The Shoshone-Bannock tribes received approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to hold ceremonial bison hunts on the National Elk Refuge this year.

The tribes, which are centered on the Fort Hall Reservation near Pocatello, Idaho, will be allowed to take five bison of any sex or age at any point during 2008, but tribal officials must coordinate their hunts with refuge managers, said Kim Greenwood, spokeswoman for Fish and Wildlife.

The two sides signed a memorandum of agreement authorizing the hunt that can be terminated with 90 days notice by either side. The memorandum does not contain an renewal clause.

National Elk Refuge Manager Steve Kallin said his staff would review the hunt annually, as it does with all activities on the refuge, but he thought it could continue beyond 2008.

“There is certainly that possibility to continue the hunt in the future,” he said.

The hunt was part the National Elk Refuge and Grand Teton National Park Elk and Bison Management Plan approved in April 2007, which explicitly allows for Native American tribes to take up to five bison in ceremonial hunts.

Neither Kallin or Greenwood were certain how officials decided five was an appropriate number of bison for the tribe to take but Kallin said the hunt was not being looked at as a tool to manage the herd’s population.

“It is a religious ceremony,” he said. “We are basically following the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Native American policy to provide reasonable access for ceremonial activities.”

Greenwood said the figure was the most allowed at this time by the federal agency and if other tribes approached Fish and Wildlife to hunt on the refuge they would have to split the quota.

To date, Kallin said he has not been contacted by other tribes interested in ceremonial hunts.

Kallin was unsure how members of the tribe planned to take the five buffalo but said they could choose their method and could use guns. If the tribe does use guns, it could require the refuge to close hunt areas  but those activities would be arranged so as not to impact others.

“We are going to ensure that when this ceremonial hunt takes place we are involved and engaged and we are not going to have that take place next to town or along Flat Creek if that is open for fishing,” Kallin said. “We are not going to have a conflict with any other use.”

The hunts come on the heels of the first state-run bison hunts ever on the refuge. Hunters with licenses issued by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, took 222 bison from the refuge and 266 bison total in fall 2007. Refuge officials had set a goal to harvest about 300 animals.

Game and Fish officials have not set a quota for the planned 2008 bison hunt, but said they are hoping to allow about the same level of take as 2007.