australia. People have spoken about that like we all die, like what's your life gonna have stood for? Yeah, and so they set up structures where they could still have access themselves, but they're given that ownership for want of a better word, that tenure back. Is that an option here? Is it, have you that? Could it be the people you've worked with? Can that be broached?

Jason: 55:59

Not. Well, I'm an optimist so I won't say no, but I think that there are levels of difficulty. You can come across an individual landowner who loves your idea, knows that he's going to be passing on and he wants to do something meaningful with his land. I've had several people like that want to have a conversation about it, and actually a few I need to follow up on even. But they're not contiguous ground and out here these like priority is contiguous ground, so you can have a neighbor who who's very supportive or you can have a neighbor who could give a crap about what you're doing, yeah, and so there's obviously that spectrum.

Jason: 56:54

Then you get to the local government and agency level and here that's like Fremont County, the commissioners, or you got Riverton City Council or you got the Bureau of Reclamation, which is a federal agency but has no track record of really working with the tribes.

Jason: 57:15

Bureau of Reclamation could change a lot of the problems that we're having right now with a stroke of a pen, but they won't because of the non-native influence at the legislative level. You know, you can kind of take a picture like this and you go all the way towards Riverton and you've got Pavilion and and Kinnear and these are the white farmers and ranchers that are out here. They don't consider themselves part of the reservation, even though they are within the exterior boundaries of the reservation. So even this land right here that we're on was one of those pieces that was privatized and opened up to homesteading in 1902. So everybody out here would argue that the tribes have no stake in it. Now you go over there 20 miles that way to our tribal communities and that conversation is flip-flopped where tribes are like that's stolen ground and you're selling it. So these lands go for about $55,000 to $7,000 per acre and they're 160, 300-acre parcels and so that makes it pretty expensive when you're trying to piece back a few hundred acres, I mean that's a pretty good price tag.

Jason: 58:37

Tribes don't have the money to buy that, and so this was the mechanism that I found to get land back, because buffalo restoration is land rematriation, which is a form of reconciliation. People can literally buy into this. Now they're not going to want to buy land and just give it away to a tribe. They want to give land to Buffalo and they want to see Buffalo restored for its importance to the people and the land, and that brings much more credibility and their ownership into wanting to support something like this, and so I think that that's part of the reason why we're generating revenue is that, and support is because it's not just about the buffalo, it's about the land and it's also about the people yeah, fascinating.

AJ: 59:41

I remember in one of the short documentaries that's been made here there was a, an old white guy is his name tom doherty, maybe tom doherty, yeah? And he said something like that he basically learned through this work what it was to be with the tribes and to see it from that lens. So he got it at the other end of it.

Jason: 1:00:06

He was one of the only guys who did see it Really Early on, when my dad was fighting the state and the feds on the management of the river during the water rights case, he was looking for help out there with other NGOs, other organizations, other states. Nobody would help him. Tom Doherty was the guy who stepped up and he was the president of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation at the time, which is an affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation, and that's how my dad was able to get connected to more support and that was because of Tom Doherty.

AJ: 1:00:46

Tom is probably my dad's closest friend even today it just goes to show hey, like not to get too down on the knockbacks, because you'll find a connection. Yeah, and so much can come of it.

Jason: 1:01:02

Yeah, I mean, you just have to be willing to take that step, and Tom Doherty was willing to take a step when no one else would. Those two and many others who were supportive of tribes and sovereignty and self-determination and in-stream flow to protect fisheries or the wilderness, or wolves and bears or buffalo as wildlife you know, those are big concepts. Those are big concepts, those are big challenges and we've still got a lot of battles to fight. And Buffalo as wildlife is like one step closer to helping us undo a little bit of that manifest destiny that was thrown at us. I could play a big step. Allows us to take some fences down.

AJ: 1:01:59

And, you know, in an Australian context this lands big time right now, from a very interesting angle, right now in Australia, what's become a really big story is a station, as we call them, a ranch, in the north or western Australia, 200,000 acres. It's interesting too, right on multiple levels, because this is a guy whose literally had to flee family, had to flee now Zimbabwe, old Rhodesia, when there was the revolution happening there. So he finds his way to the Kimberley, the region we call north of Western Australia, and ends up on this station. What's interesting from multiple levels is that he was part of the Savory School. He really latched on to Alan Savory, whose epiphany came from watching the wildebeest and Right, yeah, so it's interesting that you know whitefellas, as they get called in Australia, whitefellas and Indigenous folk coming back to the same source, through the source, through actually observation of these animals. And then what's happening in this place is that he's gone. Okay, the old megafauna in australia is gone. Yeah, he's managing some cattle out there. Sure, he's gone. That's not enough.

AJ: 1:03:14

And then we'd see there are all these wild herds of animals that were domesticated, brought to australia, domesticated, but then let go when we developed the train and the car or whatever. So I'm talking donkeys, for example, yeah, but there are camels and there's tons of others too, so the meaning of this has has massive reverberations. So what he's managed to do is get back in relationship, trusted relationship, with these donkeys. So they're not domesticated, they're not fenced, but they're doing the work of grazing the upper ranges so that fire doesn't get them, and all the land benefits to that. They're re-socializing into herd, so all the benefits for them, yeah, and the whole thing's working really beautifully. Except the donkeys are still designated as feral pests that have to be shot and it's the station's responsibility to do it if it's on their land.

AJ: 1:04:13

So this has now been going through a state mediation process for years and it continues. It keeps sort of coming up to judgment day, but. But adjourns and adjourns, and adjourns. And I think, because it's such a paradigm shift, because what if you can work with wild animals? You don't have to make them domesticated, right, but they're managed in some kind of way. So whatever language you want to put on it, they're still free to be, yeah, what they are, and they're doing amazing things for the whole community, including the humans in the space. So when I saw that you'd done this, this designation as wild. I thought, wow, the ramifications of coming up against that paradigm change, basically isn't it. But I'm so curious then how it's well, a then we've heard a bit about how it's come about and happened here, but what's the practicality for you then on the ground in having that happen, in bringing down fences and in negotiating the perceived threats in others?

Jason: 1:05:17

well for me.

