Feb 9, 2021
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) Two herds of bighorn sheep released a year ago on tribal lands in western North Dakota have fared better than expected.
Gov. Doug Burgum in January 2020 signed an agreement with Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation Chairman Mark Fox outlining the translocation and management of bighorns on the Fort Berthold Reservation, where the animals historically roamed.
Later that month, 25 ewes and five rams were brought from the Rocky Boy’s Reservation in Montana and released in rugged, remote areas near Mandaree and Twin Buttes.
Twenty ewes were pregnant. A September survey counted 19 lambs, “which is phenomenally good,” North Dakota Game and Fish Big Game Biologist Brett Wiedmann said. Even 10 lambs would have been a success, he said.
eogden@minotdailynews.com
NEW TOWN – The U.S. Department of Interior has exempted the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation) from a temporary suspension of oil and gas leasing and permitting on federal and tribal lands recently signed by President Biden.
Mark Fox, tribal chairman, said he received a letter this week from Robert Anderson of the U.S. Department of Interior to clarify that the president’s order does not include – or exempts – lands owned by the tribe and individual tribal members.
Fox said the basic status for the tribe is it is not included in the order of suspending oil and gas leasing and permitting on their lands while the order is in place, Even if and when it is lifted, he said the tribe remains “where we have always been.”
The Daily Yonder In The Northern Great Plains, a Search for Ways to Protect Drinking Water from Fossil Fuel Industry Pollution North Dakota’s water supplies are at risk from contaminants from fracking wastewater, but residents are fighting back.
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Saltwater leaking into a stream from a massive saltwater spill from an underground pipeline on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation near Mandaree, North Dakota in 2014. Scientists say wastewater spills from oil development in western North Dakota are releasing toxins into soils and waterways. In a report published in 2016, Duke University researchers said they detected high levels of lead, ammonium and other contaminants in surface waters affected by wastewater spills in the Bakken oilfield region. (AP Photo/Tyler Bell, File)
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