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EARNING THEIR KEEP Bison ranching fights the battle for conservation By Kris Heitkamp

A mile up in the Bridger Mountains in south central Montana 62 year old J B Gans climbed down from his tractor his breath came out in small puffs of white The brisk chill clouded the day with the smell of wet earth infusing the September morning He bent down to rub the scruff of Isabel his Rottweiler of advanced age and mild temperament He waited watching from the bottom of a tree lined hill I grew up milking cows Gans said Minutes before his tractor tossed a 700 pound hay bale off its forklifted teeth the ball of yellow grass tumbling down the hill like a yellow brick road leading to feeding time Dairy cows are on autopilot they see the light and they walk towards you And you milk Gans said recalling his childhood days on the dairy farm just north of Seattle where he grew up I did that for 16 years I couldn t wait to get outta there He sighed squinting his crinkled brown eyes to look off in the distance waiting for his stubborn herd to come down the mountainside to grub the alfalfa he set out for them Soon an outline appeared hidden in the trees watching and wary The massive frame was outlined in black and brown Slowly a young cow approached her short black horns wet from the soppy drizzle Others began to follow Step by step they arrived to the road of hay with what seemed like ambivalence The graceful scavenge for food to fuel their 1 500 pound frames was eerily quiet Hardly a twig snapped barley a snort uttered the only sound was hay being chewed Rancho Picante Montana Bison is not the typical ranchland of buttery green pastures Located about 25 miles northeast of Bozeman Gans ranch was named by his fifth grade class of gifted and under represented Hispanic children Before his ranching days he taught fourth and fifth grade for almost 10 years in Miami The hot picante means hot or spicy in Spanish bison ranch sits a mile up on a mountainside with a fresh water stream His herd of 300 bison range free on 360 acres of rugged land As an all natural operation he raises the hormone and antibiotic 1

free bison on mountain grass regional alfalfa and barley For almost a decade Gans has been in Montana raising reining horses running a bed and breakfast and ranching bison at Rancho Picante It takes a certain kind of person to ranch bison he said Someone who is a little rough edged he laughed knowing he s describing himself A little bit of an outlaw an outlier To raise bison as a cash crop a rancher has to be comfortable as an outsider Conservationists argue bison have to be wild to be valuable Scientists argue they have to have DNA free of bovine genes to be wild And other ranchers would just assume the range and their own fence lines be left for the more easily managed cattle But bison ranchers and their allies say that in order to keep North America s iconic furry beasts of the plains in the picture you ve got to let them earn their keep To save them they argue we need to eat them Since Europeans arrived to stay in North America the number of wild bison fell from more than 30 million to a low in 1884 of 325 wild bison including just 25 in Yellowstone National Park But in the late 20th century bison ranching soared in popularity In 1970 the number of bison being raised on ranches exceeded for the first time the number of bison in herds managed for conservation Some people including Gans say this shows the power of ranching as a tool for conservation Today about 480 000 head of bison are raised for meat on American ranches The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists American plains bison as near threatened Because of the small number of viable wild animals bison are considered a conservation dependent species in need of protection and precise management Threats to the wild bison put at risk two major considerations of what it means for an animal population to be wild Genetically the vast majority of bison in North America have cow genes in their genome They are beefalo In terms of behavior 96 percent of all bison in North American are managed for domestication They are selected to be docile easier to handle and meatier than their wild and rangy ancestors Because of ranching there are more bison in North America now than there have been since the rock bottom days of 1884 Does that mean the fighvt to conserve the lord of the plains is over New York City taxidermist leads early bison conservation efforts Privately owned herds helped to form the nucleus of bison everywhere today Domestic bison reinvigorated the herds that roam in Yellowstone today and established those on The National Bison Range in Montana The National Zoo Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge and many other refuges across the United States Today there are 500 000 bison in the United States Of those 480 000 are privately owned By the 1880s a great slaughter of bison had reduced the millions to mere hundreds The killing was driven by market hunting for hides sport killing and barbaric government endorsed tactics to kill and control Native Americans When almost no bison roamed the range it took a combination of taxidermy and ranching to bring the animals back from the brink William Temple Hornaday was one hunter who witnessed the empty prairie and wondered if he could help The chief taxidermist of the U S National Museum Hornaday was given the task of finding bison specimens to display at the museum During his expedition he was haunted by the extensive brutal slaughter and decided bison in Montana must be preserved beyond a stuffed suit for a museum exhibit 2