Jason: 1:05:19

I'm a member of the shishoni tribe and getting that designation through the shishoni tribe was easier for me.

Jason: 1:05:26

It's harder for me to make that kind of influence on the arapa tribe, so I need allies in the tribe that can be advocates at leadership level, and what that means is that once we have that 17,000 acres out there fenced off, that we could essentially let out family groups from the Shoshone tribe, from the Arapaho tribe and grow a population out there that has a distinction as wildlife.

Jason: 1:05:55

Arapaho tribe hasn't made that decision yet, and part of the reason why we need that wildlife designation is not only for the purposes of trying to keep them as wildlife, but it also has practical reasons in that these are the tribe's buffalo, not an individual's, and right now people see them as they're somehow mine or the organizations, or this is somehow my personal project or something, and these are the tribes buffalo. So we're caretaking the these animals so that they can become the seed population for the wildlife that will essentially become the reservation's buffalo. So if they didn't have that distinction as wildlife, they would be seen as competition for individual cattle producers and they may also be subject to a permit system under Bureau of Indian Affairs because they would have livestock status. So it doesn't make any sense for the tribe to pay Bureau of Indian Affairs to graze its own buffalo on our own tribal land. So having that distinction and designation means that BIA can't impose some kind of permit on the tribe.

AJ: 1:07:17

Interesting and working with the Arapaho, then how's that going? Is there interest?

Jason: 1:07:26

Yeah, but there's a couple of cattle producers that are on leadership and they kind of undermine or question the legitimacy of some of our asks because they see buffalo as a threat or don't understand or have misconceptions or are just not supportive.

AJ: 1:07:48

You worked in the past Tuhay, with some water rights stuff with the Arapaho and you were in some kind of position where you were trying to reach that common ground. Wind River.

Jason: 1:07:58

Alliance? Yeah, we had, and my dad was involved with that too. Yeah, we've always thought we need to challenge the whole court, the whole legality of that court case and what. Just how wrong it is you know we're talking about. This is right. That whole water case is wrong. Like there's holes all over that damn thing. That it makes no sense. And it makes no sense to people who are even on the other side.

AJ: 1:08:30

once they understand it, it's just a bad, bad court case, and this is still ongoing yeah, the river still gets diverted um.

Jason: 1:08:41

They dewater the entire wind river there's. There's places you can walk across it, not get your feet wet really geez.

Jason: 1:08:48

This echoes australia's situation with our main, so they take all non-indians take all the water for high water use crops like alfalfa and sugar beet, almost out of spite, because the state says all water in the state is for ag and the tribes are like, well, what about all the other uses? Yeah, it's just a ridiculous, ridiculous case. That should have never went the way it did. When was that? The state of Wyoming filed suit against the tribes? In 77, and then a case was essentially decided and there was kind of a couple there was Bighorn, adjudication 1, and there was Adjudication 2. Essentially, 92 was the final decision.

Jason: 1:09:36

Right, yeah, that's a whole other can of worms. Yeah, but the land that we're buying back is within an area below the diversion dam which was put in by Bureau Rec in the 30s, or in the Midvale Irrigation District. So we could essentially begin to question water rights and use by Midvale Irrigation District and the BOR once these lands can be restored to tribal status. And so Buffalo are going to make it possible for us to take on the water rights case at some point. I don't know how and I don't know when, but it's inevitable.

AJ: 1:10:20

Yeah, it's interesting. They should lead back to that. Yeah, but sort of obvious when you think about it.

Jason: 1:10:28

It is to us, you guys, good, are we in a tight frame? You guys are looking at me like we got somewhere to be.

Speaker 3: 1:10:37

No, we can do the loop around if you want.

Jason: 1:10:39

Oh yeah, wanna go check out the rest of the ground. Yeah, I may have to feed the two knuckleheads, but Okay, the little ones, yeah, we'll come for that, you guys want you got time for that. Yeah, alright, let's go do that. How long have you been over here in the States? About a year.

AJ: 1:11:12

About a year.

Speaker 3: 1:11:12

Yeah.

AJ: 1:11:15

We've been longer away from home, but we spent a couple of two or three months in Guatemala as well. Oh yeah, because I used to live down there for a period of time when I was in my 20s. Yeah, very cool. Yeah, it's been super interesting. I mean all the more, I guess, because it's in the crucible of the moment.

Jason: 1:11:35

Yeah.

AJ: 1:11:37

Pre and post election. But, man, the stories like this, they're just.

Jason: 1:11:42

Yeah, I think about this quite often, in that you know I keep up in the news, I pay attention to what's going on in the world and I tell you I get a little bit sad and depressed about that, but I can look out the window or I can go for a ride, I can go for a drive, and this is the best thing happening on the entire planet, and so I'm always constantly reassured that everything's fine. Yes, I feel the same way that everything's fine.

AJ: 1:12:12

Yes, I feel the same way through this way I just go meet the next awesome person, like you know, paint their off in Montana and go, man, it's everywhere. Because it is right, it is, this is real.

Jason: 1:12:22

This is real, this is tangible. You can see it, you can smell it, you can taste it. What's that bird?

AJ: 1:12:29

that just came out of the Snipe Snipe. I've seen a bit of that happening while we've been talking.

Speaker 3: 1:12:35

Yeah.

AJ: 1:12:36

Great grass cover Cool bird. Yeah, very cool looking bird.

Jason: 1:12:40

So this is the fence line. What we're getting ready to cross was the original 300 acres. Oh, wow, okay, so you see the old posts, and so we pulled out the old fence. Hey, so there's been five posts, and so we pulled out the old fence. Hey, so there's been five properties that have been pieced together and all the interior fence is pulled out, so that way they can move through without any damn fences in their way I love. And so we left them.

Speaker 3: 1:13:05

Exactly.

Jason: 1:13:05

So you can see the evidence of it? Yes, but also they can use it as scratch posts, Ah, perfect. And so then you know, but yeah, I like to be able to look at it and be like you know, took that crap down Right on. And that's the fence we put up. We put that up in 2015 to contain this 300 acres, but after we got that land over there, that fence came out, even though we paid for it to go in.

AJ: 1:13:30

Yeah, the things you gotta do eh.

