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

Episode Transcript
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AJ (00:00):
G'day Jason.
How's it going?

Jason (00:03):
How are you Good to meet you, man.

AJ (00:04):
Nice to meet you.
Yeah, how are you doing?
That's my wife, olivia.

Jason (00:07):
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 (00:12):
We're doing good man.

Jason (00:13):
How are you Thanks for these guys helping out?

AJ (00:25):
AJ, here for The RegenNarration, your independent
, listener-supported podcastexploring how people are
regenerating the systems andstories we live by.
Welcome back to the Wind RiverReservation, home of the Eastern
Shoshone and Arapaho Nations,and the Wind River Tribal
Buffalo Initiative, atribally-led non-profit founded
in 2023 here at the foot of theRocky Mountains in current-day
Wyoming.
We left off part one of thisseries last week, just as we met

(00:48):
the initiative's founder, JasonBaldes, and prepared to head
out on the plains to meet thebuffalo and hear their and
Jason's stories.
All right, you got everything,everything.

Jason (01:04):
We'll jump in this red one here.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Cool.

Jason (01:10):
You can go in either one you want.

AJ (01:12):
You want to come with us?
Yeah, I'll get the door for you.
You might remember, jason hadjust come to us from
preparations for the comingSundance, which reminded me it
was in the lead-up to theirSundance, just two years ago,
that the tribe sourced meat fromtheir own buffalo on their own
land for the first time innearly 140 years.

(01:34):
That's all part of enacting abroader vision of buffalo living
as wildlife, not livestock,once again protected under
tribal law.
And this vision doesn't stop atWind River either.
Jason is also VP of theIntertribal Buffalo Council,
where 87 tribes and counting arecurrently involved in efforts

(01:54):
to restore the buffalo and allthat entails, from the
reacquisition of land, therestoration 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 upand turn the engines off in 10
minutes or so to hear thebrilliant story of what's

(02:15):
happening here, including how itcame close to never happening,
and about halfway in we headover to feed the orphan buffalo
Ruby and hear about the oldShoshone grandmas, before
ultimately arriving back at theherd for an incredible,
unexpected face-to-faceencounter Right on, right on OK.

(02:45):
Thanks for having us here, man.
Yeah, you bet Really appreciateit.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, glad to make fun.

Jason (02:50):
Yeah, thanks, this was going to be the original town
when the reservation was openedup for homesteading.
This was a hotel that was builtin 1920, that was on the
stagecoach route and this wassubdivided into ten acre plots,

(03:11):
and that church used to be outin the middle of the field.
That swapped.
If we didn't buy it, it wasgoing to be subdivided into ten
acre plots again.
Oh, my goodness.
So we were really glad to beable to prevent that from
happening.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah.

AJ (03:30):
When was that?
When was the port?

Jason (03:32):
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'vebeen hanging out with the
buffalo a little.
They had twins.
Some of them had twins recently.

AJ (03:48):
I read some of this in some of the newsletter stuff.
Hey, yeah.
Even one you had to bring upbecause the mum didn't like.

Jason (03:55):
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 heis, but the other one this year
, she's five weeks old now.
She's over at my house.
I've also got a little orphanhorse.

(04:16):
Yeah right, so they're beingbottle-fed together.
Oh wow, and I just startedintegrating them back with
another horse so he can start tolearn about being a horse and
then the buffalo can go up andsee the calf too.

AJ (04:31):
That's outstanding To the horse and buffalo going through
this process.
Do they connect?

Jason (04:37):
Yeah, they're pals.
If we get time we'll go overthere and look at them.
Cool, this is them the othernight.
Oh, that is gorgeous.

AJ (04:48):
You've got to love it.

Jason (04:50):
Yeah, I mean, you've kind of got to pinch yourself every
day.
It's pretty amazing.

AJ (04:57):
I imagine the work's not always easy, but they're the
rewards, huh.

Jason (05:01):
Yeah, it's certainly challenging.
There's some bulls there.
Yeah, certainly challenging.
You know, you wouldn't thinkthat there would be the level of
opposition to something likethis that there is.
It's overwhelming support.

(05:24):
But you're just always kind ofsurprised by the people that
don't support something likethis.
How can you not?

AJ (05:35):
Where do you find that opposition and where is it
surprising, I suppose, in thatway.

Jason (05:42):
Well, I suppose that it's from cattle industry, the
cattle producers, and I think ithas to do with competition for
grass, it has to do with theidea that the West was won.
There's still semblances ofmanifest destiny, and I guess

(06:03):
that's understandable.
You know that the racism isstill out there, but we don't
realize the own level of our owncolonialism.
If a tribal member is a rancher, he has a hard time recognizing
that that was a lifestyle thatwas imposed on his grandparents

(06:27):
and now he's embracing it.
Okay.
But if you understand historyand you understand what was
brought to our people here, itwas 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

(06:48):
and belief systems.
And so it's a bit ironic whenyou have tribal cattle producers
preaching about theirlivelihood in the cattle
industry and not being able torecognize the irony in that.

AJ (07:05):
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 orwhatever.
And yeah, competition for grassand whatever, but if it does
end up being a sort of I don'tknow what is it, we can't go
back, or it's just been soembedded.

(07:25):
I'll never forget Stephen Biko.
In fact, this is relevantbecause you've got this
transformative experience Iheard you talk about in Africa
too.
But just thinking about Africa,because I remember as a young
guy I came across this book bywell, it was actually the
testimony of Stephen Biko, sohim under trial, an African
bloke there and there was apassage that I never forgot.

(07:47):
It was something along thelines of the greatest weapon in
the hands of the oppressor isthe mind of the oppressed, what
you internalize.

Jason (07:59):
Yeah, that's a good quote .
I mean, buffalo restoration isfoundational to who we are.
It's in our songs, it's in ourceremonies.
We even called ourselves thebuffalo eaters, the Guchendika.
But for the most part, mostpeople still know that and

(08:21):
actually, out of the two tribesthere'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

(08:42):
some threat to their livelihood.
Now, I get it For non-tribalpeople who don't have a cultural
connection or understanding.
How would they know?
So you have to educate, youhave to inform them, and we have
a lot of support fromnon-tribal people, and that's

(09:04):
because they maybe have a littlebetter understanding of their
own history.
Do they have more compassionand empathy?
I don't know, but we do have alot of non-tribal members who
support this.
It does seem to be somethingthat's changing non-tribal
members who support this.

AJ (09:25):
It does seem to be something that's changing.

Jason (09:29):
Do you sense that?
Yeah, I mean, this is the rightthing to do.
I mean, if there's very littleto argue about this and I think
people get that I think peopleare looking for something good

(09:51):
or positive happening in theworld and this meets that
criteria.
You know, with everything elsegoing on, the world's in chaos,
the country's in chaos, thecountry's in chaos.
This is stability and hope andresiliency, and I think that's
what people want.

AJ (10:12):
I'm here with that too.
Yep, this is really wetunderfoot, huh we have the
irrigation season, so there's aditch that brings water.

Jason (10:24):
Of course, this is agricultural ground and
practices, and so when we boughtthe property, it already had
the agriculture.
We reseeded it with buffalograss so that it's more
preferable grasses over alfalfaor anything like that.
So it is.
It is, um, very green and lush.

(10:47):
We've had a lot of rain.
We're right in that time ofyear where we need that, so it's
a good time to be here.
It's going to dry out.
August, late July, august isgoing to be brown.
Yeah, it gets hot.

Speaker 3 (11:04):
here too it gets hot.

Jason (11:05):
Yeah, well, relatively it's not.
We only get a few days over 100degrees, okay, 91, which was
yesterday.
That's really hot for us, is itOkay?
We like 70s?
Yeah, that's our idealtemperature.
Yeah, like today, this is agreat temperature here today.

AJ (11:26):
Oh, it's beautiful, it's.
It's funny, you know, jason,like even as a and as an
australian, like what, in asense, you could say, why would
I feel this so strongly?
Yeah, but I do.
Yeah, there's something aboutit, and on these lands there's
something else there's thisthere's, there's power in that.

Jason (11:50):
And the story getting the land restored, getting the
relative brought home, yeah, Ithink people really relate to it
.
With the Shoshone tribe, youknow, supporting the designation
for these to be wildlife,that's huge, you know.

AJ (12:05):
Yeah, when was?

Jason (12:06):
that About two months ago .
Finally, yeah, wow, I've beendreading that Really, the
hardest audience to speak to ismy own people, so you know, to
take a topic like that in frontof our people, it's like a
firing line and people justvicious negative, wanna bring

(12:29):
you down.
The vote was 90 to seven.
Wow, so overwhelming supportwasn't even a question, and so
the vote speaks for itself.

AJ (12:43):
You didn't necessarily expect that.
I didn't.
No, yeah, some calves in there.
It's beautiful, they're laidout.
I think we have 28 calves, 28calves.
So you started with just 10 in2016.
Yeah, and now there's 28 calvesjust now, just this year.

Jason (13:02):
So we're up to 140-something here that is
outstanding.
So we're up to 140 somethinghere that is outstanding.
So we're gonna pull over righthere and we'll turn off our.

AJ (13:10):
I know the vehicles are kind of driving by, but they're
clearly at ease with you guys inthese vehicles, even huh.

Jason (13:19):
Yeah, we're out here about every day with them.
We don't harass them, we leavethem alone and they generally
know that we're not out here to.
Yeah, they're not habituatedbut they're acclimated.
But there'll be a lead femalethat'll get nervous with our

(13:41):
presence and she'll startwalking off Really and then
they'll kind of trail out behindyou.
Traffic jam around here.

AJ (13:50):
Comes in bursts.
Huh, yeah, it does.

Jason (13:51):
I think it's because of the construction over by.
Riverton where they let them by.
And then they're yeah, we're 10.
In 2016.
We had the first calf born in2017.
We added kind of a new batch ofanimals that came from some
conservation population.
They started with the first tenfrom the Neil Smith Wildlife

(14:13):
Refuge in Iowa and then somefrom the National Bison Range.
We brought some from the NatureConservancy City of Denver,
Antelope Island in Utah,Soapstone Prairie in northern
Colorado it's tied to ColoradoState University.
So I think eight, seven oreight different batches of

(14:35):
animals over the ten years, nineyears, and then plus what's
been born over 60 calves havebeen born here.
So if they've got an ear tag,they came from somewhere else.
If they've got no ear tag, theybeen born here.
So if they've got an ear tag,they came from somewhere else.

AJ (14:46):
If they've got no ear tag, they were born here I'm so
curious about that, in terms ofwhen they come here, they I mean
I've heard this elsewhere, thatand it looks like it happens
here that they know what to dothat memory like because they
come from everywhere.
You might think there'd beconflict.
You might think they might notrelate to the land.

(15:07):
Like that they might struggle,but there's memory.

Jason (15:10):
They have.
You know it's innate for them.
You know it's ingrainedgenetically how to be what they
need to be.
It's not like livestock that'sbeen genetically made dumber and
more reliant upon man.
They don't need man.
One thing we always do in bisonconservation is if you're

(15:32):
starting a herd or you'rebringing in new animals, is that
you only bring in yearlings ortwo-year-olds or three-year-olds
because they're matriarchal.
The young ones will integrateinto an existing population if
they're young.
If they're older, they're goingto want to go back to what they
know, and there's been a.