I am confident there are not over thirty head remaining in Montana all told By this time next year the cowboys will have destroyed about all of this remnant We got in our Exploration just in the nick of time Hornaday wrote in a letter to the Secretary of the Smithsonian in December 1886 while wrapping up his mission The expedition itself killed at least 25 bison five of which were brought to Washington D C for display The experience imbued Hornaday with a sense of purpose For the next several years he dedicated his life to bison and wildlife conservation He is often praised as one of the great American conservationists with bison named as the animal that sparked the conservation movement Bison numbers continued to drop and the call for help reached Congress In 1902 Congress purchased three bison bulls from Charles Goodnight a cattle rancher in Texas and 18 bison cows from the Pablo Allard herd in Montana For several years these captive bison were managed as livestock at the Lamar Buffalo Ranch in Yellowstone National Park protected behind fencing to encourage herd production It takes a minimal 1 000 bison for genetic diversity necessary to maintain a stable and thriving herd By the 1920s 326 domestic bison were allowed to mix and mate with the 125 wild bison in the park Soon official estimates did not differentiate between wild and domestic bison because of intermingling During the first few years of the Yellowstone ranched bison a fellow named Charles Buffalo Jones was the game warden of the park Rumor has it that Jones tinkered with a crossbred called beefalo According to Yellowstone archives he wrote letters to Washington encouraging experimentation with the Yellowstone herd but his schemes were disregarded and quickly alienated him from the rest of the park s crew He resigned just a few years later Yellowstone didn t produce any beefalo but cattle genes did manage to sneak into domestic and wild herds all around North America Genetically wild Ranchers work to restore what their predecessors tainted Back in the late 1800s cattle ranchers experimented with crossbreeding beef cattle and bison in an effort build a stronger super beef cow or what they call beefalo or cattalo It didn t really work Ranchers were left with sterile bulls and angry cows Those experiments however mucked up the purity of the DNA in the very small population of bison that remained As the bison population grew on ranches and in conservation herds the cattle genes spread Today cattle gene introgression is evident in all but the bison of Yellowstone National Park A study done by Texas A M University in 2003 tested more than 30 000 bison in both public and private herds and found about six percent showed evidence of cattle DNA According to the study the six percent that have cattle DNA the average levels found was less than 1 5 percent of the total genetic make up The two Yellowstone bison herds are the largest of the six remaining public herds in North America without cattle gene introgression This places them in a very precarious position Ranched bison may not be pure and wild They have been shown to be smaller and lighter than free roaming herds But some argue that these animals on the range are worth conserving in their own right They represent the past even if they don t fully embody it And they continue to play an important ecological roll on large swaths of prairie A paper in the 2007 Biological Conservation Journal said some bison populations with low levels of domestic cattle introgression might also be valuable due to their distinctive genetic structure and because they can presumably fulfill the ecological role of bison We say presumably because we do not know what effects if any cattle DNA may 3

have on bison physiology behavior and fitness said the authors Ranchers are aware that husbandry practices of the past have diluted the wild bison lineage and the National Bison Association specifically prohibits crossbreeding bison with any other animal in order to prevent the problem from getting worse The way to a conservationist s heart is not through her stomach Formed in 1975 The National Bison Association s mission is to bring together stakeholders to celebrate the heritage of American bison buffalo to educate and to create a sustainable future for our industry The non profit association has over 1 000 members in the U S and foreign countries A lot of consumers eat bison to save them said Jim Matheson the assistant director of The National Bison Association Conservationists get it too For example the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago has a bison grill as part of its renowned bison exhibit with signage that supports this approach to bison restoration So zoo goers can go see the bison then have a bison burger It works The National Bison Association has jokingly suggested that the best way to save a bison is to sink your teeth into the tasty low fat animal With people pounding the table for more the demand has helped restore bison in North America said the association In 2011 bison meat sales totaled 278 million up almost 40 million from 2010 approximate sales reports the NBA According to U S Department of Agriculture s Livestock Slaughter Summary in 2012 approximately 41 000 bison were processed compared to the 32 million beef cattle slaughtered We re a tiny sliver of the overall protein industry and we don t want to become a commodity Ever Matheson said But Deborah Slicer a philosopher and animal ethicist doesn t buy it She sees ranching as a way to have your cake and eat it too We spew all sorts of self deceptive crap to justify harming animals in order to satisfy some of our really base desires for among other things the taste of their flesh or the feel of their fur or to entertain ourselves Slicer said A professor of environmental ethics at the University of Montana Slicer thinks bison have an inherent value and it shouldn t be used as means to an end We owe these particular animals restitution for nearly wiping them off the face of the planet in the 19th century Raising them on ranches for food just seems a little less crude extension of that same attitude It hardly shows them any more respect and I can t see how this is restitution for the harms we ve caused them and continue to cause them in places around Yellowstone Slicer said If it looks like a bison and acts like a bison In 2004 Dustin Hofeldt a cattle rancher south of Chinook Mont shot five bison that had wandered onto his land destroying fences and feeding on his grass pastures His ranch borders the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation where 4

the Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes re established a bison herd of 35 in 1974 The domestic herd population has grown to 450 The herd has cattle introgression Rancher Vicki Hofeldt remembers that her husband Dustin was just plain fed up with his neighbor s bison herd eating into his profits Tribal bison ranchers were slow to fetch the wandering herd she said One day he had enough Vicki Hofeldt said He shot quite a few of them then called the tribe and told them to come get dead their buffalo That got their attention a little bit but the bison were back within a week The Hofeldt s aren t hung up on the issue of genetic purity For them a bison whether it s 100 percent bison or 96 percent bison is a grass eating fence leaning unbearable expense Eight years after Dustin shot his neighbor s ranched bison it was Vicki Hofeldt who was defending their ranch from bison She was a plaintiff in a lawsuit to stop the transfer of 38 wild Yellowstone bison from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation to Fort Belknap Her efforts worked for a while but in August 2013 the Montana Supreme Court lifted the injunction and the bison were transferred to Fort Belknap The problem Hofeldt said is precisely that her neighbor s domesticated herd was already too wild It s in their nature to want to roam she said There is an expression in the bison ranching business you can get a bison to go anywhere they the bison want to go They are not herdable you cannot push a bison they don t like to be contained and handling can be the most difficult part of it all said bison rancher J B Gans He speaks from experience When Buster a blind 3 year old bull wandered into a holding pen with the pregnant cows he quickly rebelled Gans recalled Even though he could not see the fences he felt them and began to bash into the wire until he broke the holding clips and wriggled out The cows followed and that was the end of handling for the day Gans said Ranched or wild a bison will be a bison Bison eat the grass we are counting on for the following summer which in turn forces us to have to go and rent pasture elsewhere Hofeldt said So that is a cost of anywhere from 18 to 32 per animal unit per month Plus the cost of trucking the cattle to our rented pasture and back home again in the fall She figures roaming bison cost her operation more than 20 000 in one winter alone Ranches or any type of business for that matter can t sustain losses such as these Hofeldt said Other ranchers including some Fort Belknap tribal members who run their own cattle agree with Hofeldt and Montana s capital city Helena is poised to take up their cause In 2013 several anti bison bills were introduced in the legislature including allowing on sight shooting of bison on private property and making the state liable for any damage bison may do to private property Montana Governor Steve Bullock vetoed most of the bills Brucellosis the original pioneer hits two ungulates with one stone The real fight for the rights of wild bison happens at the place where jurisdictions overlap and federal laws and rules chafe against those of the states The fight is on the borders of a national park and the skirmishes involve a pathogen that can t be fenced in Brucellosis 5

Brucellosis is a contagious disease that infects animals including cattle bison and elk According to the National Institutes of Health this invasive disease was introduced through cattle when the pioneers settled the West The bacterium is transmitted through contact with infected birth tissues It causes abortion and infertility in cattle People can get the disease from livestock or inoculation but cannot pass it on Brucellosis was first discovered in Yellowstone in 1917 To protect livestock and wipe out the disease the National Brucellosis Eradication Program was implemented in 1934 The plan aggressively culled both Yellowstone bison and domestic cattle Complicated and costly Montana finally achieved brucellosis free status in 1985 The elk and bison herds of the Greater Yellowstone Area still carry the disease and cattle herds are occasionally infected usually by elk It has never been shown that bison have spread brucellosis to cattle in a natural setting and the fight against the disease has largely been defensive inoculation quarantine and slaughter of infected herds of cattle 6