Jason: 1:13:34

Yeah, you gotta put fence up and take it down. But you know we raise the money. It's not mine. It's like we'll raise as much as it takes. Well, that's cool, it's great. If I had the money I would spend it. But it's not. Why do I gotta be stingy over how it gets spent? It's all for the buffalo.

AJ: 1:13:51

I feel the same way, and the cool thing is the people or at least some of these people that do have the money feel the same way. That's right.

Jason: 1:13:58

And I've been fortunate to meet a few of them. Well, maybe two of them. There we go. I need about five or six more, that's right.

AJ: 1:14:12

Well, there's the call. You count them on one hand. I know that Most people are pretty selfish.

Jason: 1:14:13

Well, again, look what you can do with one or two people just putting their hand up?

AJ: 1:14:15

Yeah, what if five or six did? Yeah, I think of that For those who are in that position where you can man the rewards.

Jason: 1:14:25

Yeah, and then you get organizations too. So you've got individuals, you get organizations, and and then you got those organizations that have the networks, and so we've, we've, I've, I've got an incredible network right yeah, I just they just keep coming. Yeah, that's cool. Like this, this was bringing out all the greatest people in the world to come here and see it, and that that's awesome. Our allies are just growing. The people who don't like it and the people who want to complain about it they don't come here to visit.

AJ: 1:15:01

Which is more the pity.

Jason: 1:15:02

In a way it is that's kind of who you need to reach so that they can spread that misinformation.

AJ: 1:15:07

Well, that's right, and how can you judge if you don't know it? So come and find out. Come learn something. There's a bit of controversy around the American prairie too, obviously, where Pedro is and same thing, and I think he's managing it, along with some others, reasonably well, and they're trying to get better at it. Just actually get to know each other. Don't just be talking from over the fence of stuff you don't know. Yeah, from both sides you know about ranches and about the prairie. It goes both ways. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. You said before, though, jason, about some perception that it's your thing, and, as a founder and an instigator, that's got to be a common lot. But how do you? I mean, you've've got your rationale, but I guess what's your lived experience of of trying to disavow that it's not about you? I mean, I guess, creating a non-profit's part of that, huh, because you're just one of a managing body yeah, yeah, you diversify leadership and decision making.

Jason: 1:16:07

It's not all just me, and for a period of time it was. But you know, truth prevails and lies have a way of filtering themselves out over time. So I mean I can explain to people what what I'm doing and what my goals and what what I envision this. But if they don't believe me then I don't need to spend any more time trying to convince them, because over time they will see and I'm not trying to change everybody's mind on what maybe they feel about me. I want the work to speak for itself and it has. You know, xavier and Taylor and Albert and Pam and the crew now associated with it.

Jason: 1:17:01

So I mean I have to be able to not let negativity and naysayers, misconceptions and lies affect me. So I have to kind of do some deep down kind of soul searching myself to call it out for myself when it's there. Yeah, I don't need that energy to drain me any more than what I already do drains me. Yes, and if I know what I'm doing is is is the right thing for the buffalo, it's the right thing for our community, it's the right thing for our non-profit and our organization, then that's, that's just okay with me, like because if it ever gets called into question or you know people bring it back up, I think the evidence will be be there to where the lies won't make sense anymore. I believe that again because it's real. Yeah, to where the lies won't make sense anymore, I believe that Again, because it's real.

AJ: 1:18:15

Yeah, you can manufacture stories, obviously, but yeah, what's real. There's another saying amongst Aboriginal folk some Aboriginal folk I was talking to back in Australia that they never forgot where the water was.

Speaker 3: 1:18:27

Yeah, Just anchor it to what's real.

AJ: 1:18:29

Yeah, but yeah, noting though that you, you have to catch yourself in it occasionally, and uh, yeah, some some things, you some things will bother me I've been bothered by some things.

Jason: 1:18:40

People have said, yep, and in hindsight, or even in having some foresight, to to not not engage. Do not let that energy in, because it can drain you real fast if you let it. And I have to be reminded about that vote, you know 90 to 7.

Jason: 1:19:01

Overwhelming support is out there, just keep doing it, just keep going. And oftentimes I think about these little old Shoshone grandmas that when we brought the first 10 buffalo, they came up and they said you keep doing what you're doing, don't listen to anybody. And I tell you, the little Shoshone grandmas, tell me to keep doing it. I sure as heck am going to keep going because it's them that hold on to those beliefs and values that many of our own people forgotten, to those beliefs and values that many of our own people have forgotten. And if you look out here and the buffalo are doing just fine, everything is fine. We get caught up in our human stuff all the time. But if the land is expanding, the buffalo are expanding and they're having babies, we are doing fine. We can't get confused about our human stuff, because the goal is them, the buffalo.

Jason: 1:19:59

It's a hell of a sight, Jason the snow-capped mountains and rolling hills, and Seven more range units and these buffalo will be able to get to the top of there. Is that right? Yeah, wow, about 400,000 acres, maybe a little more. It's something to behold. Maybe in the next eight to ten years, hopefully in the next three to five years, I've got two more range units next door to this one and then we'd have 70,000 acres out there, and that 70,000 is actually contained by two highways. So that's, practicality-wise, makes sense as a next feasible, achievable goal.

AJ: 1:20:43

This bit's treed. This is the waterway here, I guess. Yeah, this is the Wind River.

Jason: 1:20:48

This is the riparian area for the river bottom, so the Wind River headwaters are up there. And then it comes down through here and goes over by Riverton and flows north through Wind River Canyon. Once it gets through Wind River Canyon it changes name from the Wind River to the Bighorn, and that's why it's referred to as the Big Horn case. Oh right, the water rights case Got it. It's because it was adjudicated in Thermopolis, where the river is called the Big Horn Right, but I almost think that they did that on purpose to draw attention away from what they did here.

AJ: 1:21:27

It matters, doesn't it? Yeah, and this is old Eastern Shoshone lands as well.

Jason: 1:21:35

traditional lands- oh yeah, our reservation was 44 million acres in 1863. In 1868 it was reduced by 42 million acres.

Speaker 3: 1:21:47

What.

AJ: 1:21:48

And what instigated that? Did they find some minerals or something?