(15:53):
You know, you hear aboutbuffalo breaking through fences
and running off, and that'sprobably a 7 or 8, 10-year-old
animal that's just trying tofind its way home.
Whereas if you start with ayoung population, they're going
to learn what's available tothem, grow and mature and know
where the water sources are andthe plants are, the minerals and

(16:15):
the dirt are, and so then theybecome part of the landscape and
, as you like, for here, as weacquire more ground, we can open
it up and they learn it.
And so, incrementally we'vegrown from 300 acres to now 2
000 acres for these animals andthen at some point, you know

(16:37):
thinking beyond that opening,opening it up to a larger
landscape, they'll learn it andthey'll utilize what's available
to them.
But these animals have nowhereto go back to.
This is what is home to them,so that's why it works.
We don't really have breachesof the fence, because they have

(17:02):
food, they have water, they havethe mineral needs and they have
each other.
Main thing is each other.
They're a herd animal, so theyneed that.
However, the bulls you know thesatellite bulls will hang off
by themselves and the main herdwill kind of roam around, but as
they grow and mature they'regonna start developing family

(17:26):
groups.
And because none of theseanimals are really over 12 years
old, this is still a young,growing population and we
maintain a natural female tomale ratio which is about 60-40
or 50-50.
And that ensures that duringthe rut, during the mating
season, that the buffalothemselves are the ones choosing

(17:49):
who who breeds.
Therefore not geneticallymanipulated by any of our needs.
You know we don't.
We don't have a reason toselectively breed for anything.
That's their job.
That's them as wildlife, havingthe ability to exist as buffalo

(18:15):
without our intervention.
And that's part of thatparadigm shift of thinking
differently not of buffalo aslivestock, buffalo as livestock
and buffalo as wildlife,wildlife where they can exist as
such, and you know they don'tneed our help.
All they need is the land,space and ability to exist.

AJ (18:36):
Yeah, man thinks they got to control everything, and then we
make things hard for ourselves.
Arguably.

Jason (18:41):
Yeah, it's like why would you want to do that?
Why make it harder for yourself?
These guys don't really needall that much help.
It's way easier than cattleproduction.

AJ (18:51):
There's even Aboriginal folk at home I've heard say don't
plant trees, let nature plantthe trees.
But yeah, create the conditionswhere nature can plant the
trees, yeah, and don't bestripping them out or whatever.
Yeah, but yeah, the ways wethink, even in solving stuff,
that we have to fix it.
That it's on us to fix it.

(19:13):
Just seeing the pronghorn dashacross the field, oh yeah.
Yeah, it's a beautiful sighttoo.
I've seen that.
It's been a really distinctivefeature of Wyoming that we've
seen, Not in other states asmuch, just Pronghorn.

Jason (19:27):
This is Wyoming is the last place for Pronghorn.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Is that?

Jason (19:30):
right, yeah, and we had a pretty drastic winter two years
ago where, in the state, over200,000 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 andpronghorn to be able to eat in

(19:51):
conditions that are like that.
So another example of howbuffalo could have prevented,
been preventative to that.
But yeah, in my father he was abiologist.
Well, well, he's a retiredbiologist, he's 83 now.
When I was growing up therewere no pronghorn or bighorn
sheep on this reservation, so heworked for the US Fish and

(20:13):
Wildlife Service.
He was in a unique position asa tribal member but alsoa
federal employee working touphold trust responsibility for
tribes.
So as a biologist, he wasworking to protect fisheries,
water, wildlife.
And in the 80s it wascontroversial then too was to

(20:40):
create a game code that wouldprotect or create seasons and
bag limits for hunting.
Now, indigenous people, wealways hunted year round, that
was always how we fed ourselves.
But you put us on a limitedland base.
With modern tools andtechnology, we drastically

(21:02):
reduced the number of wildlife.
So the game code was to setseasons Controversial, but what
was predicted would happen did,and that would be that our
wildlife populations wouldincrease and we'd have better
hunting opportunities and easierways to sustain ourselves with

(21:22):
management, and that's whathappened.
We now have significantexponential increases in deer
pronghorn elk.
So I was a little kid and gotto witness and participate in
the gathering of pronghorn andbighorn sheep, and then we
brought them back to thereservation and released them.
My dad told me that I'd be ableto hunt a pronghorn in 10 years

(21:46):
, and they did so.
Well.
I was able to kill my first oneeight years later and I've
harvested a pronghorn ever,every year.
Since how old?

AJ (21:55):
were you then 11.
?

Jason (21:57):
but the buffalo was always missing he always told me
if you're going to work onbuffalo, make sure you bring him
back as wildlife and notlivestock.
Told me, if you're going towork on buffalo, make sure you
bring them back as wildlife andnot livestock.
They should have been broughtback in the same way.
Pronghorn and bighorn were thatyou get that wildlife in their
habitat and you bring them totheir new habitat.
We had to start on 300 acreswith these because they were

(22:18):
seen as competition for cattleproduction.
So unless they have thatclassification or status above
livestock, then that's how wecan prioritize ensuring they can
exist, because the cattleproduction.
Those are individual cattleproducers.
These are the tribe's buffaloand so why doesn't the tribe

(22:46):
have a priority on how lands aremanaged over the individual?

AJ (22:52):
And so it's that paradigm shift.
Yeah, did your dad consider itwas a bridge too far to deal
with the buffalo back then?

Jason (23:01):
No, he tried Really.
Yeah, towards the tail end ofhis career he did a habitat
assessment of the entirereservation which basically
showed this reservation has morehabitat for buffalo than
Yellowstone does Really.
Basically, animals bison in thelate 1800s were forced into
Yellowstone and they were soisolated that they were hard to

(23:21):
get to.
That's why that population grewthere Out here they were
millions of them but they werewiped out.
So towards the tail end of hiscareer he worked on that.
But for him and during thatperiod of time the elected
leaders of the two tribes werecomprised of cattlemen who

(23:44):
directly benefited from themanagement of the two tribes,
were comprised of cattlemen whodirectly benefited from the
management of the reservationbeing prioritized for cattle,
and so he had a very difficulttime convincing leaders that
buffalo were somehow importanton the reservation, even though
they were a small contingent ofthe population.
They had really say over howlands got utilized.

(24:10):
So despite the conservationsuccess stories like the very
first wilderness in the UnitedStates, the game code in the 80s
, protecting wolves and bears inthe 90s Buffalo's wildlife is
not that much different Fightingthe longest-running court
battle in the history of Wyomingover who controls water on the

(24:31):
reservation.
So we've got a long history offighting for land, water and
wildlife, if we can elect theright leaders and if we can
navigate the federal trustresponsibility part.

AJ (24:43):
Yeah, How's that going now?
Oh dude yeah.

Jason (24:45):
How's that going now?
Oh dude, yeah, not very goodReally.
We got a meeting.
I'm on the board of theIntertribal Buffalo Council as
well.
We got 87 tribes across thecountry, so we've been working
on some legislation that wouldhelp codify the trust
responsibility the IndianBuffalo Management Act.

(25:08):
We were very close in the lastCongress, but the new house
rules and the people in thatadministration make it difficult
.
But we got a trip over there intwo weeks to meet with the
acting assistant secretary ofDepartment of Interior, which is

(25:30):
a meeting that we've beentrying to get for a while.
So we'll see.
Okay, I don't know how, I don'tknow if we have to just ride
this out or something happens.
It seems like something's gotto break, you know, yeah.
I think it did yesterday withthe largest protest against

(25:52):
Trump in the history of thenation today yesterday.
Largest mass protest in thehistory of the country was
yesterday.

AJ (26:01):
It does feel that this isn't a country that would roll over
no, so we'll see what happens Ithink, the I think the good will
prevail so you know, what Ifound really interesting is
listening to the people whovoted for him, at least the ones
who, but these haven't beenhard to find who are thoughtful,

(26:21):
and some have even said thingslike I, I feel and this is going
back a bit right, it's goingback to around the election
maybe and then up to 100 days,in the first 100 days thing they
were still saying reallythoughtful things like including
empathetic, like I hate thethought that my countryman,
fellow countryman would be,would think I've unleashed
something.
That scares them.
You know things like that.

(26:42):
So I've been really interested.
That scares them.
You know things like that.
So I've been really interestedin listening to them and to hear
how they might change as thingsroll out.
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 thengrowing up with your old man, it
seems like it's been part ofyour life too that you've found

(27:04):
yourselves in situations thatare politically tough and you've
had to find ways to navigatethat deftly.
It makes me wonder.
I mean, arguably that's theskill we need most right now in
the world is how do we deal witheach other without ripping each
other's throats out when thingsget tense or when we're

(27:26):
confronted by something?
What have you internalized inthat?
I mean even to get a 97 votelike how was that achieved in
bringing people together likethat?

Jason (27:53):
Well, most Shoshone people know that how important
Buffalo was for our grandmas andgrandpas.
You know, we went through theboarding school era.
We went through the reservationera.
We went through the reservationera.
We've gone through multipleeras of history with the United
States government and personallyI've kind of invested in

(28:13):
understanding a lot of thathistory and was fortunate
because through my dad's work Ihad to familiarize myself with
why things were the way theywere for him.
So I've been a bit of a studentof history and trying to
understand that.
And on the surface it's easyfor Shoshone people to know that

(28:37):
buffalo were important to us.
But most of us are not ranchers.
Most of us have been subject tothe Bureau of Indian Affairs,
subject to corrupt leadership,subject to these things.
But foundationally it's nosecret that buffalo were that
important.
The 90 to seven vote it wassurprising, but not unexpected

(29:04):
Like I knew.
It was there and we just neededpeople to show up, the right
people to show up and, as it is,be the same way for the
Northern Arapaho tribe too.

AJ (29:15):
I was going to ask.

Jason (29:16):
Yeah, we come from Buffalo people.
Most tribes did, and so if westill have the songs, if we
still have the ceremonies,that's the foundation for it,
and most of our peopleparticipate and still practice
those ceremonial belief systems.
The ranchers don't, and so thisbuffalo is providing a voice to

(29:43):
a demographic of our tribalmembers who've never had a voice
.
It's big, isn't?

AJ (29:49):
it.
Yeah, you know, I've oftenobserved and I'm talking a whole
decades long journey of my own,but even just this decade, with
the podcast going aroundAustralia and now here and
beaming in occasionally otherparts of the world is that it's
not felt trite to say that thewind's at your back when you're

(30:12):
doing stuff like this, partlybecause of what you're saying
before, like the buffalo, do thework, just let them.
But also there seems to be abigger thing at play where that
and you're talking about here, Ithink, with ceremony and songs
that are remembered that thereare bigger forces.

(30:33):
You could even say power,powerful forces, that well, you
know, we'll just take that 90 to7 vote as a as a touchstone for
this, but could talk about arange of ways it manifests.
But the ways that people can bereached in really powerful ways
that they themselves feel anddon't need to be coerced or

(30:56):
convinced or whatever, that whenyou're tapping that, well,
arguably that's the key to tapthat domain.
I wonder what you think aboutthat.
That if you are just fightingon that, I don't know more
rational, superficial level,there's an inevitable war.
But if you can get under it tohuman instinct, buffalo instinct

(31:18):
, where they connect thatthere's more on offer.

