Yes, OK, but...Why?

That’s the question I have asked the folks at the American Prairie Reserve but have as yet failed to receive an answer I could swallow.

Yeah, I know. “Why” is a question a three-year-old would ask. Again and again. And the tot will usually get an answer to his “Why” very similar to what I get when I ask “Why.”

When I ask “Why Montana?” the APR’s stock answer is something like this: The northeastern portion of Montana was chosen because for its lack of human population, making it easier to acquire properties.

One rancher or one hundred, these are real people the APR is trying to oust from their roots. If the American Prairie Reserve accomplishes their end goal of 3,500,000 acres and 10,000 head of buffalo, does anyone think it will end there?

Take for instance, an area from US 191 east 120 miles and from the Canadian border to a distance of 120 miles to the south. 14,400 square miles or 9,216,000 acres.

Realistically, just one APR “Angel,” like maybe multi-billionaire George Soros, could buy all the DEEDED land in that entire area for less than a billion bucks (excluding towns of course). With that deeded land goes the state and federal lands. At a price of maybe $350 per acre of nominal grazing land the toll for the nine million plus acres would only be around $330 million. Pocket change for me and someone like Soros.

(A note to “Horace:” The above figures are “in the vicinity of” prices and acreages, NOT etched in stone. So back off please!)

I hear some of my 13,820 readers saying "Virgil, that can’t happen." Friends, it’s happening as you listen to this broadcast, incrementally. How did the APR get the 300,000 (or so) acres they are now in control of? Incrementally. What’s the tally going to be in another 30 years as more and more Eastern “fat cat wives” are enticed into spending a great deal of their husbands’ money on a “cause?”

Let me suggest to the APR that there are more desolate and sparsely populated areas in the United States you might have overlooked when planning your proposed “American Serengeti” project.

Why not go to the Big Bend area of Texas? Or take over some of the 75 percent (or so) of Nevada that is federal land from the Idaho line south to an area around Piocche, and Pinacca Nev. Talk about sparse!! And . . . and prostitution and gambling are legal there which should excite your some of your investors immensely. My apologies to any JWs or Southern Baptists who might be investors and openly not interested in the “amenities” of Nevada. And you might take a close look at southern Idaho.

Utah also has a lot of federal land around Moab where a plethora of western movies were shot in the 40s, 50s and 60s when Hollyweird was still making good cowboy movies. I’m sure the Utah Tourism Bureau would welcome your yerts, enviros and bison.

It was mentioned that the APR has had very little “trouble” with your bison herd. No problems with 270 (or so) head on 300,000 plus acres. Duh!! But what’s it going to be when you have to try to control 10,000 head of hungry, thirsty or just plain horny buffalo in the midst of a four-year drought?

Oh, hell, by that time you will have driven out all the ranchers so you won’t have to worry about your bison infecting the cattle and over-grazing the land. Then you can start enjoying your beef raised, slaughtered, packaged, frozen and shipped “fresh" to your local Walmart courtesy of Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, etc.

It’s inevitable, folks. We here in Northeastern Montana do not have the money it will take to fight these rascally scamps. I feel bad for all the young folks, the 20-somethings, who are going into debt to buy the family ranch or farm. All they want is to carry on a rich tradition, one that helped build this great state of Montana. Ranching built Montana. Cowmen and women built Montana. Not some Eastern fat cat who has flown over Montana and remarked at all the “emptiness” seen below the wings of his Lear Jet.

Fly your airplanes over the aforementioned other sparsely populated areas and maybe you’ll leave Montana alone!

(I’ve noticed that Central Park in New York City seems to be sparsely populated. How ‘bout that?)

That’s it for now folks. Thanks for listening.