The U.S. Department of the Interior announced Wednesday it has finalized the transfer of the 18,800-acre National Bison Range to the trust ownership of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

The federal wildlife refuge carved from the center of the Flathead Reservation more than a century ago was returned to tribal control under bipartisan legislation that Congress passed in December. No longer being managed with federal money, the land was transferred from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which now holds it in trust for the CSKT.

"The CSKT is a leader in conservation of natural resources throughout Montana, and the service looks forward to continuing to work together to conserve wildlife and wild places throughout the state," Martha Williams, principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement Wednesday.

President Teddy Roosevelt's administration established the Bison Range in 1908 on ancestral homelands that had been promised to the CSKT under the 1855 Hellgate Treaty. It marked the first time the U.S. government purchased land for the sole purpose of protecting wildlife. But the government paid less than market value for the land and seized it without the tribes' consent — a move that a federal court deemed unconstitutional in 1971.

"The establishment of the National Bison Range was an historic use of lands to preserve wildlife, but we must also acknowledge that this act reduced the Salish and Kootenai peoples' homeland by thousands of acres," Bryan Newland, the Interior Department's principal deputy assistant secretary for Indian affairs, said in a statement. "The return of these lands back to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes is truly a significant milestone in their relationship with the Interior Department and the United States."

Visitors can tour the range, which opened for the season on Mother's Day weekend, for $10 per vehicle per day or $20 for an annual pass. The area at the base of the Mission Mountains also is home to black bears, white-tailed and mule deer, elk, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and many species of birds. The entrance to the range is at Moiese, an 80-mile drive south of Kalispell just off U.S. 93.

More information can be found at bisonrange.org.

Assistant editor Chad Sokol may be reached at 406-758-4439 or csokol@dailyinterlake.com.