FORT WASHAKIE - It's probably years away, but a free-ranging, wild herd of bison might be re-established on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

The Wind River Alliance hosted two meetings Thursday - one in Ethete for Northern Arapaho tribal members, the second in Fort Washakie for Eastern Shoshone members - to discuss the possibility.

The alliance, a cross-cultural conservation group, invited guest speakers Steve Torbit, a biologist and tribal lands program director for the National Wildlife Federation, and Fred DuBray, director of the Intertribal Bison Cooperative of Rapid City, S.D., which represents 57 American Indian tribes that seek to return bison herds to their homelands.

The two speakers shared their experiences of how other Indian tribes have re-established bison herds on tribal lands.

DuBray, a Cheyenne River Sioux, said his tribe has about 3,000 head of bison on its reservation in South Dakota. All told, some 45 tribes of the Intertribal Bison Cooperative have bison herds of varying size, totaling 15,000 animals.

"Ted Turner has 40,000 bison," DuBray said, "but we're catching up."

Both men said their organizations stand ready to help the Arapaho and Shoshone re-establish wild bison on the Wind River reservation. The Joint Business Council, representing both tribes, said last May that the tribes wanted a wild bison herd - but not for commercial purposes.

Torbit and DuBray had similar messages for the two tribes: Go slow, do plenty of public education, work with neighbors and agencies (county, state and federal), and get both the people and the leaders on the same page.

"There's a lot of challenges to be met" before bison can be re-established on the reservation, Torbit said. Among the questions: Where will the bison be located? What kind of forage is available? How big or small a herd should be established?

"You know all your neighbors are going to be interested," Torbit said, so extensive discussions should be held with the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and private property owners.

Torbit said bison would need to be imported from brucellosis-free bison herds in other states, so the state veterinarian would need to be involved from the get-go.

He also urged the Wind River tribes to be careful where they buy bison for a start-up herd. Not only is brucellosis a concern, he said, but so is the genetic purity of the bison stock. Many Western herds that have been genetically surveyed have been hybrid - a mix of bison and cattle.

"A lot of scientists and environmentalists are just becoming aware of the problem," Torbit said.

For a variety of reasons, a new bison herd should be genetically pure, he said. The Yellowstone and Wind Cave (S.D.) herds are pure, but many private herds are not.

DuBray said most tribes are trying to figure out how they want to manage their bison herds, while operating within a greater Western culture. Where tribes used to have a holistic relationship with bison - spiritual, cultural and economic - most tribes are caught between traditionalists who view the bison as a tribal icon, and the economic progressives who view bison as an economic boon.

As a result, DuBray said, the progressives might complain about the traditionalists harvesting an animal for a tribal feast, or the traditionalists might complain about several animals being sold off the reservation.

"The important thing is that they're talking and trying to understand each other's point of view," he said.

DuBray equated a healthy bison herd with a healthy tribe. Rather than eat beef cattle fattened in feedlots and injected with chemicals and medicines, more and more Indians are eating organic bison.

"We have proven that on a bison-meat diet, not only do diabetics do better, the diabetes goes away. I have seen it," he said.

Starr Weed Sr., a Shoshone, said he remembers stories from the elders as he was growing up, about how the people came from the bison. In those days, the Shoshone ate bison meat and lived to 100, said Weed, an elder himself.

Hope Sieck, director of the Wind River Alliance, said there will be more information meetings in the future. Ken Trosper, the community outreach director for the alliance, said a working group will be formed in the weeks and months ahead, to allow all interested parties an opportunity to learn more about bison.