Jason (31:23):
We call it the great mystery that there's more on
offer.
We call it the great mysterythe power of the unknown, the
power of creator, the spiritshowever you want to call it that
there is energy in the cosmosand our ways of knowing and our

(31:49):
belief systems.
It's all in those ceremonies,it's in what those ceremonial
leaders say, it's in the waythat they've been told to carry
on specific protocols.
All of our ceremonies have somelevel of suffering that you
have to endure in order toachieve and it's that reciprocal

(32:11):
relationship.
You don't take without giving.
That's why we pray before wetake a buffalo, or it's why you
put tobacco down when you take aplant, or if you're going to go
and ask somebody for a favor,you give something.
This idea of relationality andreciprocal relationship is

(32:36):
evident in what we are taught inthose ceremonies.
And for me, I had to dig downvery deep to find my own level
of healing and I looked toceremonies to find my pathway
through that and I've come tounderstand a bit more about

(33:00):
meeting your prayer halfway andalso be careful what you ask for
, because I prayed very hard formy own healing.
I suffered for several yearsthrough fasting and finding my

(33:22):
pathway through those protocols.
So for me, this is grounded inceremony, but I had to be
willing to meet my prayerhalfway first in what I've
learned about how everythingties together.
And so for my foundation, formy belief systems, my values,

(33:45):
what I'm trying to put forth,it's grounded in ceremony, it's
grounded in prayer and theimportance of our belief systems
and values and language andsongs and ceremony.
It isn't, it's not monetary, itisn't superficial.
For me, it goes something muchdeeper and that, I think, is

(34:11):
what they provide.
That's everything we have hereis because of them and what
they've done.
And I don't know if they cameto help me in a dream or came to
help my uncles or my grandmasor my grandpas in dreams, but
this is a result of prayers thathave been cast well, well

(34:33):
before we ever got started, andthat is that reciprocal
relationality of our connectionto the cosmos through ceremonies
, of our connection to thecosmos through ceremony.
People very, very long, longtime ago prayed for this and
somehow it works itself out.

AJ (34:52):
I'm curious then was there a time in your life where you
really got that, I suppose.

Jason (34:59):
So I think I was probably about rock bottom in alcoholism
and drowning my shame andsorrow and guilt or whatever it
was I was carrying around by thebottle and, you know, sitting
in the back of a cop car, youknow, getting thrown in the
slammer.
Yeah, all of this was reallyclose to never happening because

(35:25):
of my own choices in drinkingand alcohol and that pathway.
So, yeah, all of this wasreally close to never happening
and I thought to myself you knowI'm in a very lucky, fortunate

(35:46):
position to be able to work onbuffalo restoration.
Yeah, I worked very hard for itthrough academia.
But here I am talking about howbuffalo are healing and how
much we need it, and I'm notwilling to accept that myself.
I'm not willing to accept thatmyself.
So I had to dig down real deepand do what I needed to do and

(36:09):
find the help that I needed.
That was about eight years agonow, so right around the time we
brought the first ten, I wasstruggling with my own stuff.
They were bringing the medicineand I was confronted with some
pretty tough decisions.
But I was able to find the helpthrough ceremony to get myself

(36:34):
where I needed to be, insobriety and recovery.
And then the blessings justkeep coming.

AJ (36:41):
Yeah, there you go.

Jason (36:42):
And here we are 140 buffalo grown from 300 acres to
2,000, but actually adding17,000 across the river over
there.
So you know 300 acres to 20,000acres and over 250 collective
buffalo.
Now the two tribes, with adecision by general council to

(37:05):
move towards wildlife,continuing to raise funding to
buy fee lands back so they cango back to tribal ownership.
Yeah, we've come a long way innine years.
Yeah.

AJ (37:19):
We're there.
I really want to talk moreabout those, all those bits and
pieces too, but we're there.
When you came to ceremony likethat and made that choice, were
there people around you that youcould turn to, that guided you
through?

Jason (37:36):
Yeah, there was a gentleman who was an elder and
he had been passed down thebundles of medicines from the
old timers that carry with themthe protocol and the knowledge
and songs and things that he's ahealer.

(38:00):
So I went to him and told him Ineeded help and him and his son
who's since been passed thatway the old-timer he passed away
a couple years ago.
But yeah, I went to that familyand to that father and son for

(38:20):
help and yeah, I go toceremonies there at least once a
week now Sometimes twice a week.
I help now in part of thoseceremonies.
I know the songs.
So because I've gone throughsome of those protocols, then

(38:41):
some things will be passed to me.
But that's really not.
It was never my intent.
I just needed help and whatwhat happens is when, when you
seek help, you eventually becomethe helper, and I never, never,
knew that wasn't my goal orintention at all.

(39:01):
But now others need thatsimilar type of help.
You know Someone's trying toget you right.
Oh, yeah, my phone's beenblowing up all this while the
ceremonies, there's a Sundancegetting ready to happen down
there, so everybody's getting,everybody's looking for buffalo
meat.

AJ (39:19):
Ah, there we go.
Yeah, that trip you did toAfrica then that was as a late
teen.
Yeah, that's in between being ayoung kid and this moment in
time that we're talking aboutnow.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
Yeah, I was 18.

AJ (39:34):
You were 18.

Jason (39:36):
So your dad had work over there or something.
Huh, he's a photographer.
He really liked to photographthe wildlife and he had as a
biologist he kind of gained someallies fighting for water
rights here and he joined theboard of the National Wildlife
Federation.
He was one of the longestserving members of the national
board members of NationalWildlife Federation and actually

(39:59):
the first tribal member, and sonow I think there's five tribal
members on the board ofNational Wildlife Federation.
So he made good connections andgood friends and contacts.
So he'd been there severaltimes.
And then when I was 18, you knowI liked to do art and I played

(40:21):
football and liked to dowoodworking and auto shop I
didn't have any intention ofgoing to college.
When I was in high school Iactually had the afternoons off
but we played in three statechampionships in football.
So I thought I was a goodfootball player and was a good
artist.
But I didn't have any intent togo to college, especially not

(40:44):
for science.
I understood the importance ofit because growing up with my
dad I knew he was a biologistand was always hunting, fishing
and knew things about the rocksand landscape.
That was always an interest tome, but it wasn't until we got

(41:05):
over there, traveled around abit together in Kenya and
Tanzania and witnessing thewildebeest was the light bulb
moment, was kind of my life'sepiphany, probably realizing
that, you know, we could travelthat far in amongst this herd of
wildebeest and that was lessthan five percent of what the

(41:28):
bison was here.
That blew me away.
Oh, it blows me away, becausewe drove for over 100 miles and
as far as you can see in everydirection 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 systematicallyexterminated from 30 to 60

(41:52):
million to less than 1,000 onthe continent in less than a
hundred years, that isdisgraceful and that is awful.
And when I can look at thesebuffalo right now and I can have
a relationship with them, I canraise one up and and integrate
it back into the herd.
And for that to have beenpurposely destroyed, that's what
gives me the fuel that wasgives me the fire to keep going.

(42:14):
And because that's anincredible thing to have a
relationship with an animal likethis that sheds light on the
millennia-old relationship thatwe had living alongside this
animal and for it to be nearlyannihilated as a means to take

(42:35):
our lands.
That makes me sick, and so, inorder to take that energy and
turn it into something good, wehave to continue this.
We have to continue to show ouryoung people what that means.
Continue to createopportunities for more of our
tribal students that are goinginto academia.

(42:56):
Make sure that our ceremonialleaders have access to this
animal for conducting thoseceremonies.
That we get it into our dietagain to help curb the rates of
diabetes and other diet relatedissues that plague our
communities.
It's like this is the solutionfor all of our problems.

AJ (43:15):
It was another symptom of call it war, where rations were
the order of the day InAustralia too, right.
Yeah yeah, and just crap,essentially to survive on, to
find a way to survive on Flourand sugar and salt.
Yeah, so the layers of it sopowerful and with that ceremony
aspect, right, you've got amobile processing unit too, yeah

(43:37):
it allows us to be able toculturally field harvest.

Jason (43:41):
You know when we're going to take an animal.
We come out here and take itlike right here.
We don't round them up into acorral and put them on a trailer
and ship them off to.
I mean, imagine how stressfulthat would be.
So the cultural field harvesttrailer allows us to bring it
out.
We have our prayer, we have ourceremony right here.
Generally a buffalo willpresent himself.

(44:02):
That's the one we take, andthen that allows us to process
that buffalo right there in thegrass, with grass still in his
mouth, no stress.
One bullet, one kill.
And then, when it's hot, youknow they're so big that you've
got to get that hide off andyou've got to get them into a
cooler and cooled down.
So that cultural field harvesttrailer makes that possible.

(44:26):
And for tribes, that's how wewant to be able to have.
That reverence and respect forthat animal is to take it right
there with his grass in hismouth, with no stress and with
its family.
You know that's the way itshould be.
And they don't.
You know it's not a hunt, it'sa harvest.

(44:48):
We want to come out and takeone, we pray for it, we take it.
They don't run after.
That's what I was curious about.

AJ (44:54):
They don't run off it's not like you break the trust.

Jason (44:56):
No, yeah they don't have a reason to run off.
They actually mourn and, likeelephants, they have a ceremony
of their own to uh honor thatone that passed.
They're trying to help it up.
They have compassion, empathyand love for one another that we
sure as heck could emulate, andthat's how we used to do it,

(45:20):
and that's why our societieswere matriarchal after the
buffalo.
That's why we gathered inAugust so that our babies would
be born in May.
That's why we gathered inAugust so that our babies would
be born in May.
That's why we have the storiesand the songs and the teachings
that you can see and witnessright here in front of you now,

(45:42):
that we haven't been able to forwell over 100 years, unless we
went to Yellowstone.
It's not like this.
So, yeah, we have to relearn alot of that, yeah, and we've got
to see it and witness it andbring the kids out and show them

(46:05):
how we use the hair or thehooves or the horns and
understand their matriarchy andhow they raise up these little
ones and how the bulls areprotectors.
It's like the circles of lifeand there's a whole lot of
metaphor we can put into that,but it's like the little calves

(46:27):
are in the center of the circle,and then it's the mothers, and
then it's the mothers, and thenit's the elders, and then the
outside circle is the bulls.
And if you think about that interms of our own societies, how
the boarding school era, how ourbulls, our men, were taken away

(46:50):
and then the children weretaken away, it was like the, and
then they were brought back butdidn't know.
It's like our elders and ourchildren are barely making it
together and our parents and ourmen are gone and so those

(47:10):
circles have been broken andthat's why we see, you know the
high suicide rates, the highhigh school dropout rates, low
life expectancy, the chemicaldependency, the emotional,
spiritual damage, those circlesare broken.
So, this buffalo, as we bringthem back and we come to

(47:32):
understand and learn andreintegrate, we're putting them
circles back and we're buildingour men up and we're trying to
bring our young women, to bringthose life givers back, protect
our elders and bring our menback to be warriors and that

(47:55):
they're the providers and theprotectors of our people and not
these Hollywood notions of BSthat is out there providers,
protectors, and it's like them,buffalo bulls.
So we have lots to learn abouthow we reintegrate those things
and ideologies again.