Jason: 1:21:52

Oregon Trail, santa Fe Trail, right Pony Express they all came right through the Shoshone.

AJ: 1:22:00

Reservation. That's another one of these stories, hey of you're already into a reservation context and even then you're stripped of that.

Jason: 1:22:09

And then after that they were stripped of land even further. Really, yeah, I could go through a timeline with you of all of the steps, all of those historical decisions that have resulted in the way it is now.

AJ: 1:22:28

What's your experience of still being anchored, albeit at 2 million anchors, but to that traditional land.

Jason: 1:22:37

The lands that we were on and utilized. We've always had a reciprocal relationship with kind of like what we're referring to with this buffalo, but it has to do with our foods. So the lands that we were on obviously provided all the sustenance that we needed, and for us Shoshone people that was obviously the buffalo, but it's also in roots and plants and berries which comprised our ancestral traditional diet. Certain seasons we would move to different areas to hunt and harvest different foods. That was tied to the medicine wheel represents spring, summer, fall, winter. Well, we had different foods for every season, which meant we needed to travel to a different place or different elevation every season. So in the summer months we used to move to the mountain and we would hunt and harvest food up there throughout the summer. Then come time, fall and and winter time that would be time to move low elevation. That changed our foods and what we would hunt and gather.

Jason: 1:23:59

So out of the big 44 million acre reservation, imagine the amount of resources that you could hunt and gather and sustain yourselves. Well, when you go from a 44 million acre to a two million acre reservation and then you start to hunt year round, you deplete the wildlife and then you have westward expansion coming in telling you that now you have to become farmers and ranchers. The buffalo are gone. Then you rely on the federal government for commodity like flour, sugar and salt. So our relationship with the land changed with colonization. It becomes sedentary. They put us in villages, they put us in square boxes that we couldn't move from. So not a lot of us. I remember as a youngster we used to go stay in the summer up in the mountains for several couple months Really, and a lot of families used to do that, and we'd gather firewood and we'd gather resources to prepare for winter, and so we'd bring that stuff down and then yeah, so I think that we're trying to find our way back to that possibly.

Jason: 1:25:17

Yeah, I mean, I speak for myself, but I see it in some of our young people that are continuing to practice our ceremonies. We've got young people going in and learning the songs. It's there, it's alive. It's not abundant, but it's alive.

AJ: 1:25:45

Have you learned much about your ancestry further back.

Jason: 1:25:51

Well, both of my parents are Shoshone, so on my mom's side we come from a prominent family. On my dad's side he's enrolled Shoshone. But my dad's grandpa came from Isleta Pueblo and his name was Claude Moya and he had witnessed a murder, him and his cousin, and they rode horses north to Wyoming and his cousin was shot off of the horse and so, to escape persecution, my great-grandpa took his mother's maiden name, which was Valdez, and he changed the V to a B and the Z to an S. I was wondering about the S.

Jason: 1:26:36

So my last name comes from Claude Moya, but he was from Isla del Pueblo, new Mexico, and he married a Mexican lady and she came from the Perea family, both from here but more of a Mexican and Pueblo lineage. Yeah, but the Shoshone family, the weed family my mom comes from, is a prominent family here. My great-grandpa on my mom's side was a scout for Custer. His name was Rabbit Tail. He was at theowl for custard. His name was Rabbit Tail. He was at the Big Horn.

Jason: 1:27:14

Wow, yeah, so that's just a couple of generations ago. Yeah, yeah, before that, you know, we were buffalo people, we lived in lodges, we hunted, fish gathered, but my grandma and grandpa went through the boarding school and so the language stopped with them. They didn't teach my aunts and uncles the language because of what they went through. So it was, my grandma and grandpa were the last fluent speakers. Anything happening on that front? Yeah, we have other families in the tribe that are more prominent or have the language more intact. And then our schools, our schools, are teaching immersion language and we're doing our best, you know, out of out of only 5,000 Shoshones.

Speaker 3: 1:28:09

You know our number of elders is decreasing rapidly yeah.

AJ: 1:28:14

Yeah, there's a moment in time Again. Same back home for the ones who are still with us.

Jason: 1:28:20

Yeah, and you know we lost a lot during COVID, really yeah.

AJ: 1:28:27

You know, we were with the Osage back in Oklahoma and Chief Standing Bear there showed us on his phone what some of the young folk had designed in an app with language. So some of these kids are texting each other young people I don't know how young, but texting each other in their language.

Jason: 1:28:47

That's cool, isn't that cool? We've got a language app. Woke tribes have a language app Really, but they're not. They're not like Duolingo. They're not a there's not a lot of. I guess there's not enough resources into them to actually have them be a great tool. They're more like a dictionary.

Speaker 3: 1:29:05

Yeah yeah, Like if you know you want to know a word.

Jason: 1:29:07

you can look it up, but it's not like you can learn it.

Speaker 3: 1:29:12

You know a really interactive lap like Duolingo.

Jason: 1:29:14

Yes, I've practiced my Spanish and stuff on there, so if we had something like that, that would be helpful, but apparently Navajo's on Duolingo Are they?

Speaker 3: 1:29:25

Yeah.

AJ: 1:29:26

Yes, he found it he started learning Navajo.

Jason: 1:29:28

Ojibwe's probably going to be on there soon. This is a big linguistic group like Cree, yes, where they've got big, like you know a lot of speakers. Right, we've got maybe 20 speakers left. Yeah, wow, look at this buffalo hair right here.

Speaker 3: 1:29:41

You should grab that piece, oh yeah.

Jason: 1:29:42

That is cool, that's a good one.

AJ: 1:29:44

I'll take a photo in situ first. Yeah, that's just from walking through.

Jason: 1:29:49

Yeah, they're losing their winter coat Buffalo has. This is second warmest natural fiber on the continent, only behind muskox.

AJ: 1:29:57

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Jason: 1:29:58

Buffalo has 17,000 hairs per square inch more than twice what a cow has Biggest belief. That's gorgeous. Yeah, we gather it up and rope out of it. We give a little bit to kids when they're here. They can always take a piece of buffalo home with them.