Under the guise of brucellosis elimination bison have been herded culled and captured But elk they are prized hunting targets There are many more of them and they are harder to manage than bison So while elk more often pass the disease to livestock bison bear the burden of official containment strategies Park herds manhandled Ranchers say leave the wild to them Management of wild bison is the centerpiece of this gritty debate Ranchers conservationists and government agencies all play roles in the problems and solutions Problems slightly eased during the year 2000 when the Interagency Bison Management plan was implemented The plan aims to maintain a free ranging genetically pure bison population while reducing the risk of brucellosis transmission from bison to cattle and to keep bison in the park Also included in the plan is a specific head count of around 3 000 Bison population since 1985 has been as high as 5 000 and as low as 2 100 J B Gans agrees that the situation in Yellowstone is complicated and messy Bison just run free so consequently they create problems Gans said sitting in his small and unassuming office on the Montana State University campus in Bozeman Leaving the cowboy hat at home he is a doctoral candidate in agricultural education with his research area focusing on international sustainability practices It s just a disaster They have no control It s no different than freaking bears running all over the place and the damage they get into Bison don t understand boundaries Gans said Since 1985 authorities have killed around 7 000 bison for management purposes The year 2008 was the worst year for slaughter when late spring arrived and 1 195 bison were killed because of attempts to find food outside of the park 7

The way the bison are managed in the park is giving bison a really bad name and it is creating problems for everybody Gans said Wild bison are categorized as a game animal that has not been reduced to captivity Domestic bison are regulated as livestock Once a Yellowstone bison crosses over the park s boundaries the Department of Livestock is responsible for managing the bison By law not a single wild bison exists in Montana Management of Yellowstone bison near the boundaries of the park includes hazing with helicopters capturing killing and vaccination This exposes Yellowstone bison to an intense amount of human handling And the handling comes at a steep price the park spends about 1 2 million per year Gans handles his bison once a year They re not the sort of animal you go out and pet They don t want you in their space The more you leave them alone the better off they are and the better off you are Gans said For a week in December Gans separates tags and vaccinates his herd for brucellosis The process is complicated and involved to ensure the safety of the small team and to keep the herd calm He says he has had a couple of train wrecks in the past but everyone survived them including the bison Some conservationists say ranching is commercial not conservation Mike Volesky the Deputy Director for Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks believes that bison conservation means preservation and perpetuation of the bison genome He does not see ranching as a solution to saving the shaggy beast With seven plus years as the Natural Resource Policy Advisor for Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer Volesky comes to the table with a strong stance Right or wrong bison ranchers are in business to try to make money or maybe some are in it just for the hobby or some other personal interest Volesky said However he does credit early bison ranchers for the genetic diversity in herds today But bison ranching outside of that is simply bison ranching It is done for very different purposes it does not help to further bison conservation and the two should not meet Volesky said Volesky s belief is that the U S government should replace all the beefalo in national parks and refuges with genetically pure bison He believes the combined genetics would make up a rich pool from which to create viable herds Now another element is whether those bison are allowed to roam somewhat freely or if they are confined to fences That is another question fraught with divisive political social and economic issues Volesky adds For another day Volesky is not the only one who doesn t see conservation with a fork stuck in it Ervin Carlson the president of the InterTribal Buffalo Council and member of the Blackfeet Nation of Montana has been very active in tribal ranching and buffalo restoration 8