AJ (48:12):
I'm really tuning into that.
That's a really powerful way toput it, I think.
How have you observed thatthat's going?
Do the next generations in thatcontext of difficulty?
Can they feel it too?

Jason (48:26):
On a case-by-case basis.
We have to create more of anopportunity to do that.
And there's this non-profitover on the Menominee Nation in
Wisconsin and they're calledMedicine Fish and we helped get
Medicine Fish some buffalo andthey've started a herd there and
then they are also working totake down dams and restore the

(48:49):
sturgeon.
And part of the way that theyare helping these young men heal
is by connecting them with song, ceremony, culture,
spirituality, but it's throughfly fishing and so they're
connecting these young men andhelping them become leaders.
And many of these young menhave had the hardest stories and

(49:13):
backgrounds that you can comefrom.
But because they've been givenopportunity and shown love and
shown appreciation and respect,they've really created a way to
heal these young men.
So we've been partnering withMedicine Fish for a couple of
years and wanna be able tointegrate more of what they're

(49:35):
doing here and perhaps more ofwhat we're doing here and there
and share and build and we'retrying to heal our communities.
We're trying to heal our youngmen.
We're trying to heal our youngwomen and what they're doing
there we're trying to heal ouryoung women and what they're
doing there we're trying toimplement here.
So we've got a couple differentyouth opportunities, youth camps

(50:00):
, youth leadership, where webring our ethnobotanists and our
scientists and our hydrologistsand we bring our ethnobotanists
and our scientists and ourhydrologists and give students
an opportunity to understandwhat those things are.
We had a culture climate youthcamp the last couple of years
where it's a three-day event.

(50:21):
You have elementary and middleand high school that come out
and then in a couple of weekswe're doing another camp with
Ronan Donovan, who's a Nat Geoexplorer and he's a photographer
and for the couple last yearshe's worked with some of our
tribal youth in getting themengaged with photography and

(50:45):
then culture.
So we're bringing medicine fish.
Ronan Donovan is coordinating ayouth photo camp and we're
going to utilize our ground upin the mountains to give those
young guys kind of a tripleapproach type of an opportunity
to just get better, see more ofwhat we have out there For me.

(51:12):
I got the opportunity to grow upwith my dad and as a biologist
he spent a lot of time in ourwilderness area understanding
the lakes and rivers and streams, so I got to be up there a lot
of the time on horseback and sopart of the nonprofit here here
have been trying to build ahorse program so that we could

(51:34):
take our young leaders into thewilderness for week-long pack
trips on horse, because horseculture goes hand in hand with
buffalo culture and if we'retrying to heal with relationship
in Buffalo, we can alsointegrate horse culture into
that, and being able to takekids into the wilderness and

(51:58):
have experiences like I didmight help formulate some more
ideas and opportunities for them, which is why I do what I do,
and so I think that's animportant aspect of having a
non-profit that is doing worklike this is that we can bring a

(52:19):
unique perspective andopportunities to our communities
that really wouldn't happenotherwise.
Yeah, and the non-profit is onlywhat a couple years yeah,
february of 23, so yeah, veryyoung yeah, and yet so much has
happened just in that period oftime I was fortunate to have

(52:39):
that platform of platform withnational wildlife federation and
and then built a built out anetwork of support base that
could bring resources prettyquickly for land acquisition,
because NWF can't own land andso it was necessary to not only
start a non-profit that could,but also it needed to be tribal

(53:01):
led.
You know, national WildlifeFederation is a predominantly
white large conservationorganization.
This is the showcase for howNWF can work with and engage
tribes on conservation.
So this is this is a keystoneproject for NWF.
But what that did was allow meto tap into some resources that

(53:24):
otherwise wouldn't have beenthere to get it up and off the
ground.
And then key folks like Xavierand Taylor and Pamela and Albert
and our team, once we kind ofgot off the ground, we were
ready to hit the ground running.
We've got a lot of fundraisingto do for land acquisition and

(53:46):
now keeping some sustainabilityand longevity into what we're
building.
So the work's just beginning.
We're just getting started.

AJ (53:58):
Talking about the land acquisition.
It's a great story in itself inmany ways, but I think I even
heard you say it once that it'sland that was stolen that you're
having to buy back.
So there's still that thingabout it isn't there.
And I have seen back home and Iknow this happened over east
here a bit as well in thiscountry, where land has just

(54:21):
been given back, bequeathed ordonated even ahead of dying,
just given back, and that themovement of that in Australia.
People have spoken about thatlike we all die, like what's
your life gonna have stood for?
Yeah, and so they set upstructures where they could
still have access themselves,but they're given that ownership

(54:42):
for want of a better word, thattenure back.
Is that an option here?
Is it, have you that?
Could it be the people you'veworked with?
Can that be broached?

Jason (54:54):
Not.
Well, I'm an optimist so Iwon't say no, but I think that
there are levels of difficulty.
You can come across anindividual landowner who loves
your idea, knows that he's goingto be passing on and he wants

(55:18):
to do something meaningful withhis land.
I've had several people likethat want to have a conversation
about it, and actually a few Ineed to follow up on even.
But they're not contiguousground and out here these like
priority is contiguous ground,so you can have a neighbor who

(55:39):
who's very supportive or you canhave a neighbor who could give
a crap about what you're doing,yeah, and so there's obviously
that spectrum.
Then you get to the localgovernment and agency level and
here that's like Fremont County,the commissioners, or you got
Riverton City Council or you gotthe Bureau of Reclamation,

(56:03):
which is a federal agency buthas no track record of really
working with the tribes.
Bureau of Reclamation couldchange a lot of the problems
that we're having right now witha stroke of a pen, but they
won't because of the non-nativeinfluence at the legislative

(56:23):
level.
You know, you can kind of takea picture like this and you go
all the way towards Riverton andyou've got Pavilion and and
Kinnear and these are the whitefarmers and ranchers that are
out here.
They don't consider themselvespart of the reservation, even
though they are within theexterior boundaries of the
reservation.
So even this land right herethat we're on was one of those

(56:47):
pieces that was privatized andopened up to homesteading in
1902.
So everybody out here wouldargue that the tribes have no
stake in it.
Now you go over there 20 milesthat way to our tribal
communities and thatconversation is flip-flopped
where tribes are like that'sstolen ground and you're selling

(57:12):
it.
So these lands go for about$55,000 to $7,000 per acre and
they're 160, 300-acre parcelsand so that makes it pretty
expensive when you're trying topiece back a few hundred acres,
I mean that's a pretty goodprice tag.

(57:32):
Tribes don't have the money tobuy that, and so this was the
mechanism that I found to getland back, because buffalo
restoration is land rematriation, which is a form of
reconciliation.
People can literally buy intothis.

(57:53):
Now they're not going to wantto buy land and just give it
away to a tribe.
They want to give land toBuffalo and they want to see
Buffalo restored for itsimportance to the people and the
land, and that brings much morecredibility and their ownership

(58:15):
into wanting to supportsomething like this, and so I
think that that's part of thereason why we're generating
revenue is that, and support isbecause it's not just about the
buffalo, it's about the land andit's also about the people yeah

(58:35):
, fascinating.

AJ (58:36):
I remember in one of the short documentaries that's been
made here there was a, an oldwhite guy is his name tom
doherty, maybe tom doherty, yeah?
And he said something like thathe basically learned through
this work what it was to be withthe tribes and to see it from
that lens.

(58:56):
So he got it at the other endof it.

Jason (59:00):
He was one of the only guys who did see it Really Early
on, when my dad was fightingthe state and the feds on the
management of the river duringthe water rights case, he was
looking for help out there withother NGOs, other organizations,
other states.
Nobody would help him.

(59:21):
Tom Doherty was the guy whostepped up and he was the
president of the WyomingWildlife Federation at the time,
which is an affiliate of theNational Wildlife Federation,
and that's how my dad was ableto get connected to more support
and that was because of TomDoherty.

AJ (59:41):
Tom is probably my dad's closest friend even today it
just goes to show hey, like notto get too down on the
knockbacks, because you'll finda connection.
Yeah, and so much can come ofit.

Jason (59:57):
Yeah, I mean, you just have to be willing to take that
step, and Tom Doherty waswilling to take a step when no
one else would.
Those two and many others whowere supportive of tribes and
sovereignty andself-determination and in-stream

(01:00:18):
flow to protect fisheries orthe wilderness, or wolves and
bears or buffalo as wildlife youknow, those are big concepts.
Those are big concepts, thoseare big challenges and we've
still got a lot of battles tofight.
And Buffalo as wildlife is likeone step closer to helping us

(01:00:42):
undo a little bit of thatmanifest destiny that was thrown
at us.
I could play a big step.
Allows us to take some fencesdown.

AJ (01:00:53):
And, you know, in an Australian context this lands
big time right now, from a veryinteresting angle, right now in
Australia, what's become areally big story is a station,
as we call them, a ranch, in thenorth or western Australia,
200,000 acres.
It's interesting too, right onmultiple levels, because this is

(01:01:14):
a guy whose literally had toflee family, had to flee now
Zimbabwe, old Rhodesia, whenthere was the revolution
happening there.
So he finds his way to theKimberley, the region we call
north of Western Australia, andends up on this station.
What's interesting frommultiple levels is that he was

(01:01:35):
part of the Savory School.
He really latched on to AlanSavory, whose epiphany came from
watching the wildebeest andRight, yeah, so it's interesting
that you know whitefellas, asthey get called in Australia,
whitefellas and Indigenous folkcoming back to the same source,
through the source, throughactually observation of these

(01:01:56):
animals.
And then what's happening inthis place is that he's gone.
Okay, the old megafauna inaustralia is gone.
Yeah, he's managing some cattleout there.
Sure, he's gone.
That's not enough.
And then we'd see there are allthese wild herds of animals that
were domesticated, brought toaustralia, domesticated, but

(01:02:16):
then let go when we developedthe train and the car or
whatever.
So I'm talking donkeys, forexample, yeah, but there are
camels and there's tons ofothers too, so the meaning of
this has has massivereverberations.
So what he's managed to do isget back in relationship,
trusted relationship, with thesedonkeys.

(01:02:37):
So they're not domesticated,they're not fenced, but they're
doing the work of grazing theupper ranges so that fire
doesn't get them, and all theland benefits to that.
They're re-socializing intoherd, so all the benefits for
them, yeah, and the wholething's working really
beautifully.
Except the donkeys are stilldesignated as feral pests that

(01:03:02):
have to be shot and it's thestation's responsibility to do
it if it's on their land.
So this has now been goingthrough a state mediation
process for years and itcontinues.
It keeps sort of coming up tojudgment day, but.
But adjourns and adjourns, andadjourns.
And I think, because it's sucha paradigm shift, because what
if you can work with wildanimals?

(01:03:25):
You don't have to make themdomesticated, right, but they're
managed in some kind of way.
So whatever language you wantto put on it, they're still free
to be, yeah, what they are, andthey're doing amazing things
for the whole community,including the humans in the
space.
So when I saw that you'd donethis, this designation as wild.

