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by dbg31415 3418 days ago
> 2) There are no friggin wild buffalo roaming North Dakota - they are all on ranches, preserves, or the national park land.

Thank you. I grew up on a ranch near there (about 30 minutes from where the protests are happening) and I know ranchers who have had tractors and combines (clearly not a piece of machinery involved in laying a pipeline) ruined because protestors put sugar and dirt in the gas tanks. The people out there... "protecting the water" aren't being nearly as careful as they need to be around destruction of private property. It's disgusting. Ranchers out there tend to be "family farms" / small businesses that don't have insurance for the kinds of damages the protestors are doing.

I don't know how many, but I think it was 6-7 buffalo died during the stampede. A stampede caused by protestors who cut fences and used four-wheelers to scare the buffalo into charging towards the police line. These protestors put the animals at risk -- and the news covers it as, "Oh look at the majestic spirt animals coming to the rescue!" Total BS. Buffalo... are just big dumb animals. With horns. When you scare them, they run their horns into other buffalo... anyway it's a mess. I think a few horses died too. These aren't "wild" animals, they're someone's livestock.

The fact of the matter is the protestors can't tell the difference between a local rancher, and someone who is involved with the pipeline. They block roads, and harass anyone in a pickup truck. I went home to visit and wanted to see what all the fuss was about... when we drove over there it was clear they were antagonizing anyone who came near... and a lot of people who have nothing to do with this still had to use that road. Very clear too that the protesters aren't locals.

2 comments

I can't find any reports claiming that any buffalo died during the stampede which reportedly involved a cut fence enclosing a herd of livestock buffalo. I read about a horse death that appears to have been a protester's horse that was shot by a bullet -- seems like the protesters involved with the stampede were on horseback and the police who chased them were on ATVs.

The accounts of buffalo/bison death I find are claims by ranchers that buffalo have been stolen/slaughtered by out of state protesters and that buffalo near the protest areas have been killed after being spooked within their enclosure by loud noises that resulted from clashes between protesters and law enforcement.

I'm not finding the media bias you claim from any reputable sources.

What zip code is your family's ranch? I want to look up the area on a topo map.
That's not a creepy thing to ask at all...

Check post history, I've written about growing up on a ranch in a bunch of my posts here. My family ranch is near Shields, ND -- it's a few towns over from Cannon Ball.

Whoa -- that is a very small town in a low population density area. I apologize for asking -- my question does a lot more to attach identity to you than I'd realized. I would delete my question if I still could.
There are maybe 30 families in the zip code...

"Shields' population peaked in 1920 with 250 people"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shields,_North_Dakota