Dan Brister, Buffalo Field Campaign

Dan Brister has been working with the Buffalo Field Campaign since December of 1997. He alternates winters on the Yellowstone boundary with falls in Missoula, Mont., where he is earning an MS in environmental studies. Dan can be contacted at dan@wildrockies.org.

Today I drive to Missoula -- my other world. I'm going to show Buffalo Bull, our documentary on the bison slaughter, at the University of Montana. After yesterday's brucellosis discussion, I feel the need to write more freely, to open up a bit and share what it is like to live and work here with the buffalo and alongside the people who have answered the call and come to help.

We have 45 volunteers here now. Fifteen more, a college group on spring break, will arrive on Sunday. Most sleep in the main cabin -- really a large log house -- which sits on a hill overlooking Hebgen Lake. We also have a 21-foot campaign tipi at Horse Butte, the buffalo's favorite winter range. Six of us, who will be here all winter, live in smaller tipis set up on the 20 acres we rent. Across the frozen lake, the Madison Range reaches for the sky, which this morning is that perfect blue I have only seen in the northern Rockies. As I emerged into the morning through the door to my lodge, I felt as if I could reach over and touch the snow-laden peaks, the day is so clear.

The moon illuminated my tipi through the canvas last night. The woodstove kept the circle warm. Before January, I had never slept in a tipi. Now I can't imagine sleeping anywhere else. I love living in the round, surrounded by canvas walls, horizons of my own little sanctuary.

Last year on this day, the Montana Department of Livestock shipped two buffalo to slaughter. I scratched the following words in my journal on March 13, 1999, the day they were captured:

Watched again today as DOL tested buffalo -- three calves, a bull, and a cow -- running them through chutes, poking with cattle prods, and hazing with a bobcat tractor. The bull, confined to an impossibly small space, moved the only way he could, up. Banging its head hard, over and over, on the metal rack of the trap. Each clash of horn and steel, each crash, sent a cold bolt down my spine. From high in a tree in the park, I shot video, witness to the horrific scene. Two state cops strolled over to our side of the trap, smiling. A DOL agent asked them, "Did you see the hippie up there?" One of the cops answered, "No, but I sure smell him."

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This, under the circumstances, infuriated me and I shouted, "Why are you helping them kill?" The police, our public servants, hollered back, "Shut up, tree hugger!" I lost my composure and yelled something back, then fell quiet, sad and surprised at myself for losing control of my tongue.

Except for the five days this winter when the DOL came out to haze the Madison bull, our patrols have been quiet. Once in a while I'll hear a new volunteer complain of the winter's lack of action, and I feel bound to remind them how lucky we are to be blessed with peaceful days and still nights, how good it is to have made it to mid-March without a single buffalo killed.

We have a group meeting every night before dinner. Assembled in the cabin's living room, we share reports from the day's shifts, decide strategy, and sign up for the following day's patrols. This is also our time to iron out problems and discuss issues related to community living. Decisions are reached through consensus.

Donations sent by people from around the world who hold the buffalo close to their hearts provide the food, clothing, and supplies required to keep us healthy and strong on our daily patrols. These people, who number in the thousands, are as important to what we do as the volunteers who have come in person to help us bring this slaughter to the attention of the world.

This is my third straight winter with the Buffalo Field Campaign. Because we are all working together under similar values, believing that the slaughter is inherently wrong and must be stopped, we are a family like none I've ever known. People come from all over the country and the world. Right now, there are people here from places as far-flung as Ireland and South Africa.

Time to close the journal and drive to Missoula. I hope tonight's showing is well attended. The more people that know about this slaughter, the sooner it will stop.