Some of the photos in this story depict graphic scenes of hunting carnage. Reader discretion is advised.
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(CN) — The herd of bison fed quietly along the dirt roadside Saturday, just inside the northern border of Yellowstone National Park.
About 100 yards away, a group of about 50 Native Americans watched the bison intently. With rifles of all calibers slung over their shoulders, they waited for the big animals to cross the dirt road onto National Forest Land, where the bison could be shot.
Pickup trucks with license plates from around the country lined both sides of the narrow dirt road. Some of the men sat in pickup trucks, idling their engines to keep warm, while young boys sat on tailgates, sharpening knives. They knew the killing would start soon.
The bison, meanwhile, would step across the road, only to be herded back to the park by an unknowing passing motorist. The entire mood of the group of men shifted as the bison crossed back and forth.
After about six hours, the herd of 18 bison had crossed in singles and in pairs and was now making its way up a long, flat ridge where bison carcasses lay strewn about from previous days’ killings.
The men grouped together to listen to a tribal game officer from the Nez Perce tribe tell them how the hunt was going to take place. As there were only 18 bison, but about 50 men, the tribal members who had come from across the country decided how the bison would be distributed. One elderly man was given the chance to lead the pack of men up the ridge. He would shoot first.
The men moved in a group slowly up the ridge while the bison grazed nonchalantly just 40 yards away, oblivious to the dead carcasses dotted around the sagebrush and open grass. The tailgate-party atmosphere of a few minutes ago had now turned serious, sullen and quiet.
As soon as the bison had moved past fluorescent signs dictating where the shooting could take place, the elderly man raised his rifle and fired, dropping his buffalo. The other bison stood nearby, nonplussed.
The other shooters fired quickly and the bison dropped where they had stood. In less than 30 seconds it was over; the herd of bison lay dead in the snow, some still writhing from injuries while battle cries and shouts echoed across the still winter landscape.
The men took to their task immediately, skinning and butchering the enormous animals, while a few women shot photos with cellphones. The snow turned red, and a small creek running with snowmelt carried the bison blood down the hill.
One man who came from a tribe in Idaho cut out the eyeball of the bison bull he was butchering, “out of respect, so the animal could not watch,” the man said.
Saturday’s bison killing by Native American tribal members was part of a management effort to reduce the animal's numbers in Yellowstone National Park.
The culling of bison that wander outside of Yellowstone National Park started in the late 1990s, after the state of Montana sued the National Park Service over allowing bison to roam outside the park and possibly infect nearby domestic cattle with brucellosis.