Buffalo reclaim legacy
What does having a buffalo herd mean?
READING YOUR NEWSPAPER MAKES YOU SMARTER
What does having a buffalo herd mean?
For Native American plains tribes, the buffalo is “a sacred source of physical and spiritual sustenance.”
The transfer of Denver’s surplus buffalo to tribal ownership became a solemn and sacred event last year.
For years, it auctioned surplus stock, but in 2022 it gave 15 animals to the Northern Arapaho tribe in Montana, 17 to the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes in Oklahoma, and one to a tribal cooperative on 70 acres in Denver.
History
Almost 100-million American Bison (buffalos’ scienti_ic name) roamed past the mighty Mississippi River before settlers moved west. Washington made building a transcontinental railroad a key goal.
Gen. W.T. Sherman said, “We are not going to let thieving, ragged Indians check and stop the progress” of the railroads. “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children.”
Hostile attacks and lost habitat drove bison to the brink of extinction. Railroads hated bison herds on their tracks. Prairie space vanished due to farming, ranching, and city development. Cattle disease, reckless hunting, and kill-offs to deny food to tribes also cut bison numbers.
Bison come back
By 1900, only 300 wild buffalo remained and preservation efforts began.
Bison population now is about 350,000. Yellowstone Park’s 5,000-head herd is among the largest. Oklahoma’s Tallgrass Prairie Preserve hosts 2,500 head owned by the Nature Conservancy.
“We can call ’em buffalo or bison. But whichever, I’m glad the herds are coming back,” Kid Robin Read said.
Pal Libby Smart adds, “Great newspaper and magazine features about bison will enchant you.”
American Bison graze at the Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Praire Preserve near Pawhuska, Okla.
Photo courtesy of The Nature Conservancy