AJ: 1:30:22

That's awesome. So that ancestry you're familiar with. Do you feel a particular connection to any aspect of it in terms of being able to spot it in yourself and what's become of your life?

Jason: 1:30:39

Oh, I don't. I think I've always felt a little bit lost and always trying to find a piece of myself and probably was always looking for some level of acceptance that I maybe I'm overcompensating for. Uh, because I was. I was. I was a child born out of an affair, so I'm half with all my siblings I'm the only, I'm the youngest of nine, but I don't have a full sibling and I've always kind of felt a little bit isolated from my family members, because I was a bit unique and I grew up with two loving moms. I had two mothers, so I've always felt like double blessed that both of my moms loved me my stepmother, my biological mother and so I've kind of always been just a little bit out of place, but I always knew I wanted to do good work and I didn't know what that looked like Really.

AJ: 1:31:44

How far back can we talk?

Jason: 1:31:46

Very, very small. I remember just thinking I just wanted to do something good and that's why I like to do art. And so when I was growing up, you know, I just liked to work with my hands and make cool stuff and do painting and drawing. And I like to carve now when I can find the time, but that eats up a lot of hours, so I don't have that. But the, yeah, I remember from a young age just thinking just do something good. I didn't know what that looked like, maybe until I was about 26. And then I knew it was water and Buffalo. And then you know that experience in Africa, coming home, still being a knucklehead for a while and then just finally being like you know it's time to actually get serious about what it is I want to do. So I did and I went to school and I buckled down for ten years to get my degrees and to come home and just do this. But I knew that it was gonna take academic, the academic credentials, to get it. You know, yeah, what you doing up there.

Speaker 3: 1:32:58

See my, there's the little horse.

Jason: 1:32:59

Yeah, he's gonna come down here. I gotta go up there first. Oh, buddy, it's gorgeous. We'll get to see him pretty close. See, I gotta go up and get his little bottle ready. And there's the buffalo calf. We'll go up and get his little bottle ready. And there's the buffalo calf. We'll go up and get her bottle ready and then I'll bring him down here. So cool, I've got another horse and mare.

Jason: 1:33:19

I'm trying to keep that little horse together with a little one so he can learn how to be a horse. There's another little horse and mare in here, so I'm going to, you can hang out, I'm going to run in real quick, all right, and I'm going to fix their bottle and I'll be right out, you bet, and then we're going to. Then they'll follow us down there, cool, but right now they're going to be a bit. They get a little bit nosy right now. Hello, hello, hold on.

Speaker 3: 1:33:59

You all good.

Jason: 1:33:59

Yeah, we gotta go down below All right. Come on, let's go. Come on, come on, let's go.

AJ: 1:34:10

Is it buffalo milk or camo?

Jason: 1:34:13

Lamb, Lamb. Yeah, it's dehydrated lamb's milk which is higher in fat. This is for the horse, that one's for the buffalo. Oh yeah, I had to rig up a cooler so that the horse could eat while I'm doing the buffalo. Come on, come on. Come on sand dune. He hasn't lived in here.

Speaker 3: 1:34:47

Come on, come on Come on Igloo mama.

AJ: 1:35:05

That's outstanding. That's what mums have to deal with, huh.

Speaker 3: 1:35:15

Yeah.

Jason: 1:35:22

So how much milk would a normal baby buffalo?

AJ: 1:35:25

drink per day. Per day, that one goes about three of those bottles.

Jason: 1:35:27

About three of these bottles. Yeah, Wow, Morning, lunch and dinner. She got fed at six this morning.

Speaker 3: 1:35:33

This is her second feeding She'll get another one this afternoon and then another one tonight, isn't?

Jason: 1:35:39

that six pints too, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:35:40

So eighteen, Eighteen pints.

Jason: 1:35:44

Three liters, six pints yeah.

AJ: 1:35:50

Instincts, huh.

Jason: 1:35:51

Yeah, yeah, instincts, huh.

AJ: 1:35:54

Yeah, instinct, that's the way you want it. You're getting that photo. Yeah, sir.

Jason: 1:36:00

You've got to make it comfortable for her.

Speaker 3: 1:36:03

You're never going to feed her the other way now.

Jason: 1:36:06

Well, I have been. I've been feeding her off to the side, but when she gets a little picky then I'll accommodate a little more. But she's about good, so she only drank about this much for now. He drinks more frequently than she does, but I've been putting them in here for the last three nights now. But I don't like locking them in here during the day, so I let them run around, but with his cooler down here. If they go go up there then he doesn't get to eat because he doesn't quite associate coming back down here to eat. Yeah, not, not not every day do you have a little horse and buffalo being raised together?

Speaker 3: 1:36:46

so species wise, they, the little buffalo was trying to drink from the horse like a feather buffalo.

Jason: 1:36:56

You can see the horns are coming in.

AJ: 1:36:57

Really, the growth rate must be huge.

Speaker 3: 1:37:00

Huh, I'm just telling these guys they have to be 180 kilos by the beginning of winter.

Jason: 1:37:06

Yeah, right, yep, yeah, these are the orphans. That's beautiful.

AJ: 1:37:11

And this is Ruby right yeah. This, yeah yeah. These are the orphans. That's beautiful. And this is Ruby right yeah, this is Ruby and her twin, her twin is out there.

Jason: 1:37:16

I don't know which one it is. I don't know which one, I can't tell. I mean, you can see how much they look alike.

AJ: 1:37:20

Yeah, true, but she's tracking all right.

Jason: 1:37:23

Yeah, yeah, she's strong. When she the first two days, we had to intubate her. She didn't know how to eat, which could have been the reason why she was abandoned too, but we had to intubate her, so you had to put the tube down her throat and make sure she was getting milk. And then she got strong enough to be able to figure this out Outstanding. And so she's strong. She's certainly strong. She's not weak at all.

Jason: 1:37:51

Yeah, she runs circles around him, Is that right? Oh yeah, I could take him for a walk every morning and evening and, if I can, during the day. So yeah, they walk all around the place here and I've got them where they'll follow me on my horse too, so they can ride out and they'll follow me on the horse.

AJ: 1:38:11

What about other enterprise? Have you got your eye on some of that as well, or are you going to keep this sort of commercial-free as it?

