Look who won the lottery.
The Church Universal and Triumphant, an apocalyptic cult that calls the Royal Teton Ranch near Gardiner its home, apparently hit the jackpot last week.
The church sold its grazing rights on the ranch which borders Yellowstone National Park for $3.3 million and agreed to allow up to 25 bison from the park to winter there.
CUT, never much of a cow outfit anyway, recently sold the last of its cattle.
The move appears to be little more than an expensive feel-good gesture designed to placate critics of Montana’s bison management plan which resulted in the slaughter of 1,600 bison this winter.
The plan, designed to prevent bison from straying outside the park and potentially spreading a livestock disease, was harshly criticized earlier this month by the Federal Government Accountability Office. Their report said state and federal agencies failed to expand a free-ranging area for bison despite spending tens of millions of dollars on land easements and bison management.
In response, Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Suzanne Lewis decided to throw some more money at the problem.
The cash landed in the hands of the followers of K19 of the Cosmic Secret Service, one of a handful of “ascended masters” to which CUT adherents subscribe.
It’s a bit surprising that CUT – never in the running for neighbor-of-the-year -- would be so handsomely rewarded for doing so little. Since CUT’s arrival in Park County in the mid 1980s, church officials have been convicted on gun charges and fined for spilling diesel fuel into Mol Heron Creek. The church even threatened to tap into Yellowstone’s thermal aquifer.
But the cult has a history of dodging bullets and landing on its feet. When wildfires in the park threatened the Royal Teton Ranch in 1988, church members gathered en masse to chant, and lo and behold the flames changed direction.
Now for millions of dollars, the church has agreed to let a handful of bison graze on CUT land until April 15 when they would be hazed back inside the park.
What difference such a paltry gesture will make is hard to imagine. About 2,300 bison remain in the park and they are calving this month. Providing refuge for 25 of them won’t end the slaughter or the perceived threat of brucellosis.
Ten years ago the feds had a chance to buy the church’s grazing rights but didn’t because the $2.7 million price tag was too high.
That was the right decision then and would have been the right decision today.
Instead, the Church Universal and Triumphant won the lottery.
And the bison management plan remains an increasingly expensive mess.
Parker Heinlein is at pman@mtintouch.net