bison: yesterday, today, and tomorrow

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Bison: Yesterday, Today, and TomorrowAuthor(s): Mietek KolipinskiSteven BorishArthur ScottKristen KozlowskiSibdas GhoshSource: Natural Areas Journal, 34(3):365-375. 2014.Published By: Natural Areas AssociationDOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3375/043.034.0312URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.3375/043.034.0312

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Volume 34 (3), 2014 Natural Areas Journal 365

Natural Areas Journal 34:365–375

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Bison: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Mietek Kolipinski11National Park Service, Pacific West

Regional OfficeSan Francisco, CA

Steven Borish2

Arthur Scott3

Kristen Kozlowski4

Sibdas Ghosh5,6

2Department of Human DevelopmentCalifornia State University East Bay

Hayward, CA

3Department of HumanitiesDominican University of California

San Rafael, CA

4Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics

Dominican University of CaliforniaSan Rafael, CA

5School of Arts and ScienceIona College

New Rochelle, NY

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6 Corresponding author: [email protected]

ABSTRACT: No species in North America today more powerfully represents the United States than the plains bison (popularly called “buffalo”); preserving Bison bison bison Linnaeus, and its genetic integrity, is important to the nation. This paper first examines the bison’s prehistory, migrations to North America, relationship with North American Native American cultures, and events leading to the nineteenth century near-extinction. It then discusses early conservation successes, including the work of individuals and organizations that made this possible. This paper focuses on mainly the prospects for bison protection today in the face of strong challenges such as bison-cattle (Bos taurus Bojanus) interbreeding and the threat of bison genomic extinction. This work is being carried out by bison pro-tection organizations and a Department of the Interior (DOI) bison working group. Their goals include finding and establishing connected habitats wherein buffalo can roam and migrate as they did histori-cally across broad ranges. Maintaining genetic integrity and creating safe habitats for bison herds can lead to long-term viability.

Index terms: anthropogenic selection, bison near-extinction, bison phylogeny, Great Plains ecology, herd management, National Park Service, Native Americans, wildlife conservation

INTRODUCTION

With the possible exception of the Bald Eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus (L.), no species in North America today more pow-erfully represents the United States than the plains bison. Plains bison – referred to scientifically as Bison bison bison (Lin-naeus) – have immense historical and cul-tural value to all Americans. Preserving the genetic structure of this species is important to the nation, the more so because it was we Americans who brought this magnifi-cent animal to within a hair’s breadth of species extinction. There is a profound and tangled story behind the role bison have played in the images Americans hold of ourselves. These images are reflected in our art, our folklore, our poetry and literature. They can be seen in the writings of our early explorers and the debate among the historians and other academic specialists who followed them.

When the American historian Frederick Jackson Turner delivered his famous state-ment to the American Historical Associa-tion in Chicago in 1893 declaring “that the frontier had ended” (Turner 1893), it is important to remember that it was Turner who, in the same paper, had defined the American West as “the meeting point between savagery and civilization.” Turner saw the positive heritage of the American frontier as one of individualism and de-mocracy; yet, there is a more troubling aspect of this heritage to be considered. Turner’s lines idealizing the frontier were written just a few years after the escalating Euro-American slaughter of the American bison had reached its final stage. In the

years between 1867 and 1883, the first railroads were a steel invader whose iron rails speared deeply and mercilessly into the heart of the buffalo range, effectively splitting them into northern and southern herds (Krech 1999). Both herds were quickly hunted to near extinction. By 1883, the great buffalo hunts were over; only a few hundred survivors remained. The American prairies – once the scene of immense herds of bison ranging as far as the eye could see – had become great silent cemeteries littered with their bones. Who, we may ask, were the savages of whom Turner speaks? And who were the representatives of civilization?