Jason: 1:38:20

were. Yeah, I'm really not focused on trying to do anything to market the meat or commercialization. We don't do that for wildlife. We've got to maintain that focus on ensuring that these animals, first and foremost, are restored as wildlife and not livestock. Livestock's the easy thing to do, anybody can do that. Trying to do for wildlife and having a unique classification and status means that that we're shifting the paradigm successfully where that doesn't have to be questioned anymore. But we've got to create the scenario for that to even be a possibility at first, because people don't know that they're, they're even in a paradigm or seeing it a certain way, or anything like that.

AJ: 1:39:18

So there's the river there.

Speaker 3: 1:39:20

Yeah, yeah.

Jason: 1:39:22

So you can see the whole drainage goes through there.

AJ: 1:39:29

It's a hell of a landscape. It does too yeah, that bluff over there is pretty awesome we just don't have mountains like this back in Australia.

Jason: 1:39:41

I've only flown into Sydney once. I wish I could have spent time I was in New Zealand, for I travel. About a month in New Zealand we stayed in 17 different locations. There. We were looking at effects of historic wildfire, oh yeah, so I drove like 4,000 miles in New Zealand how interesting Up and down the South Island on the West East Coast and then Big Circle on the North Island.

AJ: 1:40:07

Yeah.

Jason: 1:40:07

Loved it down there.

AJ: 1:40:08

That's a cool sight. They are mobile.

Jason: 1:40:11

That's a good sight. Yeah, mobile, that's a good sight yeah yeah, those are all bulls these are big guys looks cool and they all walk together like that.

AJ: 1:40:20

Huh, yeah, I mean, change is the only constant, yeah, and it's inevitable Yep, which also means we roll with the punches you know Exactly. Stand by for the next change.

Jason: 1:40:43

Stand by for the next change. Yeah, yeah, If you don't like it, wait a little while. Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to be when I grow up Me too.

Jason: 1:40:55

I didn't think it would be this this is pretty nice for the meantime. Oh yeah, sure is. I still want to travel. I want to. I still want to go. I'd like to go to Colombia. I'd like to go to Peru. I want to go back to Africa. I want to go to Angola, uganda again. I'd love to go to Colombia. I'd like to go to Peru. I want to go back to Africa. I want to go to Angola, uganda again. I'd love to go back to New Zealand. I want to go to Australia, so I have Scandinavia. I want to go visit the Sami people.

Jason: 1:41:22

I want to go to see indigenous people across the planet and what they're doing to revive their culture and food traditions. That's like I would really love to do, that. Yeah, but that would be. I mean, I can't picture, I can't fathom that now with my current circumstances.

Jason: 1:41:44

So it's in the back of my mind and maybe working its way to the front at some point. I wanted to go look at these guys before we go. Cool, a couple of big fellas. Yeah, big is big. You get the feeling they know how big they are, oh yeah.

AJ: 1:42:19

That they're in charge. Yeah, they know that they can't be really they can't really be messed with.

Jason: 1:42:23

Since he stood up, we'll go and move him over a little bit. Slow head turn Should be able to keep him coming close enough that he won't step off. I've got to give him a little second to think about it and I can go a little closer. There's a nice piece of hair right underneath him. Oh yeah, xavier, you see that hair right there where you were sitting. Good fluff, it's right there where you were sitting.

Speaker 3: 1:42:50

I'm not getting that one dude?

Jason: 1:42:52

I was hoping you'd get that one. I'm a maniac Pretty awesome, huh, it's awesome, it never gets old. So we're going to put on a tribal buffalo summit ourselves for November and try to get tribal participation here. Yeah, in the area, it'll be at probably the casino in Riverton. Yeah, yeah, in the area, it'll be at probably the casino in Riverton. Yeah, but yeah, we want to be able to put together a convening, that is, tribal members, tribal Buffalo programs, tribal resource management focused programs, tribal resource management focus. Oftentimes a lot of these events are all non-native organized, so it's just not the same. So we want to try to bring our own flavor and work with some other native organizations that can make it a unique conference. So you can see our calf over there somewhere in the size of these guys. Yeah.

AJ: 1:44:23

I love the calf there, just flat out on its side. It just reminds me of humans when they're young, it's got to sleep a lot, yeah.

Jason: 1:44:32

Growing up, I like when you can grab by them and you can smell them. Yeah, that's a new one right there. Yeah, it's just a couple of days. Oh man, look at that. Yeah, look at them. Babies all over the place. That's just awesome. Yeah, one has horns and the other has horns. Yeah, look at the babies all over the place. It's just awesome. Yeah, one has horns and the other one doesn't.

AJ: 1:44:57

Oh yeah, Something comes back, just to be sure, it's amazing.

Jason: 1:45:07

It's like yesterday, it was like the first ten were getting off of the trailer. Yeah, it feels like the hunt. Yeah, and it's like bam, here we are Wow.

AJ: 1:45:21

Pulls me away. It's a little better when they look you in the eye.

Jason: 1:45:24

huh, oh yeah they're powerful, they've got you can feel it, got, you can feel it Definitely a very spiritual alive, being you know where their essence about them is still there.

Speaker 3: 1:45:43

They haven't been messed up.

Jason: 1:45:45

This is last year's calf still nursing on her mom. Yeah, she's the one that she got injured. She was being bred and she got her pelvis broke. But because she had a calf there's nothing we could do anyway. But she's still feeding her calf from last year, even though she's got her back. Mom's a hero right, yeah. Yeah, she's a good mama. Yeah, despite her pain.

AJ: 1:46:14

That was the protection.

Speaker 3: 1:46:17

Oh, that's cool.

AJ: 1:46:20

One's got a gallop up over there, yeah. So that growth, it's a different color. That one, it's a light color, oh yeah it is too, yeah, that growth we saw back then. The one that's still weaning, that's just one year old. Yeah, yeah, so they year old. Yeah, so they grow fast.

Jason: 1:46:33

Yeah, they grow fast. These ones will be that size next year, this time.

Speaker 3: 1:46:38

Yeah.