Carlson thinks ranching can both help and hinder the public s interest in saving bison But he also acknowledges that ranching is commercial not conservation He thinks ranching may increase public awareness of bison conservation but it strips away the bison s wildlife status We raise buffalo to be as free as possible We do manage them very well and have to keep them in certain areas even though we want them to be as natural as possible It would be nice to see them free roaming but we know that is not an option Carlson said But a free roaming bison is precisely what co founder of the Buffalo Field Campaign Mike Mease wants and believes the bison deserve Sure I d rather see people eat bison than cow but I don t really see the benefit for bison Mease said As far as I see it bison ranching is just another way to have control and domesticate what should be free and wild Mease believes that bison conservation means protection not slaughter He says that bison ranching does nothing to protect the genetic purity of the Yellowstone bison We fight for the buffalo not the beefalo Mease said The Buffalo Field Campaign a non profit grassroots coalition formed after the Yellowstone bison massacre of winter 1996 97 The winter s heavy snow and ice forced bison to lower elevations in search of food According to U S Department of Interior 1084 wild bison were killed when they wandered outside the park s boundaries and into the state of Montana And another 400 died of starvation in the park The BFC tries to protect the Yellowstone bison s right to live a free and wild life without hazing and slaughter Or fences and domestication And in 2010 the BFC and other environmental groups sued bison rancher Ted Turner Media mogul Ted Turner purchased his first bison in 1976 In spring 2009 he was offered 86 more from a wandering crew of Yellowstone bison Montana Fish Wildlife Parks agreed to let Turner quarantine the bison for five years and in return for his hospitality he gets to keep 75 percent of all calves born from the guest herd The plaintiffs BFC The Gallatin Wildlife Association and other concerned groups claimed that the bison deal violated the public trust doctrine by giving Turner private ownership over a wild animal something that belongs to the public State officials replied that they did not violate anything but took a step in preserving the wild bison Some producers can play a very important role in the conservation of the species And that can play a part in genetics For example Ted Turner has the important Yellowstone genetics captured in a commercial herd at his Vermejo ranch That s important now and could be important in the future as a seed stock for public herds or other commercial herds said Keith Aune a senior conservation scientist and bison coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society Aune does see a role for ranchers in bison conservation but says not all ranches are created equally Some commercial herds aren t going to be great at providing a conservation benefit Not to say that they are wrong but they just aren t If you re a small feedlot operation you re probably not going to be making major contributions to bison conservation Scale is important how you manage them is important and genetics is important Aune said 9

Testing herds for genetic purity is costly and some bison ranchers may not have the means or resources Besides pulling hairs from a bison tail for DNA testing is not the easiest task Aune also understands the importance of recognizing the ranching business as a private enterprise The government doesn t need to dictate how to do things just because someone wants to raise bison Aune said But he says it s important to remind ranchers that manipulating the genetics of a commercial herd will impede conservation The main question comes down to how do we work together to keep buffalo as a buffalo and not beefalo on different lands with different management plans and different reasons for having them he said In 2006 the Wildlife Conservation Society held a workshop inviting a variety of stakeholders to collaborate and brainstorm methods of bison restoration Bison ranchers Native Americans governments NGO s and academic scientists all presented testimonies shared information and work shopped together to look at the relative conservation contribution for each group Ted Turner hosted the workshop at his Vermejo Park Ranch in New Mexico We discussed why we each value this animal and how our own perspectives and interest can overlap to the benefit of us all Aune said of the two day workshop Producers and ranchers emphasized that in order to support ecologically sound bison production consumer appreciation for bison meat needs to be promoted Consumption is a fundamental part of this story it is part of reconnecting human culture to bison Aune said Besides it s a healthy red meat and possibly the perfect cow of the North American continent And we probably should consider this animal as far as its value for red meat production It s part of the reason we want them Sustainable solutions an agricultural model of conservation Species survival should not have to depend on public lands or private lands An animal should not have to die or live or be considered important depending on whether it s on the Endangered Species list That s wrongheaded Conservation isn t a choice between nature and prosperity It s a combination of both put together said Ted Turner in an excerpt from Todd Wilkinson s latest book Last Stand Ted Turner s Quest to Save a Troubled Planet published in 2013 Ted Turner is the second largest individual landowner in North America with 14 ranches that accommodate his 55 000 bison All the bison meat produced goes to his restaurant Ted s Montana Grill with 45 locations across 16 states Turner claims the bison industry is a viable meat business which serves to ensure the survival of the species Turner recognizes the threats to all bison lack of breathing space and cattle introgression He has torn down interior fences power poles and lines corrals and outbuildings throughout his ranches He has spent over 300 000 on genetic testing and research reports Wilkinson He culls the beefalo and shares research findings with other ranchers Other bison conservationists believe opportunity lies in a marriage of public and private lands American Prairie Reserve is a prairie based wildlife reserve located in northeastern Montana APR aims to join three 10