Even for most Americans today, who may not see the buffalo in a spiritual or religious context, the place of this majestic animal is well established in the national consciousness. For the Native Americans – especially the tribes of the Great Plains (Comanche, Sioux, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Pawnee, Crow, Blackfeet and many oth-ers) – buffalo provided not only practical sources of meat, skins, and tools, but also represented a significant component of their spirituality. The fact that the bison survived at all is only due to the dedicated conservation work of many individuals and organizations that fought since the dark days of what looked like certain impend-ing extinction to preserve the integrity of the species.

The early work of the American Bison Society (ABS) founded in 1905 (Isenberg 2000), the farsighted contribution made by the six individuals who began collect-ing surviving bison as early as the 1870s,

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366 Natural Areas Journal Volume 34 (3), 2014

and the critical role played over the next decades by the United States National Park Service (NPS) (especially Yellowstone National Park) and the Canadian Wood Buffalo National Park deserve special men-tion (Halbert et al. 2007). In addition, many Native Americans in the United States and Canada are establishing bison herds on their own land, determined to restore the link with the past that only bison can provide. As one Cheyenne active in these efforts said of this, “When our spirituality comes back, when we see the buffalo as our grandfathers saw them, then we’ll be on the road to recovery” (cited in Geist 1996).

This paper looks into the fascinating past of the bison, its special relationship with the North American Native cultures, the conservation dilemmas that constitute threats to the very survival of its genetic lines, and finally, to the hopeful future prospects of bison in the United States. Its unique approach represents an interdis-ciplinary collaboration of scholars in the arts, sciences, and humanities.

THE BISON AND NORTH AMERICA

Bison and the Pleistocene Past

Bison have been in America for a very long time. But their earliest ancestors did not come from America at all. They originated some four million years ago in the tropical and subtropical grasslands of southern Asia (Geist 1996). Not much is known about them, except that they had short horns, were smaller than the Ice Age varieties that would soon appear, and were fleet runners. It is generally accepted that after the major glaciations began 1.7 million years ago, the Eurasian steppe bison (Bison priscus Bojanus) reached North America by cross-ing the Bering Strait that at times formed a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska about 300,000 years Before Common Era (BCE). The characteristic topography of glaciers, glacial moraines, and huge glacial lakes that reached from eastern Siberia into Alaska and the Yukon is known as the “mammoth steppe” (Geist 1996). It allowed animal migrations between North America and Siberia.

Bison priscus was a herd animal, adapted to rapid flight and the provision of mutual aid against predators in the form of social defense formations. Its long horns with outwardly pointing tips facilitated this type of defense against single or small group predators, a feature of its Asian origin shared with cape buffalo (Syncerus caffer Sparrman) and musk ox (Ovibos moschatus Zimmermann), two species also active in defending against predators (Geist 1996). Once in Ice Age North America, it was subjected to severe predation by wolves Canis lupus (L.), who are running pack predators. Faced both with the need to defend against both running pack predators and ambush by large carnivores such as saber-tooth cats (Smilodon fatalis Leidy) and the huge short-faced bear (Arctodus simus Cope), the much larger variant, Bi-son latifrons Harlan, evolved and existed in North America for over 250,000 years. This giant bison, with a high hump and a seven-foot horn spread, gave rise over time to several smaller bodied ancestral forms that varied regionally over the face of the continent. One of them, Bison alleni Marsh, lived on the Great Plains during the Wisconsin Ice Age 125,000 to 25,000 BCE (Fitzgerald and Hasselstrom 1998). Another descendent, Bison antiquus Leidy (22,000 to 10,000 BCE), was a widespread species found from the Pacific to Atlantic coasts, and from the Great Plains to the Gulf of Mexico.

During a severe cold phase (11,000 to 10,000 BCE), a new wave of mammals arrived from East Siberia. Among them was the smaller Bison occidentalis Lucas, thought to be the immediate ancestor of the modern bison (although it most likely hybridized with the Bison antiquus species in the long warm phase that began about 10,000 BCE). Approximately 5000 years ago, two sub-species evolved in North America: the plains bison and the wood bison (B. bison athabascae Rhoads). The plains bison probably evolved from Bison antiquus. Some researchers believe the wood bison is descended from Bison oc-cidentalis (Van Zyll de Jong 1986; Wilson and Strohbeck 1999). It is clear that these taxonomic relationships are complex, and are subject to further discussion and revi-sion based on new fossil discoveries or new

interpetations of existing fossil evidence.