(01:03:48):
I thought, wow, theramifications of coming up
against that paradigm change,basically isn't it.
But I'm so curious then howit's well, a then we've heard a
bit about how it's come aboutand happened here, but what's
the practicality for you then onthe ground in having that
happen, in bringing down fencesand in negotiating the perceived

(01:04:09):
threats in others?

Jason (01:04:12):
well for me.
I'm a member of the shishonitribe and getting that
designation through the shishonitribe was easier for me.
It's harder for me to make thatkind of influence on the arapa
tribe, so I need allies in thetribe that can be advocates at
leadership level, and what thatmeans is that once we have that

(01:04:34):
17,000 acres out there fencedoff, that we could essentially
let out family groups from theShoshone tribe, from the Arapaho
tribe and grow a population outthere that has a distinction as
wildlife.
Arapaho tribe hasn't made thatdecision yet, and part of the
reason why we need that wildlifedesignation is not only for the

(01:04:58):
purposes of trying to keep themas wildlife, but it also has
practical reasons in that theseare the tribe's buffalo, not an
individual's, and right nowpeople see them as they're
somehow mine or theorganizations, or this is
somehow my personal project orsomething, and these are the

(01:05:21):
tribes buffalo.
So we're caretaking the theseanimals so that they can become
the seed population for thewildlife that will essentially
become the reservation's buffalo.
So if they didn't have thatdistinction as wildlife, they

(01:05:41):
would be seen as competition forindividual cattle producers and
they may also be subject to apermit system under Bureau of
Indian Affairs because theywould have livestock status.
So it doesn't make any sensefor the tribe to pay Bureau of
Indian Affairs to graze its ownbuffalo on our own tribal land.

(01:06:01):
So having that distinction anddesignation means that BIA can't
impose some kind of permit onthe tribe.

AJ (01:06:11):
Interesting and working with the Arapaho, then how's that
going?
Is there interest?

Jason (01:06:20):
Yeah, but there's a couple of cattle producers that
are on leadership and they kindof undermine or question the
legitimacy of some of our asksbecause they see buffalo as a
threat or don't understand orhave misconceptions or are just

(01:06:41):
not supportive.

AJ (01:06:43):
You worked in the past Tuhay , with some water rights stuff
with the Arapaho and you were insome kind of position where you
were trying to reach thatcommon ground.
Wind River.

Jason (01:06:53):
Alliance?
Yeah, we had, and my dad wasinvolved with that too.
Yeah, we've always thought weneed to challenge the whole
court, the whole legality ofthat court case and what.
Just how wrong it is you knowwe're talking about.
This is right.
That whole water case is wrong.

(01:07:14):
Like there's holes all overthat damn thing.
That it makes no sense.
And it makes no sense to peoplewho are even on the other side.

AJ (01:07:25):
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 (01:07:35):
They dewater the entire wind river there's.
There's places you can walkacross it, not get your feet wet
really geez.
This echoes australia'ssituation with our main, so they
take all non-indians take allthe water for high water use
crops like alfalfa and sugarbeet, almost out of spite,
because the state says all waterin the state is for ag and the

(01:07:59):
tribes are like, well, whatabout all the other uses?
Yeah, it's just a ridiculous,ridiculous case.
That should have never went theway it did.
When was that?
The state of Wyoming filed suitagainst the tribes?
In 77, and then a case wasessentially decided and there

(01:08:22):
was kind of a couple there wasBighorn, adjudication 1, and
there was Adjudication 2.
Essentially, 92 was the finaldecision.
Right, yeah, that's a wholeother can of worms.
Yeah, but the land that we'rebuying back is within an area
below the diversion dam whichwas put in by Bureau Rec in the

(01:08:46):
30s, or in the MidvaleIrrigation District.
So we could essentially beginto question water rights and use
by Midvale Irrigation Districtand the BOR once these lands can
be restored to tribal status.
And so Buffalo are going tomake it possible for us to take

(01:09:08):
on the water rights case at somepoint.
I don't know how and I don'tknow when, but it's inevitable.

AJ (01:09:15):
Yeah, it's interesting.
They should lead back to that.
Yeah, but sort of obvious whenyou think about it.

Jason (01:09:23):
It is to us, you guys, good, are we in a tight frame?
You guys are looking at me likewe got somewhere to be.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
No, we can do the loop around if you want.

Jason (01:09:34):
Oh yeah, wanna go check out the rest of the ground.
Yeah, I may have to feed thetwo knuckleheads, but Okay, the
little ones, yeah, we'll comefor that, you guys want you got
time for that.
Yeah, alright, let's go do that.
How long have you been overhere in the States?

(01:10:06):
About a year.

AJ (01:10:07):
About a year.

Speaker 3 (01:10:07):
Yeah.

AJ (01:10:10):
We've been longer away from home, but we spent a couple of
two or three months in Guatemalaas well.
Oh yeah, because I used to livedown there for a period of time
when I was in my 20s.
Yeah, very cool.
Yeah, it's been superinteresting.
I mean all the more, I guess,because it's in the crucible of
the moment.

Jason (01:10:30):
Yeah.

AJ (01:10:31):
Pre and post election.
But, man, the stories like this, they're just.

Jason (01:10:37):
Yeah, I think about this quite often, in that you know I
keep up in the news, I payattention to what's going on in
the world and I tell you I get alittle bit sad and depressed
about that, but I can look outthe window or I can go for a
ride, I can go for a drive, andthis is the best thing happening

(01:10:58):
on the entire planet, and soI'm always constantly reassured
that everything's fine.
Yes, I feel the same way thateverything's fine.

AJ (01:11:07):
Yes, I feel the same way through this way I just go meet
the next awesome person, likeyou know, paint their off in
Montana and go, man, it'severywhere.
Because it is right, it is,this is real.

Jason (01:11:17):
This is real, this is tangible.
You can see it, you can smellit, you can taste it.
What's that bird?

AJ (01:11:23):
that just came out of the Snipe Snipe.
I've seen a bit of thathappening while we've been
talking.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
Yeah.

AJ (01:11:30):
Great grass cover Cool bird.
Yeah, very cool looking bird.

Jason (01:11:35):
So this is the fence line .
What we're getting ready tocross was the original 300 acres
.
Oh, wow, okay, so you see theold 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 fiveproperties that have been pieced
together and all the interiorfence is pulled out, so that way
they can move through withoutany damn fences in their way I

(01:11:57):
love.
And so we left them.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
Exactly.

Jason (01:12:00):
So you can see the evidence of it?
Yes, but also they can use itas 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 thatcrap down Right on.
And that's the fence we put up.
We put that up in 2015 tocontain this 300 acres, but
after we got that land overthere, that fence came out, even

(01:12:23):
though we paid for it to go in.

AJ (01:12:24):
Yeah, the things you gotta do eh.

Jason (01:12:29):
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 muchas it takes.
Well, that's cool, it's great.
If I had the money I wouldspend it.
But it's not.
Why do I gotta be stingy overhow it gets spent?
It's all for the buffalo.

AJ (01:12:46):
I feel the same way, and the cool thing is the people or at
least some of these people thatdo have the money feel the same
way.
That's right.

Jason (01:12:53):
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 (01:13:06):
Well, there's the call.
You count them on one hand.
I know that Most people arepretty selfish.

Jason (01:13:08):
Well, again, look what you can do with one or two
people just putting their handup?

AJ (01:13:10):
Yeah, what if five or six did?
Yeah, I think of that For thosewho are in that position where
you can man the rewards.

Jason (01:13:19):
Yeah, and then you get organizations too.
So you've got individuals, youget organizations, and and then
you got those organizations thathave the networks, and so we've
, we've, I've, I've got anincredible network right yeah, I
just they just keep coming.
Yeah, that's cool.
Like this, this was bringingout all the greatest people in

(01:13:41):
the world to come here and seeit, and that that's awesome.
Our allies are just growing.
The people who don't like itand the people who want to
complain about it they don'tcome here to visit.

AJ (01:13:56):
Which is more the pity.

Jason (01:13:57):
In a way it is that's kind of who you need to reach so
that they can spread thatmisinformation.

AJ (01:14:02):
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 controversyaround the American prairie too,
obviously, where Pedro is andsame thing, and I think he's
managing it, along with someothers, reasonably well, and
they're trying to get better atit.
Just actually get to know eachother.
Don't just be talking from overthe fence of stuff you don't

(01:14:23):
know.
Yeah, from both sides you knowabout 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 founderand an instigator, that's got to
be a common lot.
But how do you?

(01:14:44):
I mean, you've've got yourrationale, but I guess what's
your lived experience of oftrying to disavow that it's not
about you?
I mean, I guess, creating anon-profit's part of that, huh,
because you're just one of amanaging body yeah, yeah, you
diversify leadership anddecision making.

Jason (01:15:02):
It's not all just me, and for a period of time it was.
But you know, truth prevailsand lies have a way of filtering
themselves out over time.
So I mean I can explain topeople what what I'm doing and
what my goals and what what Ienvision this.

(01:15:24):
But if they don't believe methen I don't need to spend any
more time trying to convincethem, because over time they
will see and I'm not trying tochange everybody's mind on what
maybe they feel about me.
I want the work to speak foritself and it has.

(01:15:53):
You know, xavier and Taylor andAlbert and Pam and the crew now
associated with it.
So I mean I have to be able tonot let negativity and naysayers
, misconceptions and lies affectme.
So I have to kind of do somedeep down kind of soul searching

(01:16:16):
myself to call it out formyself when it's there.
Yeah, I don't need that energyto drain me any more than what I
already do drains me.
Yes, and if I know what I'mdoing is is is the right thing

(01:16:37):
for the buffalo, it's the rightthing for our community, it's
the right thing for ournon-profit and our organization,
then that's, that's just okaywith me, like because if it ever
gets called into question oryou know people bring it back up
, I think the evidence will bebe there to where the lies won't

(01:17:03):
make sense anymore.
I believe that again becauseit's real.
Yeah, to where the lies won'tmake sense anymore, I believe
that Again, because it's real.

AJ (01:17:10):
Yeah, you can manufacture stories, obviously, but yeah,
what's real.
There's another saying amongstAboriginal folk some Aboriginal
folk I was talking to back inAustralia that they never forgot
where the water was.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
Yeah, Just anchor it to what's real.

AJ (01:17:24):
Yeah, but yeah, noting though that you, you have to
catch yourself in itoccasionally, and uh, yeah, some
some things, you some thingswill bother me I've been
bothered by some things.

Jason (01:17:35):
People have said, yep, and in hindsight, or even in
having some foresight, to to notnot engage.
Do not let that energy in,because it can drain you real
fast if you let it.
And I have to be reminded aboutthat vote, you know 90 to 7.