Jason: 1:46:39

Yeesh, this one's still pregnant here, this one walking towards us. That's another one. She still hasn't had hers, yet she might be getting close. She looks grumpy. This one's still pregnant. This one's still. She still hasn't had hers, yet she might be getting close. She looks grumpy. This one's still pregnant. This one's still pregnant.

Speaker 3: 1:47:11

Look at the brain I put in there. Man Don't move too fast.

AJ: 1:47:42

It's just a little head scratch, that's bumping my vehicle.

Jason: 1:47:46

Yeah, scratch in his head. Yeah, fair size. Lots of people stop on the side of the road and they're over here. It shows you, doesn't?

Speaker 3: 1:48:13

it yeah.

Jason: 1:48:16

There's another one right there.

AJ: 1:48:19

That film that was made in Blackfeet Reservation, bring them Home.

Jason: 1:48:23

Bring them Home.

AJ: 1:48:24

It's scooped up, it's everywhere.

Jason: 1:48:26

We've got one called the Buffalo Story. Really, yeah, there's actually three native films that came out the same year Bring them Home Singing Back, the Buffalo and A Buffalo Story and ours. It was paid for by National Wildlife Federation and we are thinking that NBC might pick it up, but it was made by thinking that NBC might pick it up, but it was made by Colin Ruggiero. So that's the poster of it yeah that's awesome. It should be coming out as well Brilliant.

AJ: 1:49:04

Will any of these big fellas let you close, no Once they're there, it's their domain.

Jason: 1:49:12

Yeah, yeah, we, we don't approach them, we only let them approach us, and that just gives you the so it's their decision, yeah, otherwise there could be, you know, um, yeah, it's just not as acceptable. Then I think you know, yeah, yeah, in a way, my home is oceanside back home.

AJ: 1:49:38

Yeah, same with the animals in the ocean Right Dolphins, whales but if you like that, they will come to you. Yeah, yeah, it's funny, you know, like I've been paddling next to a whale that will, you know, just a tail wag? Sure, yeah, but they don't yeah and it just strikes me here, with them too, they're not aggressive beings no, yeah.

Jason: 1:50:06

And if you don't give them a reason to be like yellowstone, where they get harassed all the time and you respect their space and you let them approach you, then there's no. There is no aggressiveness, there's no defensiveness, there's no reason for them to be that way towards us at all.

AJ: 1:50:24

It's very apparent that and you know, you observe the same thing in snakes. One of the stories we have about animals out to get us Dogs, horses.

Jason: 1:50:35

You just have respect for the animal. But you've got to know your own space and your own boundary. Most people are totally unaware of their space, even their energy. Most people are unaware of their space. Even their energy. Most people are unaware of their energy. They're talking real loud, they don't know how to shut it down and animals can feel that because they're all nonverbal, obviously. So I learned about it from being around horses a lot and it's just you just be careful with your energy. You know they feel that.

AJ: 1:51:17

It's great, it's awesome for them. It's awesome, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, he'll be telling his stories later. Yeah, when I was 11. Yeah, oh, that was cool man.

Speaker 3: 1:51:37

Yeah, it's the easiest place to be hanging out with these guys, these guys, yeah.

Jason: 1:51:46

Yeah it was awesome. We had a lot of people operating with us. We did they Amazing.

AJ: 1:51:52

Yeah, so curious about the vehicles. What's in the back? Yeah?

Jason: 1:51:57

yeah, scratch their face. Yeah, thanks for that. So we want a grant to put up a building, but it's for ecotourism. Now I wanted a grant to put up a building, but it's for ecotourism. Now I wanted a grant to put up a headquarters for our non-profit. Hmm, but somehow we got a compromise. So we got a $9.8 million building going up, right here Is that right? Well, I think so, unless we back out of it. Yeah, well, then think so, unless we back out of it.

Speaker 3: 1:52:32

Yeah, well, maybe.

Jason: 1:52:33

Yeah, but it's like you have to raise the money just to try to pay for running it after yeah, so it makes me a bit nervous.

AJ: 1:52:44

Totally.

Jason: 1:52:46

It'll be good in the long run, but it just seems like a lot right now. Totally be good in the long run, but it just seems like a lot totally. I mean barely make, get our own, get a non-profit functioning, let alone, yeah, running a whole eco tourism business.

AJ: 1:52:59

Yeah, no, it's a whole thing. The um, where I've seen it done. Well, they got people in who really knew how to do that. That's what we're gonna. That's what to do.

Jason: 1:53:11

Yeah, I think yeah, because none of our team members were set up to run a tourism thing.

AJ: 1:53:20

Yeah, it's a whole distinct thing, it's a whole thing.

Jason: 1:53:22

But where it's done well, I've seen it be awesome Well and Africa is actually the place that reminded me of it, with all the lodges and the tourism and everything that they're doing to accommodate visitors. That's kind of what we need. And hiring it out yeah, we're kind of navigating that, but apparently by this time next year we should be well underway to be building it. Yeah, so it'll be a little different. We want to keep my office in here, but you're in building it, yeah. Yeah, so it'll be a little different.

Jason: 1:53:54

I'm going to keep my office in here. You're in the shed? Yeah, I'd much rather be in the shed than in a big old palace building.

AJ: 1:54:03

What about? You mentioned the inner tribal buffalo cancer before.

Jason: 1:54:07

Yeah.

AJ: 1:54:07

So that's growing still right.

Jason: 1:54:09

Yeah, we're up to 87 tribes now, from Alaska, new York, florida, almost every state in between.

AJ: 1:54:17

And there's a bunch that are really progressing pretty strongly with the buffalo as well.

Jason: 1:54:23

Yeah, it depends on the tribe and the land base, but you know 87 tribes working to restore their you know buffalo back to their lands is pretty significant. So you know, tribes in the west have a little bit more. You know larger land bases that maybe make it a little easier, but it doesn't diminish the importance of buffalo depending on the size of the tribe's reservation. You know they're all important and and so I think trying to accommodate as many tribes as we can with resources, also trying to work on federal trust, responsibility and getting more funding and resources to those tribes is challenging, but we can. Resources to those tribes is challenging, but we can definitely see the membership growing and we've got a.