B. bison bison, the subspecies we call the American bison, has had a long evolu-tionary journey. It is a journey that very nearly came to an end in the last three decades of the nineteenth century in the American West.

Bison and the Ecology of the Great Plains

When the first Euro-American explorers visited the Great Plains region of North America, many found it to be a desic-cated, cheerless, and arid place. One visitor who came in 1811, John Bradbury, was a naturalist who accompanied a fur trading mission along the Missouri River. Brad-bury was shocked when he climbed up from the river valley and saw the plains that surrounded the lush valley: “the face of the country, soil was entirely changed. As far as the eye could reach, not a single tree or shrub was visible. The whole of the stratum immediately below the vegetable mould is a vast bed of exceedingly hard yellow clay” (cited in Isenberg 2000). Others compared the Midwestern plains to the Sahara desert, and spoke of this region as being a desolate wilderness “only fitted for the haunts of the mustang, the buffalo, the antelope, and their migratory lord, the prairie Indian” (Gregg 1844, 1845; cited Isenberg 2000).

Yet these shortgrass, seemingly inhos-pitable plains were the home of at least 30 million buffalo at the beginning of the nineteenth century. What were these shortgrasses that enabled plains bison to survive in such great numbers? They con-sisted primarily of two grass species: the blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis (Willd. ex Kunth) Lag. ex Griffiths) and buffalo grass (Buchloe dactyloides (Nutt.) Columbus). Both species have “a dense root structure close to the surface of the soil” (Isenberg 2000), which is only one of many features favoring their successful adaptation to the semi-arid plains climate.

The climate of the Great Plains included recurring periods of severe drought, as indicated in a tree ring study of northern Nebraska that showed six droughts lasting


five or more years between 1539 and 1939: the average drought lasted 13 years (Isen-berg 2000). Sudden showers can produce torrential rainstorms in which one-third of the average annual precipitation can fall in a single hour. Apart from these storms, as many as four months can go by without a drop of rain, and when the rain does fall, it is frequently less than 10 mm per storm (25% of the growing season rainfall is less than 5 mm). These summer conditions of extreme heat give way to bitterly cold winters in which the land is often covered for months at a time with deep snow and ice. Unlike other prairie grasses, Bouteloua gracilis and Buchloe dactyloides can thrive under these difficult conditions. It may seem paradoxical that this appar-ently marginal food source – flourishing through its intricate suite of adaptations in this semi-arid region – could at the same time support tens of millions of bison, the largest land mammal extant in North America. Isenberg (2000) points out that to survive, “the shortgrasses and the bison adapted not only to the semi-arid climate, but to each other.” In what amounts to a noteworthy case study of plant/animal co-evolution, the actions of migrating buffalo herds helped select the shortgrasses for ecological dominance in the prairie environment. To cite Isenberg (2000) again: “Bison droppings returned fertilizer to the soil. Buffalo grass responds to grazing by increasing its uptake of ni-trogen from the soil. Grazing induces new growth to restore the lost parts of the plant, producing a thick ‘grazing lawn.’” And the shortgrasses had a sufficiently high propor-tion of protein per unit volume to satisfy the nutritional needs of the buffalo. These subtle ecological interrelationships were not visible to the early European travelers, who referred to the Plains as “the Great American Desert.”

It was the flourishing of the shortgrasses that made possible the vast herds of buffalo that astonished early European visitors to North America. One Spanish traveler at the beginning of the seventeenth century wrote of seeing “a multitude so great that it might be considered a falsehood by those who had not seen them” (cited in Krech 1999). Such accounts marveling at the

size of the bison herds are a familiar part of the literature. Two hundred years later, in 1793, a Hudson Bay Company surveyor could write: “from the N to S the ground is entirely covered by them and appears quite black. I never saw such amazing numbers together before. I am sure there was some millions in sight as no ground could be seen for them in that compleat semicircle and extending at least 10 miles” (cited in Krech 1999). As late as 1871, a U.S. army colonel on the Arkansas River wrote that “the whole country appeared one mass of buffalo” (cited in Krech 1999).

