BUFFALO TALES
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Painting by CM Russell.
January 12, 2025
In northcentral Montana an enormous wildlife project is taking shape in a bold new way that is shaking the foundations of community development and progress—to bring about what has been called the American Seringetti.
The American Prairie Reserve—APR, or simply the Prairie Reserve–on the upper Missouri River is an ambitious plan to develop just such a place as that vast and unspoiled Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, which still experiences the last of the world’s great wildlife migrations.
December 14, 2024
In 1907 the Michel Pablo herd from western Montana began arriving in Canada. At their end of the railroad, Canadians cheered the buffalo’s arrival.
They knew they had scored a coup in getting “the finest buffalo herd in America,” as William Hornaday, president of the new American Bison Society, called Michal Pablo’s half-wild herd from Montana.
November 9, 2024
When Michel Pablo sold all of his buffalo to the Canadian government, it took 6 years to get them rounded up and loaded. He expected the job to take one summer.
They were wild, and did not take kindly to being chased to the railway station in Ravalli, Montana—or getting loaded into railway cars. Especially the renegade bulls.
Pablo’s buffalo—he thought there were somewhere between 300 and 700 head—were grazing in the Bitterroot Mountain Range and the Lolo National Forest along the Flathead River.
October 12, 2024
Louis Garcia, honorary tribal historian for the Spirit Lake Nation, teaches carpentry at the Cankdeska Community College at Fort Totten, ND. He is the author of “Grass Dance of the Spirit Lake Dakota,” published by Cankdeska Community College. It is available in the college bookstore and at www.writtenheritagebooks.com. He writes a column in the Benson Country Farmers Press entitled; A Message From Garcia: The History and Culture of the Spirit Lake Nation, and has written about 120 of these feature stories. Garcia is married to Hilda Redfox. A tribal member for 48 years, and 3rd generation Dakota Presbyterian Church Elder, she is employed by the Tribal health Department. They have a son Robert age 44 and a grandson Chandler and live near Tokio, ND on Spirit Lake Reservation.
September 14, 2024
By January 2019, the buffalo at Banff had been free-roaming for 5 months, after being released from their small enclosed pasture in the remote Panther Valley. They are being tracked and monitored by the Banff bison scientists with the help of GPS collar data, remote cameras and field observations.
August 10, 2024
For over a century, Parks Canada has been leading the charge to restore wild bison in Canada.
One of its first ventures was the display buffalo herd placed in a small 300-acre paddock near Banff in 1885.
Canada’s oldest national park—Banff National Park—is near the mountain resort of Banff and Lake Louise.
July 12, 2024
Buffalo are social creatures. They like living together in herds.
But not just any herd. Their own herd. The one in which they know everyone else intimately. Usually they are relatives.
And not too large a herd—30 to 60 seems a good size.
Except sometimes it’s the “bigger the better.” That happens in late July and August when historically the great herds came together for breeding season.
June 12, 2024
Much has been written through the years about the role that noted conservationists from the east played in pulling bison back from the brink of extinction.
But Ken Zontek, buffalo historian, raises an interesting point in his book. He says not much attention has been paid to westerners who actually kept the young calves alive.
May 12, 2024
Clearly, the buffalo were headed for extinction. No one seemed to care.
The “bottleneck”—as it’s been called—drew even closer each year after the last great buffalo hunt on the Great Sioux Reservation in 1883.
The low point came in the 1890’s, or perhaps later, around the turn of the century. That was when the “safe and protected” Yellowstone Park herd, estimated at 200, was suddenly decimated by poachers seeking trophy heads.
Fewer than 25 buffalo, well hidden in remote and rugged canyons, survived that slaughter in Yellowstone Park.
April 12, 2024
What shall we call this magnificent monarch of the Plains—buffalo or bison?
Some people are adamant: the term buffalo correctly refers only to water buffalo in South Asia and Cape buffalo in Africa. We are simply wrong, misinformed, or ignorant to even think of calling the American bison—Buffalo.
November 15, 2023
Today, buffalo live in all 50 states and across Canada, and serve as a symbol of American unity, resilience and healthy lifestyles and communities.
OctobeI 25, 2023
t’s coming up! Buffalo Day is November 4, 2023—Always the first Saturday in November. Get your family ready to celebrate! Remember, in the US and Canada we use the terms Bison and Buffalo interchangeably. And that’s OK. Either fits!