(01:17:56):
Overwhelming support is outthere, just keep doing it, just
keep going.
And oftentimes I think aboutthese little old Shoshone
grandmas that when we broughtthe first 10 buffalo, they came
up and they said you keep doingwhat you're doing, don't listen
to anybody.
And I tell you, the littleShoshone grandmas, tell me to
keep doing it.
I sure as heck am going to keepgoing because it's them that

(01:18:21):
hold on to those beliefs andvalues that many of our own
people forgotten, to thosebeliefs and values that many of
our own people have forgotten.
And if you look out here andthe buffalo are doing just fine,
everything is fine.
We get caught up in our humanstuff all the time.
But if the land is expanding,the buffalo are expanding and

(01:18:41):
they're having babies, we aredoing fine.
We can't get confused about ourhuman stuff, because the goal
is them, the buffalo.
It's a hell of a sight, Jasonthe snow-capped mountains and
rolling hills, and Seven morerange units and these buffalo

(01:19:03):
will be able to get to the topof 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 tenyears, hopefully in the next
three to five years, I've gottwo more range units next door
to this one and then we'd have70,000 acres out there, and that

(01:19:26):
70,000 is actually contained bytwo highways.
So that's, practicality-wise,makes sense as a next feasible,
achievable goal.

AJ (01:19:38):
This bit's treed.
This is the waterway here, Iguess.
Yeah, this is the Wind River.

Jason (01:19:42):
This is the riparian area for the river bottom, so the
Wind River headwaters are upthere.
And then it comes down throughhere and goes over by Riverton
and flows north through WindRiver Canyon.
Once it gets through Wind RiverCanyon it changes name from the

(01:20:07):
Wind River to the Bighorn, andthat's why it's referred to as
the Big Horn case.
Oh right, the water rights caseGot it.
It's because it was adjudicatedin Thermopolis, where the river
is called the Big Horn Right,but I almost think that they did
that on purpose to drawattention away from what they
did here.

AJ (01:20:22):
It matters, doesn't it?
Yeah, and this is old EasternShoshone lands as well.

Jason (01:20:30):
traditional lands- oh yeah, our reservation was 44
million acres in 1863.
In 1868 it was reduced by 42million acres.

Speaker 3 (01:20:41):
What.

AJ (01:20:42):
And what instigated that?
Did they find some minerals orsomething?

Jason (01:20:46):
Oregon Trail, santa Fe Trail, right Pony Express they
all came right through theShoshone.

AJ (01:20:54):
Reservation.
That's another one of thesestories, hey of you're already
into a reservation context andeven then you're stripped of
that.

Jason (01:21:04):
And then after that they were stripped of land even
further.
Really, yeah, I could gothrough a timeline with you of
all of the steps, all of thosehistorical decisions that have
resulted in the way it is now.

AJ (01:21:22):
What's your experience of still being anchored, albeit at
2 million anchors, but to thattraditional land.

Jason (01:21:32):
The lands that we were on and utilized.
We've always had a reciprocalrelationship with kind of like
what we're referring to withthis buffalo, but it has to do
with our foods.
So the lands that we were onobviously provided all the

(01:21:56):
sustenance that we needed, andfor us Shoshone people that was
obviously the buffalo, but it'salso in roots and plants and
berries which comprised ourancestral traditional diet.
Certain seasons we would moveto different areas to hunt and

(01:22:17):
harvest different foods.
That was tied to the medicinewheel represents spring, summer,
fall, winter.
Well, we had different foodsfor every season, which meant we
needed to travel to a differentplace or different elevation
every season.
So in the summer months we usedto move to the mountain and we

(01:22:39):
would hunt and harvest food upthere throughout the summer.
Then come time, fall and andwinter time that would be time
to move low elevation.
That changed our foods and whatwe would hunt and gather.
So out of the big 44 millionacre reservation, imagine the

(01:23:00):
amount of resources that youcould hunt and gather and
sustain yourselves.
Well, when you go from a 44million acre to a two million
acre reservation and then youstart to hunt year round, you
deplete the wildlife and thenyou have westward expansion
coming in telling you that nowyou have to become farmers and

(01:23:22):
ranchers.
The buffalo are gone.
Then you rely on the federalgovernment for commodity like
flour, sugar and salt.
So our relationship with theland changed with colonization.
It becomes sedentary.
They put us in villages, theyput us in square boxes that we
couldn't move from.

(01:23:43):
So not a lot of us.
I remember as a youngster weused to go stay in the summer up
in the mountains for severalcouple months Really, and a lot
of families used to do that, andwe'd gather firewood and we'd
gather resources to prepare forwinter, and so we'd bring that
stuff down and then yeah, so Ithink that we're trying to find

(01:24:06):
our way back to that possibly.
Yeah, I mean, I speak for myself, but I see it in some of our
young people that are continuingto practice our ceremonies.

(01:24:27):
We've got young people going inand learning the songs.
It's there, it's alive.
It's not abundant, but it'salive.

AJ (01:24:40):
Have you learned much about your ancestry further back.

Jason (01:24:46):
Well, both of my parents are Shoshone, so on my mom's
side we come from a prominentfamily.
On my dad's side he's enrolledShoshone.
But my dad's grandpa came fromIsleta Pueblo and his name was

(01:25:08):
Claude Moya and he had witnesseda murder, him and his cousin,
and they rode horses north toWyoming and his cousin was shot
off of the horse and so, toescape persecution, my
great-grandpa took his mother'smaiden name, which was Valdez,
and he changed the V to a B andthe Z to an S.

(01:25:28):
I was wondering about the S.
So my last name comes fromClaude Moya, but he was from
Isla del Pueblo, new Mexico, andhe married a Mexican lady and
she came from the Perea family,both from here but more of a
Mexican and Pueblo lineage.

(01:25:50):
Yeah, but the Shoshone family,the weed family my mom comes
from, is a prominent family here.
My great-grandpa on my mom'sside 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.
Wow, yeah, so that's just acouple of generations ago.

(01:26:15):
Yeah, yeah, before that, youknow, we were buffalo people, we
lived in lodges, we hunted,fish gathered, but my grandma
and grandpa went through theboarding school and so the
language stopped with them.
They didn't teach my aunts anduncles the language because of
what they went through.
So it was, my grandma andgrandpa were the last fluent

(01:26:36):
speakers.
Anything happening on thatfront?
Yeah, we have other families inthe tribe that are more
prominent or have the languagemore intact.
And then our schools, ourschools, are teaching immersion

(01:26:56):
language and we're doing ourbest, you know, out of out of
only 5,000 Shoshones.

Speaker 3 (01:27:04):
You know our number of elders is decreasing rapidly
yeah.

AJ (01:27:09):
Yeah, there's a moment in time Again.
Same back home for the ones whoare still with us.

Jason (01:27:14):
Yeah, and you know we lost a lot during COVID, really
yeah.

AJ (01:27:21):
You know, we were with the Osage back in Oklahoma and Chief
Standing Bear there showed uson his phone what some of the
young folk had designed in anapp with language.
So some of these kids aretexting each other young people
I don't know how young, buttexting each other in their
language.

Jason (01:27:42):
That's cool, isn't that cool?
We've got a language app.
Woke tribes have a language appReally, but they're not.
They're not like Duolingo.
They're not a there's not a lotof.
I guess there's not enoughresources into them to actually
have them be a great tool.
They're more like a dictionary.

Speaker 3 (01:28:00):
Yeah yeah, Like if you know you want to know a word
.

Jason (01:28:02):
you can look it up, but it's not like you can learn it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:07):
You know a really interactive lap like Duolingo.

Jason (01:28:09):
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 DuolingoAre they?

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
Yeah.

AJ (01:28:21):
Yes, he found it he started learning Navajo.

Jason (01:28:23):
Ojibwe's probably going to be on there soon.
This is a big linguistic grouplike Cree, yes, where they've
got big, like you know a lot ofspeakers.
Right, we've got maybe 20speakers left.
Yeah, wow, look at this buffalohair right here.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
You should grab that piece, oh yeah.

Jason (01:28:37):
That is cool, that's a good one.

AJ (01:28:39):
I'll take a photo in situ first.
Yeah, that's just from walkingthrough.

Jason (01:28:44):
Yeah, they're losing their winter coat Buffalo has.
This is second warmest naturalfiber on the continent, only
behind muskox.

AJ (01:28:52):
It's beautiful, isn't it?

Jason (01:28:53):
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 ropeout of it.
We give a little bit to kidswhen they're here.
They can always take a piece ofbuffalo home with them.

AJ (01:29:17):
That's awesome.
So that ancestry you'refamiliar with.
Do you feel a particularconnection to any aspect of it
in terms of being able to spotit in yourself and what's become
of your life?

Jason (01:29:34):
Oh, I don't.
I think I've always felt alittle bit lost and always
trying to find a piece of myselfand probably was always looking
for some level of acceptancethat I maybe I'm
overcompensating for.
Uh, because I was.

(01:29:54):
I was.
I was a child born out of anaffair, so I'm half with all my
siblings I'm the only, I'm theyoungest of nine, but I don't
have a full sibling and I'vealways kind of felt a little bit
isolated from my family members, because I was a bit unique and

(01:30:17):
I grew up with two loving moms.
I had two mothers, so I'vealways felt like double blessed
that both of my moms loved me mystepmother, my biological
mother and so I've kind ofalways been just a little bit
out of place, but I always knewI wanted to do good work and I
didn't know what that lookedlike Really.

AJ (01:30:39):
How far back can we talk?

Jason (01:30:41):
Very, very small.
I remember just thinking I justwanted 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 coolstuff and do painting and
drawing.
And I like to carve now when Ican find the time, but that eats
up a lot of hours, so I don'thave that.

(01:31:02):
But the, yeah, I remember froma young age just thinking just
do something good.
I didn't know what that lookedlike, maybe until I was about 26
.
And then I knew it was waterand Buffalo.
And then you know thatexperience in Africa, coming
home, still being a knuckleheadfor a while and then just

(01:31:22):
finally being like you know it'stime to actually get serious
about what it is I want to do.
So I did and I went to schooland I buckled down for ten years
to get my degrees and to comehome and just do this.
But I knew that it was gonnatake academic, the academic

(01:31:50):
credentials, to get it.
You know, yeah, what you doingup there.

Speaker 3 (01:31:52):
See my, there's the little horse.

Jason (01:31:54):
Yeah, he's gonna come down here.
I gotta go up there first.
Oh, buddy, it's gorgeous.
We'll get to see him prettyclose.
See, I gotta go up and get hislittle bottle ready.
And there's the buffalo calf.
We'll go up and get his littlebottle ready.
And there's the buffalo calf.
We'll go up and get her bottleready and then I'll bring him
down here.
So cool, I've got another horseand mare.

(01:32:14):
I'm trying to keep that littlehorse together with a little one
so he can learn how to be ahorse.
There's another little horseand mare in here, so I'm going
to, you can hang out, I'm goingto run in real quick, all right,
and I'm going to fix theirbottle and I'll be right out,

(01:32:36):
you bet, and then we're going to.
Then they'll follow us downthere, cool, but right now
they're going to be a bit.
They get a little bit nosyright now.
Hello, hello, hold on.

Speaker 3 (01:32:54):
You all good.

Jason (01:32:54):
Yeah, we gotta go down below All right.
Come on, let's go.
Come on, come on, let's go.

AJ (01:33:05):
Is it buffalo milk or camo?

Jason (01:33:08):
Lamb, Lamb.
Yeah, it's dehydrated lamb'smilk which is higher in fat.
This is for the horse, thatone's for the buffalo.
Oh yeah, I had to rig up acooler so that the horse could
eat while I'm doing the buffalo.
Come on, come on.