The exact numbers of the bison in these herds that wandered across the North American continent is a question that has been the subject of long debate (Roe 1970; Dary 1989; Flores 1991; Shaw 1995; Krech 1999; Isenberg 2000). A recent estimate by five bison specialists (Halbert et al. 2007) gives the figure of 25–40 million prior to the events of the nineteenth century decimation. A Native American, asked in the late nineteenth century by the early anthropologist George Grinnell, how many bison there had been, simply sighed and said, “The country was one buffalo robe” (Grinnell 1892; cited in Krech 1999).

BISON NINETEENTH CENTURY DECLINE AND NEAR-EXTINCTION

As European explorers extended their ranges throughout the continent, they discovered what Native American tribes had known for centuries: buffalo moving in herds were easily killed and offered a nutritious source of meat. Another factor in the explosion of bison killing was the emergence of a new valuable market for buffalo. Eastern retailers discovered that besides meat, bison skins and furs were warm, useful, and profitable in the great emporiums of large American cities. This process was further amplified by the ap-pearance of the railroad.

As the monetary value of buffalo skins and meat continued to grow in the sec-ond half of the nineteenth century, the numbers of killed bison began to signal the coming population crash. Some early and concerned observers could see this coming. Audubon wrote in his Missouri

River Journal, 1843, “Daily we see so many [buffalo] that we hardly notice them... But this cannot last; even now there is a perceptible difference in the size of the herds, and before many years, the Buffalo, like the Great Auk, will have disappeared; surely this should not be permitted” (cited in Geist 1996).

The decade of the 1860s was a brutal time for Plains Indians. They witnessed constant violations of their lands by whites – even lands guaranteed by treaty. The Treaties of Medicine Lodge (1867) and Fort Laramie (1868) officially banned Euro-American hunters from the southern and northern Indian territories. The Treaty of Fort Laramie gave much of South Dakota to the Lakota People of the Black Hills, as well as land in Montana, Wyoming, and the Powder River country “as long as the grass shall grow and the water flow.” This area later became known as the “Great Sioux Reservation.” But, there were giant loopholes. The Treaty of Fort Laramie expressly allowed scientific exploration, land grants, and mining claims to go for-ward. The U.S. army refused to enforce the treaty provisions that banned white hunters from the Indian Territory; it actu-ally protected these hunters and supplied them with ammunition (Isenberg 2000). The Fort Laramie Treaty “maintained a fragile peace on the northern plains until gold was discovered in the Black Hills six years later” (Callaway 1996).

The advent of the railroad was a final de-structive blow to the Plains tribes which de-pended on the bison for spirit, sustenance, and survival. The dime novel exploits of Buffalo Bill Cody served as a romantic enticement to persuade travelers to go west. “Invite all the sportsmen of England and America for a Great Buffalo Hunt and make a grand sweep of them all,” wrote General William Sherman, Commander of the Army in the Sioux territory, to General William Sheridan (undated, cited in Geist 1996). It was the combined actions of professional hide hunters, sportsmen from the United States and Europe, and soldiers from the U.S. Army that brought the bison to near extinction. The railroad companies encouraged shooting of bison from trains. Sometimes they shot the animals for sport,


and these massacres left thousands of carcasses to rot on the plains, a sight that enraged the Native Americans. “Have the white men become children?” asked the Kiowa chief Satanta at Medicine Lodge in 1867, “that they should kill meat and not eat?” (Callaway 1996).

