# InterTribal Buffalo Council

The Intertribal Buffalo Council (ITBC), also known as the Intertribal Bison Cooperative, is a collection of 82 federally recognized tribes from 20 different states whose mission is to restore buffalo to Indian Country in order to preserve the historical, cultural, traditional, and spiritual relationships for future Native American generations.
Surplus bison from places such as Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona are relocated to member tribes. Collectively, the ITBC manages over 20,000 bison on over 1,000,000 acres of tribal lands.

## History

In February 1991, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society hosted nineteen tribes to discuss ways to reestablish healthy buffalo populations on tribal lands. They decided to form an organization to assist tribes with buffalo programs. That June, Congress appropriated funding for tribal buffalo programs. Tribal representatives met in December to discuss how these appropriations would be spent.
In April 1992 tribal representatives gathered in Albuquerque, NM and officially formed the InterTribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC). Officers were elected and began developing their criteria for membership, articles of incorporation, and by-laws. In September 1992, ITBC was incorporated in the state of Colorado and that summer ITBC was headquartered in Rapid City, South Dakota.
In 2010 it was reorganized from a nonprofit to a federally chartered Indian Organization under Section 17 of the Indian Reorganization Act as the InterTribal Buffalo Council.
On September 25, 2014, in Browning, MT, eight tribes, including four ITBC member tribes, from the US and Canada signed the Buffalo Treaty committing to returning the buffalo to their lands and into their lives.
On May 9, 2016, US Congress signed into law the National Bison Legacy Act, establishing the American bison as the national mammal. The ITBC was part of a coalition that helped pass the law.
The ITBC is working to pass the Indian Buffalo Management Act, which would establish a permanent program within the Department of the Interior to develop and promote tribal ownership and management of buffalo and buffalo habitat on Indian lands.
Since its formation, the ITBC has grown from 19 member tribes to 82 and continues to grow.

## Members

As of December 2021, its members included:
* Alutiiq Tribe of Old Harbor
* Blackfeet Nation
* Cherokee Nation
* Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes
* Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
* Chippewa Cree Tribe of the Rocky Boy Reservation
* Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation
* Confederated Tribes of Umatilla
* Crow Creek Sioux Tribe
* Crow Tribe of Indians
* Eastern Shoshone Tribe
* Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe
* Forest County Potawatomi
* Fort Belknap Indian Community
* Fort Peck Assiniboine & Sioux Tribes
* Ho-Chunk Nation
* Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma
* Jicarilla Apache Nation
* Kalispel Tribe of Indians
* Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe
* Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
* Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians
* Meskwaki Nation (Sac & Fox Tribe of MS in IA)
* MHA Nation (Three Affiliated Tribes)
* Modoc Nation
* Nambé O-Ween-Gé
* Native Village of Ruby
* Northern Arapaho Tribe
* Northern Cheyenne Tribe
* Oglala Sioux Tribe
* Ohkay Owingeh/San Juan Pueblo
* Omaha Tribe of Nebraska
* Oneida Nation
* Osage Nation
* Picuris Pueblo
* Pit River Tribe
* Ponca Tribe of Nebraska
* Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation
* Prairie Island Community
* Pueblo de Cochiti
* Pueblo of Pojaque
* Pueblo of Sandia
* Pueblo of Tesuque
* Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma
* Red Lake Nation Band of Chippewa
* Rosebud Sioux Tribe
* Round Valley Indian Tribes
* Sac & Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska
* Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
* Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska
* Seminole Nation of Oklahoma
* Seneca-Cayuga Nation
* Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community
* Shoshone Bannock Tribes
* Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
* Skull Valley of Goshutes
* Southern Ute Tribe
* Spirit Lake Nation
* Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
* Stevens Village
* Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians
* Taos Pueblo
* Tonkawa Tribe
* Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa
* Ute Indian Tribe
* White Earth Nation
* Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska
* Yakama Nation
* Yankton Sioux Tribe