For us wildlife advocates working to reform a grim and bureaucratic buffalo management regime, it is not every day that we get a chance to roll up our sleeves and head into the field. So it was particularly exciting last week when my NRDC colleague Matt Skoglund and I had the opportunity to join the Buffalo Field Campaign for a day of habitat improvement work in West Yellowstone, Montana. After all, getting to enjoy the beautiful scenery of our first national park—while putting in a good day’s work—is about as good as it gets.

The Project, organized by our friends at the Buffalo Field Campaign, consisted of removing about two miles of unused barbed-wire fencing on an old grazing allotment, to allow wildlife to roam more freely through this critical migration corridor. This area just west of the park boundary is especially important for Yellowstone’s buffalo, which migrate out of the park in the winter and spring in search of the lighter snows and more accessible forage that can often be found here.

Unfortunately, as Matt has explained in his blog, current buffalo management practices implemented by a committee of five state and federal agencies do not allow buffalo to inhabit this area year-round. Spurred by fears of brucellosis, the Montana Department of Livestock hazes buffalo back into the park  each spring around May 15th using snowmobiles, helicopters, ATVs, and horses—theoretically to make the area safe for summer cattle grazing. This practice, costly and inhumane at best, is now more illogical than ever: large portions of this zone have been cattle-free for years, and the last remaining public grazing allotment on the critical Horse Butte peninsula was permanently closed last fall.

The closure of the Horse Butte grazing allotment, in addition to the closure of Duck Creek and other nearby allotments several years ago, should open the door for the agencies to allow year-round buffalo habitat in this area. But for now, the committee has already agreed on their spring 2010 operating procedures, and—notwithstanding the fact that no cows will ever again graze on Horse Butte or Duck Creek—the buffalo will be hazed back in to the park by the May 15th deadline. Meanwhile all that barbed wire on the old vacant grazing allotments is still hanging around, waiting to snare an unsuspecting bison being chased by a low-flying helicopter this May.

That’s where we come in. With the approval of the Forest Service (who was happy to let us clean up their land), we grabbed gloves and some wire cutters and headed to the retired Duck Creek grazing allotment, where we went to work ripping out barbed wire as fast as we could.

Now this fence had been neglected for years, so the lowest wires were not only buried under two feet of snow but also entangled in stubborn sagebrush. Even once we managed to remove all four wires from a given section of fence, rolling up all those sharp, unruly wires proved to be quite a challenge in itself. So “as fast as we could” was not always very fast, but the sometimes slow and grueling pace did not dampen the group’s mood. It is not an exaggeration to say there was a palpable sense of excitement among the dozen of us all day. Every now and then, someone would shout “Free the land!” or “Let buffalo roam!” drawing occasional cheers (and one or two jeers) from the few cars rattling past on the road. Great video footage from the Buffalo Field Campaign captures the atmosphere of the day.

In an arena often characterized by antagonism and gridlock, we were all thrilled to finally be making tangible on-the-ground improvements for buffalo. It was a great opportunity to find common ground with the Forest Service and help improve buffalo habitat on their land. And it was incredibly satisfying to be able to look back at the ground we’d covered, seeing wide-open habitat—newly freed land ready to welcome Yellowstone’s buffalo.

By the end of the day we had cleared fencing from an impressively long stretch along highways 191 and 287, and we were feeling good about the day’s work. While Matt and I had to head back home at the end of the day (back to the world of desks and computers, sigh), hardy members of the Buffalo Field Campaign returned to the site to finish the job over the next two days, ultimately removing two full miles of fencing.

Opening up this migration corridor was a huge first step toward making the area more hospitable for bison. Buffalo Field Campaign is hoping to get approval to remove fencing on the old Horse Butte grazing allotment next, which will be another big habitat improvement for buffalo. While we can’t fix all the buffalo management problems overnight, we can take important, concrete steps that will make a real difference—both when the annual buffalo hazing takes place this May, and, someday, when this area is open to free-roaming buffalo all year round.