By the 1870s, buffalo furs were in great de-mand among fashionable New Yorkers and Washingtonians. The leather also served to provide drive belts for the machines of the expanding eastern factories. By 1884, the buffalo was gone, as symbolized by the last shipment of hides. It is estimated that of the 3,700,000 bison killed between 1872 and 1874, only 150,000 were killed by Indians (Fitzgerald and Hasselstrom 1998). The final insult – and epitaph – to the living bison past came with the bone business of the late 1880s: huge piles of bones (Fig-ure 1) from the remaining carcasses were gathered and shipped eastward to be used as fertilizer. A Topeka newspaper estimated at that time that if railroad boxcars could be filled with all the bison bones sold, it would have made a train 7575 miles long – more than enough to fill two tracks all the way from San Francisco to New York (Fitzgerald and Hasselstrom 1998). So many bison were being killed that some travelers of the time reported it was possible to walk from the Dakotas to Texas hardly touching the ground (Fitzgerald and Has-selstrom 1998). Only small, isolated groups of buffalo were left. They were so scarce that it was almost impossible even for the best buffalo hunters to find them.

The impact of the loss of the buffalo herds to the Native American cultures was incal-culable. An Assiniboine chief “remembered acres and acres of dead buffalo when he was a child, the carcasses so close together he could walk across the prairie jumping from buffalo to buffalo” (Geist 1996). As Crow leader Plenty Coups declared, “when the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground” (Calloway 1996). The nineteenth century Sioux leader, Red Cloud, is said to have observed, “Where the Indian killed one buffalo, the hide and tongue hunters killed fifty” (Krech 1999). But what died was more than the buffalo. In the words of Black Elk (Neihardt 1979; see also Di Silvestro 2007), “When I look

back from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.”

Bison Saved From Extinction

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, occasional voices of moderation and reason broke through to warn against the wanton killing of the bison. In the 1830s, men of national prominence were concerned by what they saw happening to the species. For example, the painter George Catlin in 1842 bemoaned the prac-tice of “drawing from the backs of these useful animals the skins for our luxury, leaving their carcasses to be devoured by the wolves, that we should draw from that country, some 150 or 200,000 of their robes annually, the greater part of which are taken from animals that are killed expressly for the robe, at a season when the meat is not cured and preserved, and for each of which skins the Indian has received but a pint of whiskey” (cited in Geist 1996).

Yet, there were so many buffalo in North America during this time that it was nearly impossible for most people to imagine them ever being seriously endangered by hunting. Legislation protecting the buf-falo was passed in some territories, but these laws were limited and sometimes unenforceable. Congressional committees repeatedly refused to pass bills that would have created federal laws protecting the buffalo, because of a combination of their desire to side with businesses that thrived on buffalo hides and meat, and their fear that if the buffalo were protected, Indian groups would gain strength.

By 1883, the buffalo population had been reduced to a few small bands. By 1894, the only free-living bison in the United States were found in Yellowstone National Park. In less than a decade, poachers reduced this last wild herd to just twenty-three surviv-ing animals (Geist 1996). The American plains bison, a subspecies that had been on the Great Plains of North America

for at least seven thousand years, one of the two surviving members of the genus Bison that had lived in North America for three hundred thousand years, was on the verge of extinction. The extent of the bison population crash is made clear by an 1889 count conducted by William Hornaday, the chief taxidermist at the U.S. National Mu-seum. Hornaday’s survey found just 85 wild plains bison, with 200 more under federal protection and 256 in private herds – with an additional 550 wood bison near Great Slave Lake in Canada (Fitzgerald and Has-selstrom 1989). Finally, as public opinion began to turn, President Grover Cleveland signed the Lacey Yellowstone Protection Bill (the first federal bill protecting the plains bison) in May 1894. This legislation came at the last possible moment. It had been only ten years since the slaughter of the buffalo had ended, and the future of the species remained perilous.

