Sacred buffalo calf offers hope amid efforts to revive species

The Yellowstone bison make up the only wild herd in the US and are among the last genetically pure bison in existence.

But Yellowstone National Park regularly reaches the legally-permitted capacity of 5,000.

Tribes who support the species’ growth have stepped in, believing the species’ health is tied to their own history. Since 2019, the US National Park Service has transferred 414 healthy bison from Yellowstone to 26 tribes in 12 states through the Bison Conservation Transfer Program.

Native people also have their own distribution system to share buffalo independent of the park’s efforts. Since 1992, the Intertribal Buffalo Council – a collective of 83 tribes working to “restore the cultural, spiritual and historic relationships” with the animals – has sent 25,000 bison to 65 herds on tribal lands in 22 states.

“People don’t understand or realise that what happened to the buffalo similarly happened to native people, and that history is intertwined,” says Jason Baldes, who serves as vice-president of the council and is a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.

The returning of buffalo to tribal people marks a major change in federal policy for a country whose soldiers had once been ordered to kill them all to deprive tribes of food and supplies.

And officials are not only returning animals, they’re considering taking on more themselves: the National Park Service has just completed an environmental impact study at Yellowstone, and determined that the size of the herd should increase from 5,000 to 6,000 – but could accommodate as many as 10,000. It’s the first time the park has proposed an increase in 24 years.

The herd’s growth is made more striking by the fact that up to 60 million American buffalo were killed in the rush to claim ownership of the American frontier.

Unlike the native people – who are known to use nearly every part of the animal for food, shelter and more – the settlers killed them with reckless abandon, taking furs and leaving carcasses to rot.

By the 20th Century, no more than 1,000 bison remained in the wild.

Large-scale cattle operations took over the empty land and commercial interests continue to be a source of conflict between those who wish to see the wild buffalo roam as they once did, and the livestock industry.