Moving In for the Kill With Montana's Buffalo Hunters

The party splits. Two circle around to a rise at the north side of the plateau to drive the buffalo closer to Vader. He and Stirner inch down the hillside and position themselves behind a boulder, waiting for the buffalo to pass by. The bison begin to move toward Vader, spreading out in single file. The silence of the morning is shattered by the roar of the rifle, and a bull in the middle of the herd collapses, then rolls over on its side, legs twitching for a moment. Then the animal is still.

Vader climbs back up the incline to where the rest of the party is waiting. "Not a record, but he'll be good eating," he says. "Cabernet Franc, you think?"

"Definitely a red," David Vader answers.

But the hunters' work has just begun. Hollering, snapping tarps and honking the pickups' horns, they slowly push back the other buffalo. They spend three hours skinning the massive carcass and carving 500 pounds of edible flesh from its bones. The men haul the meat back to the trucks in sleds. "That weighs more than a sack of concrete," Jeff Vader says as he lifts one haunch onto a sled.

At the end, they peel off their bloodied overalls and gloves, pass around a bottle of Buffalo Trace Kentucky Bourbon and marvel at the pile of bones, suitcase-sized lungs and other organs that they leave on the plateau for coyotes and ravens. It's been more than six hours since the hunt began, and the men turn contemplative.

"Just seeing an animal like this, so large and beautiful," says Tom Literski, 56. "I'll always remember this."

The hunters pile into their trucks and drive off. Six other buffalo were killed that day, some falling less than 100 yards from one another. The Buffalo Field Campaign workers had tracked down the other hunting parties and lobbied them to push for more habitat for the bison. But they never came across Jeff Vader's party.

Vader saw nothing wrong with the hunt -- he was proud he followed regulations and treated the animals with respect. But the experience strengthened his belief that buffalo should have more space to roam and that hunting is the most humane and environmentally sensitive way to control their habitat.

Vader starts following the buffalo controversy more closely once he returns to his home in Helena. He complains to co-workers at the state lottery warehouse about the way Montana treats such "majestic animals."

"They don't like to read about 500 buffalo being hauled to slaughter," Vader says of his co-workers. "They say, 'I'd pay a lot of money to hunt one.' "