(01:33:36):
Come on sand dune.
He hasn't lived in here.

Speaker 3 (01:33:42):
Come on, come on Come on Igloo mama.

AJ (01:34:00):
That's outstanding.
That's what mums have to dealwith, huh.

Speaker 3 (01:34:10):
Yeah.

Jason (01:34:17):
So how much milk would a normal baby buffalo?

AJ (01:34:19):
drink per day.
Per day, that one goes aboutthree of those bottles.

Jason (01:34:22):
About three of these bottles.
Yeah, Wow, Morning, lunch anddinner.
She got fed at six this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:34:28):
This is her second feeding She'll get another one
this afternoon and then anotherone tonight, isn't?

Jason (01:34:34):
that six pints too, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:34:35):
So eighteen, Eighteen pints.

Jason (01:34:39):
Three liters, six pints yeah.

AJ (01:34:45):
Instincts, huh.

Jason (01:34:46):
Yeah, yeah, instincts, huh.

AJ (01:34:49):
Yeah, instinct, that's the way you want it.
You're getting that photo.
Yeah, sir.

Jason (01:34:54):
You've got to make it comfortable for her.

Speaker 3 (01:34:58):
You're never going to feed her the other way now.

Jason (01:35:01):
Well, I have been.
I've been feeding her off tothe side, but when she gets a
little picky then I'llaccommodate a little more.
But she's about good, so sheonly drank about this much for
now.
He drinks more frequently thanshe does, but I've been putting
them in here for the last threenights now.

(01:35:22):
But I don't like locking themin here during the day, so I let
them run around, but with hiscooler down here.
If they go go up there then hedoesn't get to eat because he
doesn't quite associate comingback down here to eat.
Yeah, not, not not every day doyou have a little horse and
buffalo being raised together?

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):
so species wise, they , the little buffalo was trying
to drink from the horse like afeather buffalo.

Jason (01:35:50):
You can see the horns are coming in.

AJ (01:35:52):
Really, the growth rate must be huge.

Speaker 3 (01:35:55):
Huh, I'm just telling these guys they have to be 180
kilos by the beginning of winter.

Jason (01:36:01):
Yeah, right, yep, yeah, these are the orphans.
That's beautiful.

AJ (01:36:06):
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 (01:36:11):
I don't know which one it is.
I don't know which one, I can'ttell.
I mean, you can see how muchthey look alike.

AJ (01:36:15):
Yeah, true, but she's tracking all right.

Jason (01:36:18):
Yeah, yeah, she's strong.
When she the first two days, wehad to intubate her.
She didn't know how to eat,which could have been the reason
why she was abandoned too, butwe had to intubate her, so you
had to put the tube down herthroat and make sure she was
getting milk.
And then she got strong enoughto be able to figure this out

(01:36:38):
Outstanding.
And so she's strong.
She's certainly strong.
She's not weak at all.
Yeah, she runs circles aroundhim, Is that right?
Oh yeah, I could take him for awalk every morning and evening
and, if I can, during the day.
So yeah, they walk all aroundthe place here and I've got them

(01:36:59):
where they'll follow me on myhorse too, so they can ride out
and they'll follow me on thehorse.

AJ (01:37:06):
What about other enterprise?
Have you got your eye on someof that as well, or are you
going to keep this sort ofcommercial-free as it?

Jason (01:37:14):
were.
Yeah, I'm really not focused ontrying to do anything to market
the meat or commercialization.
We don't do that for wildlife.
We've got to maintain thatfocus on ensuring that these
animals, first and foremost, arerestored as wildlife and not

(01:37:37):
livestock.
Livestock's the easy thing todo, anybody can do that.
Trying to do for wildlife andhaving a unique classification
and status means that that we'reshifting the paradigm
successfully where that doesn'thave to be questioned anymore.
But we've got to create thescenario for that to even be a

(01:38:01):
possibility at first, becausepeople don't know that they're,
they're even in a paradigm orseeing it a certain way, or
anything like that.

AJ (01:38:13):
So there's the river there.

Speaker 3 (01:38:15):
Yeah, yeah.

Jason (01:38:17):
So you can see the whole drainage goes through there.

AJ (01:38:24):
It's a hell of a landscape.
It does too yeah, that bluffover there is pretty awesome we
just don't have mountains likethis back in Australia.

Jason (01:38:36):
I've only flown into Sydney once.
I wish I could have spent timeI was in New Zealand, for I
travel.
About a month in New Zealand westayed in 17 different
locations.
There.
We were looking at effects ofhistoric wildfire, oh yeah, so I
drove like 4,000 miles in NewZealand how interesting Up and

(01:38:56):
down the South Island on theWest East Coast and then Big
Circle on the North Island.

AJ (01:39:01):
Yeah.

Jason (01:39:02):
Loved it down there.

AJ (01:39:03):
That's a cool sight.
They are mobile.

Jason (01:39:06):
That's a good sight.
Yeah, mobile, that's a goodsight yeah yeah, those are all
bulls these are big guys lookscool and they all walk together
like that.

AJ (01:39:15):
Huh, yeah, I mean, change is the only constant, yeah, and
it's inevitable Yep, which alsomeans we roll with the punches

(01:39:36):
you know Exactly.
Stand by for the next change.

Jason (01:39:38):
Stand by for the next change.
Yeah, yeah, If you don't likeit, wait a little while.
Yeah, I'm still trying tofigure out what I'm going to be
when I grow up Me too.
I didn't think it would be thisthis is pretty nice for the
meantime.
Oh yeah, sure is.
I still want to travel.

(01:39:58):
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, ugandaagain.
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, ugandaagain.
I'd love to go back to NewZealand.
I want to go to Australia, so Ihave Scandinavia.
I want to go visit the Samipeople.
I want to go to see indigenouspeople across the planet and

(01:40:21):
what they're doing to revivetheir culture and food
traditions.
That's like I would really loveto do, that.
Yeah, but that would be.
I mean, I can't picture, Ican't fathom that now with my
current circumstances.
So it's in the back of my mindand maybe working its way to the

(01:40:41):
front at some point.
I wanted to go look at theseguys before we go.
Cool, a couple of big fellas.

(01:41:10):
Yeah, big is big.
You get the feeling they knowhow big they are, oh yeah.

AJ (01:41:14):
That they're in charge.
Yeah, they know that they can'tbe really they can't really be
messed with.

Jason (01:41:18):
Since he stood up, we'll go and move him over a little
bit.
Slow head turn Should be ableto keep him coming close enough
that he won't step off.
I've got to give him a littlesecond to think about it and I
can go a little closer.
There's a nice piece of hairright underneath him.
Oh yeah, xavier, you see thathair right there where you were

(01:41:41):
sitting.
Good fluff, it's right therewhere you were sitting.

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
I'm not getting that one dude?

Jason (01:41:47):
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 atribal buffalo summit ourselves

(01:42:21):
for November and try to gettribal participation here.
Yeah, in the area, it'll be atprobably the casino in Riverton.
Yeah, yeah, in the area, it'llbe at probably the casino in
Riverton.
Yeah, but yeah, we want to beable to put together a convening
, that is, tribal members,tribal Buffalo programs, tribal

(01:42:43):
resource management focusedprograms, tribal resource
management focus.
Oftentimes a lot of theseevents are all non-native
organized, so it's just not thesame.
So we want to try to bring ourown flavor and work with some

(01:43:04):
other native organizations thatcan make it a unique conference.
So you can see our calf overthere somewhere in the size of
these guys.
Yeah.

AJ (01:43:18):
I love the calf there, just flat out on its side.
It just reminds me of humanswhen they're young, it's got to
sleep a lot, yeah.

Jason (01:43:27):
Growing up, I like when you can grab by them and you can
smell them.
Yeah, that's a new one rightthere.
Yeah, it's just a couple ofdays.
Oh man, look at that.
Yeah, look at them.
Babies all over the place.
That's just awesome.
Yeah, one has horns and theother has horns.
Yeah, look at the babies allover the place.

(01:43:48):
It's just awesome.
Yeah, one has horns and theother one doesn't.

AJ (01:43:52):
Oh yeah, Something comes back, just to be sure, it's
amazing.

Jason (01:44:02):
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, herewe are Wow.

AJ (01:44:15):
Pulls me away.
It's a little better when theylook you in the eye.

Jason (01:44:19):
huh, oh yeah they're powerful, they've got you can
feel it, got, you can feel itDefinitely a very spiritual
alive, being you know wheretheir essence about them is
still there.

Speaker 3 (01:44:37):
They haven't been messed up.

Jason (01:44:40):
This is last year's calf still nursing on her mom.
Yeah, she's the one that shegot injured.
She was being bred and she gother pelvis broke.
But because she had a calfthere's nothing we could do
anyway.
But she's still feeding hercalf from last year, even though
she's got her back.

(01:45:00):
Mom's a hero right, yeah.
Yeah, she's a good mama.
Yeah, despite her pain.

AJ (01:45:08):
That was the protection.

Speaker 3 (01:45:12):
Oh, that's cool.

AJ (01:45:15):
One's got a gallop up over there, yeah.
So that growth, it's adifferent 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 (01:45:28):
Yeah, they grow fast.
These ones will be that sizenext year, this time.

Speaker 3 (01:45:33):
Yeah.

Jason (01:45:34):
Yeesh, this one's still pregnant here, this one walking
towards us.
That's another one.
She still hasn't had hers, yetshe might be getting close.
She looks grumpy.
This one's still pregnant.
This one's still.
She still hasn't had hers, yetshe might be getting close.
She looks grumpy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
Look at the brain I put in there.
Man Don't move too fast.

AJ (01:46:37):
It's just a little head scratch, that's bumping my
vehicle.

Jason (01:46:41):
Yeah, scratch in his head .
Yeah, fair size.
Lots of people stop on the sideof the road and they're over

(01:47:07):
here.
It shows you, doesn't?

Speaker 3 (01:47:08):
it yeah.

Jason (01:47:10):
There's another one right there.

AJ (01:47:14):
That film that was made in Blackfeet Reservation, bring
them Home.

Jason (01:47:18):
Bring them Home.

AJ (01:47:18):
It's scooped up, it's everywhere.

Jason (01:47:21):
We've got one called the Buffalo Story.
Really, yeah, there's actuallythree native films that came out
the same year Bring them HomeSinging Back, the Buffalo and A
Buffalo Story and ours.
It was paid for by NationalWildlife Federation and we are

(01:47:41):
thinking that NBC might pick itup, but it was made by thinking
that NBC might pick it up, butit was made by Colin Ruggiero.
So that's the poster of it yeahthat's awesome.
It should be coming out as wellBrilliant.

AJ (01:47:59):
Will any of these big fellas let you close, no Once they're
there, it's their domain.

Jason (01:48:07):
Yeah, yeah, we, we don't approach them, we only let them
approach us, and that just givesyou 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

(01:48:31):
oceanside back home.

AJ (01:48:33):
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, youknow, like I've been paddling
next to a whale that will, youknow, just a tail wag?
Sure, yeah, but they don't yeahand it just strikes me here,

(01:48:55):
with them too, they're notaggressive beings no, yeah.

