My first experience with a buffalo was on a trip through Yellowstone National Park. One magnificant buffalo bull was walking down the mountain using the very road our car was travelling on. We pulled over and watched him as he passed by the car. I grabbed my camera to take a couple of pictures. When I returned from my trip, I had the film developed and it was then that I could truly see this massive creature for whom God had created...so powerful, so magestic...I knew I was hooked for life.

The white man nearly drove these beautiful creatures to extinction, not hunting them for food as our Native American brothers did, but for their hides and tongues for sale and the hope to starve the red-man off the land that THEY now wanted. With the help of public awareness and the love of others for the buffalo, these animals are making a comeback. But that is not the wonderful ending I want to share with you. There are still people today, that would like to see the mighty Buffalo removed. Their superstitions and greed for pasture land to put cattle on, have prompt the DOL into taking actions against these beautiful animals. There is now a massive endeavor to haze buffalo as they make their ancestrial journey to spring patures to graze and have their calves. This is what the Buffalo Field Campaign has to say:" The so-called random shooting at the Montana borders is actually eliminating or depleting entire maternal lineages, therefore this action will cause an irreversible crippling of the gene pool. Continued removal of genetic lineages will change the genetic makeup of the herd, thus it will not represent the animal of 1910 or earlier. It would be a travesty to have people look back and say we were "idiots" for not understanding the gene pool." Bison have developed a natural resistance genetically as long as thay have enough to eat, limited stress and are not consumed by other disease. There is no magic bullet in wildlife disease. Therefore management is important. Vaccines are one management tool and one component, but genetic structure is neccessary for future management. Every animal which is removed from the breeding population can no longer contribute to the genetic variability of the herd."

(This issue is so important because the Yellowstone buffalo are the only wild, free roaming buffalo left. If they are not protected - that wildness will be lost for all future generations. Buffalo in the Yellowstone Ecosystem are the last wild remnant of the more than 60 million buffalo that once roamed North America. They are the most distinct and unique herd of buffalo on the planet and a critical reservoir of biological diversity. As a keystone species, essential to the maintenance of native liediversity within the Yellowstone ecosystem, they have immense ecological and evolutionary importance. As a powerful symbol for all Americans, and especially American Indians, they have enormous cultural and spiritual significance and power.)

This summer I was fortunate to be able to communicate with an organization called Buffalo Folks that have been faithfully monitoring the buffalo in Yellowstone. Their reports are terrifying! Here is one of the reports I have received (the latest):

July 22, 2001

Howdy everyone -

Here it is the 21st of July, and there is a buffalo bull outside of the park. Last reports yesterday evening were that he was somewhere off highway 20, near hostile lands. As soon as someone called us about the bull, we were on our way. We reconned the area for about five hours, didn't find him. the two local DOL agents were out looking too, it appears that they didn't find him either. We have two patrols out today, if anything happens, we'll be there. This is the same area where the bull was killed a few weeks ago. We will keep you posted.

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Bison, the largest terrestrial animal in North America, where it is commonly called buffalo. Biologists prefer the term Bison, which is based on the animal's Latin name, as it distinguishes it from the cape buffalo of Africa and the water buffalo of Asia. The bison is characterized by a hump over the front shoulders; short, sharply pointed horns (in both sexes) curving outward and up from the sides of the massive head; and slimmer hindquarters. A mature bull of the North American bison is about 2 m (about 6.5 ft) high at the hump and 2.7 to 3.7 m (9 to 12 ft) long and weighs 850 to 1100 kg (1800 to 2400 lb); the female is smaller. The head, neck, forelegs, and front parts of the body have a thick coat of long, dark hair. The rear part of the body is covered with much shorter hair. The adult bull usually has a black beard about 30 cm (about 12 in) long.

Bison are usually found in groups, except for old, solitary bulls. Most of the year females with young form small bands, and immature bulls may stay with them. Mature males have their own groups. The bands may congregate in large herds in the spring or fall to search for food or water. Bison grunts and snorts are audible at short distances. The roar of rutting bulls, audible at nearly 5 km (nearly 3 mi), is heard most often in mating season, mainly July to September, when bulls go looking for cows and try to ward off rivals. Breeding bulls have little time to eat and lose more than 90 kg (about 200 lb) during mating season. Gestation is eight to nine months, and a single yellow-red calf is born. After a few days the calf can keep up with the herd and follows its mother until the following spring.

The bison originated in Eurasia and is one of the few members of its family to have crossed the Bering Strait land bridge in prehistoric times to North America, where two subspecies, the plains bison and the wood bison, survive. The European bison, or wisent, taller but lighter than the American bison, is almost extinct; a few exist in parks and zoos.

Until the 19th century, as many as 60 million bison lived on the Great Plains from Mexico into Canada, and some were found east of the Mississippi River. They were central to the existence of the Plains peoples (see Native Americans), who used them for food, hides, and bone implements; even the dried dung, called buffalo chips, was used as fuel. From 1830 to 1889, methodical destruction by encroaching white settlers, for sport and for hides, reduced this number to less than 1000. Today well over 200,000 bison live in protected areas and on private ranches.