Following a brief ceremony April 17 that included the burning of sage and the singing of Native American prayers, five bison from the Laramie Foothills Conservation Herd were loaded into trailers bound for the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

On April 18, 12 more were loaded into trailers bound for the Crow Reservation in Montana.

The week before, seven bison from the herd were sent to the Grand Portage Reservation in Minnesota and seven more to the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin.

The conservation herd, launched in 2015 to raise healthy bison to supplement existing bison herds and start new ones across the country, is doing just that.