Jason (01:49:00):
And if you don't give them a reason to be like
yellowstone, where they getharassed all the time and you
respect their space and you letthem approach you, then there's
no.
There is no aggressiveness,there's no defensiveness,
there's no reason for them to bethat way towards us at all.

AJ (01:49:19):
It's very apparent that and you know, you observe the same
thing in snakes.
One of the stories we haveabout animals out to get us Dogs
, horses.

Jason (01:49:30):
You just have respect for the animal.
But you've got to know your ownspace and your own boundary.
Most people are totally unawareof their space, even their
energy.
Most people are unaware oftheir space.
Even their energy.
Most people are unaware oftheir energy.
They're talking real loud, theydon't know how to shut it down

(01:49:53):
and animals can feel thatbecause they're all nonverbal,
obviously.
So I learned about it frombeing around horses a lot and
it's just you just be carefulwith your energy.
You know they feel that.

AJ (01:50:11):
It's great, it's awesome for them.
It's awesome, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, he'll be tellinghis stories later.
Yeah, when I was 11.
Yeah, oh, that was cool man.

Speaker 3 (01:50:31):
Yeah, it's the easiest place to be hanging out
with these guys, these guys,yeah.

Jason (01:50:41):
Yeah it was awesome.
We had a lot of peopleoperating with us.
We did they Amazing.

AJ (01:50:47):
Yeah, so curious about the vehicles.
What's in the back?
Yeah?

Jason (01:50:52):
yeah, scratch their face.
Yeah, thanks for that.
So we want a grant to put up abuilding, but it's for
ecotourism.
Now I wanted a grant to put upa building, but it's for
ecotourism.
Now I wanted a grant to put upa headquarters for our
non-profit.

(01:51:12):
Hmm, but somehow we got acompromise.
So we got a $9.8 millionbuilding going up, right here Is
that right?
Well, I think so, unless weback out of it.
Yeah, well, then think so,unless we back out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:51:27):
Yeah, well, maybe.

Jason (01:51:27):
Yeah, but it's like you have to raise the money just to
try to pay for running it afteryeah, so it makes me a bit
nervous.

AJ (01:51:39):
Totally.

Jason (01:51:41):
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 wholeeco tourism business.

AJ (01:51:53):
Yeah, no, it's a whole thing .
The um, where I've seen it done.
Well, they got people in whoreally knew how to do that.
That's what we're gonna.
That's what to do.

Jason (01:52:06):
Yeah, I think yeah, because none of our team members
were set up to run a tourismthing.

AJ (01:52:15):
Yeah, it's a whole distinct thing, it's a whole thing.

Jason (01:52:17):
But where it's done well, I've seen it be awesome Well
and Africa is actually the placethat reminded me of it, with
all the lodges and the tourismand everything that they're
doing to accommodate visitors.
That's kind of what we need.
And hiring it out yeah, we'rekind of navigating that, but

(01:52:38):
apparently by this time nextyear we should be well underway
to be building it.
Yeah, so it'll be a littledifferent.
We want to keep my office inhere, but you're in building it,
yeah.
Yeah, so it'll be a littledifferent.
I'm going to keep my office inhere.
You're in the shed?
Yeah, I'd much rather be in theshed than in a big old palace
building.

AJ (01:52:58):
What about?
You mentioned the inner tribalbuffalo cancer before.

Jason (01:53:02):
Yeah.

AJ (01:53:02):
So that's growing still right.

Jason (01:53:04):
Yeah, we're up to 87 tribes now, from Alaska, new
York, florida, almost everystate in between.

AJ (01:53:12):
And there's a bunch that are really progressing pretty
strongly with the buffalo aswell.

Jason (01:53:18):
Yeah, it depends on the tribe and the land base, but you
know 87 tribes working torestore their you know buffalo
back to their lands is prettysignificant.
So you know, tribes in the westhave a little bit more.
You know larger land bases thatmaybe make it a little easier,
but it doesn't diminish theimportance of buffalo depending

(01:53:41):
on the size of the tribe'sreservation.
You know they're all importantand and so I think trying to
accommodate as many tribes as wecan with resources, also trying
to work on federal trust,responsibility and getting more

(01:54:01):
funding and resources to thosetribes is challenging, but we
can.
Resources to those tribes ischallenging, but we can
definitely see the membershipgrowing and we've got a.
Actually, the biggest limitationfor tribes is land, and what
we're building here ispotentially a replicable process

(01:54:23):
that we can assist other tribesin finding a network, growing
their capacity, buying land, ifthat's what they got to do, or
changing land use, if that'sneeded, partnering with agencies
or other NGOs.

(01:54:54):
So I think that what we're doinghere is a process and an
achievement that we can doelsewhere.
I think that's part of thebeauty of this is that once you
see it, you can fathom it, andthat's half the battle, because
most people can't fathom whatwe're trying to do.
But this this gives you an ideawhat Buffalo is wildlife, land

(01:55:16):
rematriation and thereconciliation that can go into
that to really achieve somethingthat's much bigger than all of
us.
And I think that's what's mostimportant about this is that
this is for future generations,this is for our young people,

(01:55:36):
this is for other tribes, otherpeople that can recognize how
important this is, not only forthe people that are here, but
for all Americans, for allconservation, for what happened
to bison in this country.
It's just something that'sreally good and I just don't

(01:56:04):
know how you can find anythingwrong with it.

AJ (01:56:07):
I wonder when you mention your art, does this come through
your art?

Jason (01:56:13):
Yeah, I think it does, because I really used to like to
do pencil drawing and oil andwatercolor and I used to do that
quite a bit when I was younger.
But I was always tryingcouldn't to find what I was
trying to create and that wasalways kind of a problem for me.

(01:56:34):
Thinking about going into artas a major was because I didn't
know what I was gonna do withart.
And when I finally found stonecarving, when I was in treatment
, actually for alcohol, I foundthis old guy who was carving

(01:56:54):
stone and stone carving issomething we've always done In
Shoshones.
We made bowls out of soapstoneand we made our utensils out of
soapstone, our pipes out ofsoapstone, and once I found that
I started carving buffalo andcarving little figurines of

(01:57:17):
buffalo and figurines of otherlittle things, birds and mammals
.
So I think about the time whereI found recovery and sobriety
was about the same time I foundstone carving and it was like
the only thing I had never done.
I did jewelry making and bronzepainting, drawing, sculpture,

(01:57:44):
but stone carving was one thingI had never done until I was in
finding my recovery.
I would say that it is in myart now way more so than it ever
was.
But it's hard to find the timeto do art now because I'm so
busy with everything else.
But I can easily sit in car for10 or 12 hours and and and it

(01:58:09):
just go like just like that,like like that, but I don't have
10 or 12 hours of time that Ican put to that.
So it's a kind of a balancingact.
At some point I'll be able tospend more time doing what it is
.
I like to do Stone carving.

(01:58:30):
I really want to do morewoodworking.
I really love camping andfishing and creating tools that
help sustain my hobbies.
So I like to be able to createthings out of wood that become
heirlooms that I can pass offbut are tools.

(01:58:51):
So I've been really wanting tobuild 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 todo leather craft.
I like to braid leather andrawhide, and so I'm always

(01:59:12):
trying to think of ideas, ofwhen I have the time, what am I
going to create?
So it's either going to beleather or stone or wood.

AJ (01:59:22):
Did you ever play music?

Jason (01:59:23):
Yeah, I played guitar.
I played saxophone, played in athree-piece band when I was
going to school in Bozeman.
I played upright bass.
That's great Good work, yeah, sosince I moved home I haven't
really been playing too muchmusic.
I really miss it.
We'd have a couple gigs a weekwhen I was living up there, and

(01:59:46):
that was part.
Of the hardest thing frommoving from Montana was that I
was moving away from music andaway from my band and back to
this, and this was obviouslymost important.
But it was hard to let thatpart of me go and my bass is
still up there.
I left it up there in hopesthat when I could go back we'd

(02:00:08):
be able to play again.
So my other band member has mybass up there the thread's still
there.
I partly ask because I alwaysend every episode with a piece
of music that means something toyou and you know, if people
happen to play and they want toplay something, you can always

(02:00:28):
do that I always like um, yourrocky spine by the great lake
swimmers, and that was a songthat I used to practice a lot
around my my stepmother andshe'd always asked me to play
that song, um and, and it wasjust a fun song.

(02:00:48):
I liked the way it sounded.
But one day she asked me if Iwould play it at her funeral and
she had a terminal illness andwe knew that she was going to
pass, and I promised her I would.
So when it came time to herfuneral and her memorial, I
played that song for her.

(02:01:08):
That's one of the only songsI've ever played solo in front
of a crowd, but it was becauseshe asked me to do that.
Of course, when I hear thatsong 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 thefew songs I've played solo ever

(02:01:37):
in my life in front of anaudience, but it was for her.

AJ (02:01:41):
Beautiful.
Eh Well, man, I'm lookingforward to hearing that song one
way or the other, but thanks alot eh.
Yeah, yeah, thank you forwardto hearing that song one way or
the other.

Jason (02:01:48):
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, thank you, it's been anabsolute pleasure.
Well, you always come back,you're always welcome.
Thank you and likewise when youget there, I'll help show you
around.
That'd be great.

AJ (02:02:01):
That was Jason Baldes, founder and ED of the Wind River
Tribal Buffalo Initiative, andthat winds up our two-part
series from the Wind RiverReservation.
If you missed part one lastweek, head back for a listen to
the brilliant young staff,Xavier Michael Young and Taylor
Dawn Stagner, that were alsokindly showing Yeshi and Olivia

(02:02:23):
around while Jason and I talked.
There are some more photos andlinks on the website, including
to the episodes mentioned inpart one, by the way, with
Jason's mate Pedro out atAmerican Prairie, Kelsey Scott
at the Cheyenne River SiouxReservation and the series from
the Osage Nation.
As always, I'll have more foryou, generous paid subscribers,

(02:02:43):
soon, with great thanks formaking all this possible.
Speaking of which, specialthanks this week to new paid
subscribers, Caro Pidcock onPatreon and Kathyrn on Substack,
and to third anniversary paidsubscribers Steve Morriss,
Jonathan Curtis and LeanneThompson.
I'm so enormously grateful toyou all.

(02:03:03):
We'd love you to join us if youcan get some exclusive stuff
and help keep the show going byheading to the website or the
show notes and following theprompts.
Funnily enough, not long afterwe left the team and set course
for Yellowstone, we were drivingthrough the small town of
Dubois I don't actually know ifthey pronounce it like that and
happened to see a pickup withthe Buffalo Initiative logo on

(02:03:26):
it.
So we pulled up and found Ryanand his partner there.
Turns out Ryan's the facilitiesand projects manager for the
initiative.
He told me he'd joined the teamin their due diligence on this
podcast before our visit too,and liked it, thankfully.
He also described how thebuffalo changed his life, and
that's another story.
Finally, I did ask Jason ifhe'd play that piece of music he

(02:03:51):
told us about, and he was goingto try, but ultimately it felt
a little too soon.
I spent some time streaming thesong online last night while
finishing up this episode andrecommend it.
It's a beauty.
Right now, of course, the musicyou're hearing is Regeneration
by Amelia Barden.
My name's Anthony James.
Thanks for listening.

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