Jason: 1:55:19

Actually, the biggest limitation for tribes is land, and what we're building here is potentially a replicable process that we can assist other tribes in finding a network, growing their capacity, buying land, if that's what they got to do, or changing land use, if that's needed, partnering with agencies or other NGOs.

Jason: 1:55:59

So I think that what we're doing here is a process and an achievement that we can do elsewhere. I think that's part of the beauty of this is that once you see it, you can fathom it, and that's half the battle, because most people can't fathom what we're trying to do. But this this gives you an idea what Buffalo is wildlife, land rematriation and the reconciliation that can go into that to really achieve something that's much bigger than all of us. And I think that's what's most important about this is that this is for future generations, this is for our young people, this is for other tribes, other people that can recognize how important this is, not only for the people that are here, but for all Americans, for all conservation, for what happened to bison in this country. It's just something that's really good and I just don't know how you can find anything wrong with it.

AJ: 1:57:13

I wonder when you mention your art, does this come through your art?

Jason: 1:57:18

Yeah, I think it does, because I really used to like to do pencil drawing and oil and watercolor and I used to do that quite a bit when I was younger. But I was always trying couldn't to find what I was trying to create and that was always kind of a problem for me. Thinking about going into art as a major was because I didn't know what I was gonna do with art. And when I finally found stone carving, when I was in treatment, actually for alcohol, I found this old guy who was carving stone and stone carving is something we've always done In Shoshones. We made bowls out of soapstone and we made our utensils out of soapstone, our pipes out of soapstone, and once I found that I started carving buffalo and carving little figurines of buffalo and figurines of other little things, birds and mammals. So I think about the time where I found recovery and sobriety was about the same time I found stone carving and it was like the only thing I had never done. I did jewelry making and bronze painting, drawing, sculpture, but stone carving was one thing I had never done until I was in finding my recovery. I would say that it is in my art now way more so than it ever was. But it's hard to find the time to do art now because I'm so busy with everything else. But I can easily sit in car for 10 or 12 hours and and and it just go like just like that, like like that, but I don't have 10 or 12 hours of time that I can put to that. So it's a kind of a balancing act. At some point I'll be able to spend more time doing what it is.

Jason: 1:59:32

I like to do Stone carving. I really want to do more woodworking. I really love camping and fishing and creating tools that help sustain my hobbies. So I like to be able to create things out of wood that become heirlooms that I can pass off but are tools. So I've been really wanting to build this camp box that fits my camp stove, fits my utensils, but it's just something you can throw in when you're ready to go. So I'm always I really like to do leather craft. I like to braid leather and rawhide, and so I'm always trying to think of ideas, of when I have the time, what am I going to create? So it's either going to be leather or stone or wood.

AJ: 2:00:27

Did you ever play music?

Jason: 2:00:29

Yeah, I played guitar. I played saxophone, played in a three-piece band when I was going to school in Bozeman. I played upright bass.

Jason: 2:00:38

That's great Good work, yeah, so since I moved home I haven't really been playing too much music. I really miss it. We'd have a couple gigs a week when I was living up there, and that was part. Of the hardest thing from moving from Montana was that I was moving away from music and away from my band and back to this, and this was obviously most important. But it was hard to let that part of me go and my bass is still up there. I left it up there in hopes that when I could go back we'd be able to play again. So my other band member has my bass up there the thread's still there.

Jason: 2:01:21

I partly ask because I always end every episode with a piece of music that means something to you and you know, if people happen to play and they want to play something, you can always do that I always like um, your rocky spine by the great lake swimmers, and that was a song that I used to practice a lot around my my stepmother and she'd always asked me to play that song, um and, and it was just a fun song.

Jason: 2:01:54

I liked the way it sounded. But one day she asked me if I would play it at her funeral and she had a terminal illness and we knew that she was going to pass, and I promised her I would. So when it came time to her funeral and her memorial, I played that song for her. That's one of the only songs I've ever played solo in front of a crowd, but it was because she asked me to do that. Of course, when I hear that song now, it always reminds me of her and how special she was, what an incredible human being she was. So, yeah, that was one of the few songs I've played solo ever in my life in front of an audience, but it was for her.

AJ: 2:02:46

Beautiful. Eh Well, man, I'm looking forward to hearing that song one way or the other, but thanks a lot eh. Yeah, yeah, thank you forward to hearing that song one way or the other.

Jason: 2:02:53

Thanks a lot. Yeah, thank you, it's been an absolute pleasure. Well, you always come back, you're always welcome. Thank you and likewise when you get there, I'll help show you around. That'd be great.

AJ: 2:03:06

That was Jason Baldes, founder and ED of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative, and that winds up our two-part series from the Wind River Reservation. If you missed part one last week, head back for a listen to the brilliant young staff, Xavier Michael Young and Taylor Dawn Stagner, that were also kindly showing Yeshi and Olivia around while Jason and I talked. There are some more photos and links on the website, including to the episodes mentioned in part one, by the way, with Jason's mate Pedro out at American Prairie, Kelsey Scott at the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation and the series from the Osage Nation. As always, I'll have more for you, generous paid subscribers, soon, with great thanks for making all this possible. Speaking of which, special thanks this week to new paid subscribers, Caro Pidcock on Patreon and Kathyrn on Substack, and to third anniversary paid subscribers Steve Morriss, Jonathan Curtis and Leanne Thompson. I'm so enormously grateful to you all. We'd love you to join us if you can get some exclusive stuff and help keep the show going by heading to the website or the show notes and following the prompts.

AJ: 2:04:18

Funnily enough, not long after we left the team and set course for Yellowstone, we were driving through the small town of Dubois I don't actually know if they pronounce it like that and happened to see a pickup with the Buffalo Initiative logo on it. So we pulled up and found Ryan and his partner there. Turns out Ryan's the facilities and projects manager for the initiative. He told me he'd joined the team in their due diligence on this podcast before our visit too, and liked it, thankfully. He also described how the buffalo changed his life, and that's another story. Finally, I did ask Jason if he'd play that piece of music he told us about, and he was going to try, but ultimately it felt a little too soon. I spent some time streaming the song online last night while finishing up this episode and recommend it. It's a beauty. Right now, of course, the music you're hearing is Regeneration by Amelia Barden. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.