In May 2026, various social media posts spread a rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump's administration was evicting wild bison herds from federal grasslands. A post on both X (archived) and Threads (archived) claimed exactly that.
(Threads user @factpostnews)
The claim was also shared on Reddit's r/politics board (archived) and on Facebook (archived). A separate Facebook post (archived) added more detail to the rumor and claimed, "The Trump administration is moving to evict nearly 1,000 bison from federal grasslands in Montana" to hand over the land to cattle ranchers.
At the time, the Trump administration was working on revoking grazing permits from a conservation group that manages a herd of bison. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has since finalized its decision to revoke the permits. Although native tribes feared the decision would lead to the cancellation of their own bison grazing permits, BLM wrote in its final decision that the decision would not impact tribal herds or bison belonging to other groups. The decision didn't and never would have applied to bison on federal land not managed by BLM, such as the herd in Yellowstone National Park.
Bison grazing decision
The claim was based on a Jan. 16 proposed decision by the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management that would reverse a 2022 decision granting conservation group American Prairie permits to have bison graze on some BLM-owned land.
BLM says on its website that it manages livestock grazing on 155 million acres of public land. The agency grants renewable 10-year permits and leases to ranchers to allow for livestock to graze on "allotments" of land.
In 2022, BLM allowed for bison grazing on some of American Prairie's allotments that previously only allowed cattle to graze. According to the proposed 2026 decision (Page 2), BLM has allowed American Prairie's bison to graze on certain allotments since 2005.
American Prairie says it has a herd of over 900 bison.
The 2026 decision (Page 5) would cancel bison grazing permits from American Prairie's allotments of public grazing lands and reissue cattle-only permits in their place.
Montana Republican Governor Greg Gianforte and the Montana Stockgrowers Association, which advocates for cattle ranchers in the state, praised the proposal to cancel the permits. The proposal was criticized by American Prairie and the Coalition of Large Tribes, which advocates for over 50 Native American tribes.
Both American Prairie and the Coalition of Large Tribes challenged the proposal with written protests. After reviewing the protests, BLM finalized its decision to revoke American Prairie's bison grazing permits on May 8. American Prairie previously promised to appeal and pursue "all legal actions available" to challenge BLM's decision
Beth Saboe, American Prairie's director of public affairs, said American Prairie's bison herd continued to graze on its properties, which consist of both private and BLM-owned land, while awaiting the decision. BLM's decision gives American Prairie until Sept. 30, 2026, to remove its bison from the BLM-owned land.
American Prairie says the two properties where its bison graze are fenced in.
Wild vs. domestic
BLM's justification for the decision is largely based on its defining American Prairie's bison herd as wildlife as opposed to domestic livestock. American Prairie, on the other hand, maintains that its bison are not wild animals. The finalized decision reaffirmed the justifcation from its earlier proposal.
In its proposal, BLM said (Page 2) the Taylor Grazing Act only authorizes it to grant grazing permits to animals that are "domestic" and will be used for "production-oriented purposes." This interpretation of BLM's authority is based on definitions created within the proposal itself.
The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 is the framework for modern law regarding grazing permits on public land. Its text authorizes the Department of the Interior to issue "permits to graze livestock," which is still the language used in grazing law today.
The proposal acknowledged (Page 3) that the Taylor Grazing Act and other relevant laws didn't define the term "livestock" or "domestic." It also acknowledges that BLM itself doesn't define "domestic livestock" aside from five common livestock animals it lists.
In the place of legal definitions, BLM's proposal based its authority on dictionary definitions of the words "live," "stock" and "domestic." The proposal excluded animals "presently treated as wild or are intended to be released into the wild" from BLM's authority based on the "obvious meaning" of domestic as the opposite of wild. Since the definition of "stock" in Black's Law Dictionary is tied to commerce, BLM wrote in its proposal that livestock must therefore be used for "production-oriented purposes," such as producing animal products like meat, milk or fiber.
American Prairie, on the other hand, cited Montana law that separates domestic bison from wild bison based in part on whether the bison is owned by a person. In their protests, both American Prairie and the Coalition of Large Tribes argued that BLM's definitions do not appear in the Taylor Grazing Act or other law on grazing permits, and "production-oriented purposes" is not a term used in the laws at all.
The Coalition of Large Tribes also pointed (Page 5) to the definition of "livestock" in law concerning the U.S. Forest Service, which also manages grazing permits on its land, and Montana law. The Forest Service's regulations define livestock as "animals of any kind kept or raised for use or pleasure." Montana law defines it as cattle, horses, mules, asses, sheep, llamas, alpacas, bison, swine, ostriches, rheas, emus and goats.
Would this decision impact other bison herds not owned by American Prairie?
Opponents of the decision feared that BLM's proposed definition of "domestic livestock" would impact other bison herds that graze on BLM-owned lands, including herds owned by Native American tribes. However, the BLM wrote in its decision (Page 16) that the decision is specific to American Prairie's allotments of grazing land and does not impact tribal bison herds.
American Prairie's herd isn't the only bison herd that BLM has previously permitted to graze on federal land; a January 2025 BLM infographic said the agency had 41 grazing permits for bison at the time.
The Coalition of Large Tribes' protest (Page 6) said "all tribal buffalo herds try to treat their animals as wild." Even so, the protest noted that tribal herds are still managed within fences.
In its own letter protesting BLM's proposal, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe said its herd is the largest tribal bison herd in the United States. Its herd, the tribe wrote, "feeds between 2,000 and 3,000 Tribal members per month" and thus would likely meet the BLM's "production-oriented" requirements. The tribe feared its herd would not qualify under BLM's definition of "domestic" because it treats the bison in its herd as wild.
However, there are bison in the U.S. that are not privately owned and are thus more generally considered "wild." These bison usually graze on federal grasslands that aren't managed by BLM and thus aren't affected by grazing permits.
For example, the country's largest bison herd on public land is in Yellowstone National Park, which is the "only place in the United States where bison (Bison bison) have lived continuously since prehistoric times." The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, a conservation group, says this herd is "widely considered the last truly wild herd of American plains bison in existence."
The National Park Service has "sole authority" to manage bison within Yellowstone National Park's boundaries and allows the herd to freely roam and graze within the park. However, its management of bison, which is a migratory species, is impacted by "Montana's limited tolerance for their presence outside the park."
Overall, the Department of the Interior supports approximately 11,000 bison for conservation purposes on its land. Many of these bison are protected by the National Park Service, which manages about 9,700 bison across 10 national parks.