Overview
- Fort Peck authorized killing 30 bison for roughly 12,000 pounds of meat and had shot about half after members received only partial November SNAP payments.
- The Blackfeet harvested 18 animals, producing more than 3,000 pounds of ground meat that was distributed to about 2,300 families across the reservation.
- Other tribes supplemented supplies with local resources, including Lower Brule, Cheyenne River and Crow using buffalo, the Mi’kmaq providing trout and moose, the Comanche accepting deer, and the Choctaw operating three processing sites.
- Cheyenne River’s post-pandemic investment in a plant able to process 25 to 30 animals per week enabled faster distribution during the shutdown.
- Roughly one in four American Indian or Alaska Native families relies on SNAP, while the separate Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations continued even as some TEFAP funding and SNAP benefits were disrupted.