and half million acres of public and private land By 2030 they hope to have a minimum of 10 000 genetically pure disease free largely free roaming bison easily showing up Yellowstone with more land and bison Our herd is a one of kind success We are one of the only reserves that have mixed two different source herds said Damien Austin Reserve Supervisor Living on the reserve with his family Austin supervises bison management and serves as the lead liaison for APR s science partners In 2005 APR started with 16 bison from Wind Cave Park in South Dakota Slowly they are building up their herd 11

with bison from The Nature Conservancy of South Dakota and over 200 bison from Elk Island National Park in Alberta Canada But maintaining a genetically pure herd has its challenges Austin said In 2011 after testing the entire herd they discovered cattle genes in 91 Wind Cave originated animals They removed the beefalo and continue to test each incoming animal for cattle introgression APR believes in paying it forward In August 2012 the Bronx Zoo welcomed the first ever genetically pure bison calf produced by embryo transfer A group of female bison from the reserve served as surrogates for the fertilized embryos They have also donated bison to different conservation herds all over the U S including Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge in Nebraska Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado and the Fort Peck Indian Reservation APR recognizes that humans are also a part of the landscape In an effort to rehabilitate the damaged flora and fauna of the prairie the reserve seeks to rediscover the identity of Montana s Great Plains in hopes that it may offer an opportunity for human reconnection By recapturing the beauty of the past to make familiar what was lost to smell the sweet scent of sagebrush to hear the high pitch chatter call of the prairie dog or to see the Great Plains blanketed with brown furry masses could ignite an innate rekindling of human and prairie spirit Kindred Spirits Outlier rancher meets woolly beast over a bag of cake Back on the mountainside J B Gans watched his herd slowly saunter down the hill The early morning misty air turned a shade of gray and the sun remained motionless behind the clouds Isabel the Rottweiler chased her younger companion Beckham a mixed breed with strong herding instincts adopted from a Bozeman shelter This is the last stop Gans said looking around at his ranch his bison and his dogs The summer after his freshman year at Northwestern University Gans journeyed cross country on a motorcycle exploring and adventuring When he reached Montana Gans says he knew Bozeman would be the end of the road He fell in love with the beauty the mountains and landscape Eventually he made it to Big Sky country after a few stops along the way teaching in Miami foreign policy analyst in New York directing an export markets company in Kentucky and in Palestine as a director of legal aid for American Friends Services Committee It took him a few years a few degrees and a few kids to get his slice of pie in the sky but he got there And he doesn t plan on leaving Neither of my kids nor my mom understands what the hell it is that I m doing or why I m doing it ranching bison They are just baffled Gans said He reached in his tractor and lifted a 30 pound bag of nutritional protein nuggets called cake Desert was being served He laughed as a nearby cow turned to look at him He read her expression as a question That right there that look She was asking do you have cake He smiled as he emptied the bag The herd quickened their pace as cake was sprinkled onto the ground Isabel sniffed a nugget and walked away from the cattle treat Much of the satisfaction of handling and raising bison is intangible it s a connection I feel with the animals I am 12

often quite close to them when feeding unrolling a large round bale or opening up a sack of cake Gans said He stood surrounded by at least 10 000 pounds of massive muscle The scene was an uncanny mix of curiosity comfort and intensity Beckham inched toward an adult cow sniffing a piece of cake near her She looked at him and stomped her woolly hoof as a warning back off you re too close Beckham easily obliged Most of the 25 bison in this sub herd made it to the feed and cake except for one Buster the blind 3 year old bull He is usually the last one out but he eventually makes his way and the other bison seem to always leave some cake for him Gans explained Up near the top of the tree lined hill Buster stood in the shadow of a tree He almost seemed to be sniffing the air Each one is an individual with a distinct personality You have to slowly earn their trust move respectfully among them never be threatening and when you do have to handle them you do it quietly They are animals that want to be left alone 99 percent of the time but when you are in their midst you want them to know and respect you as well I m always learning things about their behavior and manner Gans said A cow standing down the path from Gans looked back at him almost like she was searching for more cake Gans stared back Both stood facing one another He bent at the hip putting his hands on his knees and tilted his head getting down to her eye level She licked the air with her black gray tongue Gans slowly stretched his hand out towards her face the back of his forefinger gently stroked her shaggy nose ridge She responded with a twist of her massive head The moment was brief but intimate Being with them being responsible for them has changed me for the better in a way that is difficult to explain to others who don t know the animal Gans said 13