Private and public buffalo herds were saved from impending extinction by the actions of nineteenth century frontiersmen, including Yellowstone game warden C.J. “Buffalo” Jones of Kansas and Texas Panhandle rancher Charles Goodnight. Motivated by love for the species combined with entrepreneurial spirit, both men succeeded in saving small remnants of buffalo herds and began breeding them with cattle, eventually creating “Cattalo.” These two men, together with James McKay and the Canadian Charles Alloway, the Sal-ish Indian Walking Coyote, and Frederic Dupree, captured the bison from which all plains bison alive today are descended. Their timely response preserved a national icon and laid the foundation for its remark-able recovery (Geist 1996). Indeed, the combined and decisive actions of these six men are the main reason the species did not go extinct in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.

CHALLENGES TO MODERN BISON CONSERVATION

Addressing the Threat of Genomic Extinction

Several challenges exist in the struggle to maintain plains bison in North American


field environments. One important chal-lenge to its future conservation arises from the history of the abuse of the species (af-fecting both plains and wood bison). The events accompanying bison near-extinction resulted in a severe population crash, caus-ing “genetic bottlenecks.” Consequently, the few surviving bison were left in sepa-rate small populations, leaving decreased intra-species variation as their unfortunate heritage. A second challenge is that most survivors today do not derive from the original plains bison; they are hybridized in varying degrees with cattle. Preserving the integrity and genetic distinctness of the remaining plains bison populations is,

therefore, of paramount importance.

Diminished plains bison numbers are prob-lematic; the interbreeding of buffalo with cattle has made the bison a genetically frag-ile species needing special attention even now, 130 years after the great slaughter ended. When modern conservation began in the late nineteenth century, DNA was unknown, and only in recent years has the concept of anthropogenic selection in bison been examined. As Freese et al. (2007) write, “the genetic makeup of a species changes substantially over time, whether through natural evolutionary processes, anthropogenic selection, or hybridization,

resulting in genomic extinction.” Although approximately 500,000 plains bison exist in North America, 96% of them are subjected to anthropogenic selection, due to their being raised for meat production in com-modity markets (Freese et al. 2007).

There are two forms of species extinction. A species can become extinct: (1) when the last animal dies, or (2) when its genetic code is irretrievably altered by interbreed-ing into an entirely different species. Now that bison numbers are up, the process of genomic extinction could be the biggest threat to the continued existence of the spe-cies. Earlier bison conservationists, such

Figure 1. A large pile of American bison skulls at the Michigan Carbon Works, Detroit. ca. 1880s. With widespread bison slaughter, the American prairie found itself with a surplus of bison bones. Bones were gathered, sold and shipped eastward, where they were then used in production of fertilizer and gelatin products. Copy of historic photograph provided by the Detroit Public Library, Special Collections.


as Goodnight (1914), bred the remaining animals with cattle in order to increase their numbers. It was a move that may have prevented total extinction, but it also created genetic issues difficult to resolve. The legacy of extensive efforts to create “cattalo” by cross-breeding bison and do-mestic cattle during the period when bison numbers were low in the late 1800s and early 1900s is evident today in two separate developments. Widespread domestic cattle gene introgression has been recorded in both the mitochondrial (Ward et al. 1999) and nuclear (Halbert et al. 2005) genomes of bison herds across North America.

Other issues and challenges are posed by anthropogenic selection. As several observ-ers have pointed out, “Domestication may not only be irreversibly altering the bison gene pool and its morphology, physiology, and behavior, but the large and growing number of commercial bison herds one sees while traveling around the continent may create complacency and weak support among the public for bison conservation” (Freese et al. 2007; see also Price 1999; O’Regan et al. 2005). With the focus on breeding and docility for the vast majority of the half million buffalo left in North America, major challenges exist in preserv-ing the gene pool of the indigenous bison. As their meat becomes more popular and the number of buffalo raised for slaughter grows to supply that demand, the strategy of managing smaller herds of genetically distinct buffalo for conservation becomes both more precious and precarious. Freese et al. (2007) report that, “At best … less than 1.5% of the 500,000 plains bison in existence today can be classified as likely free of domestic cattle gene introgres-sion.” Buffalo and “cattle/bison hybrids” often share the same rangelands, with only fences preventing the animals from cross-ing over (Freese et al. 2007). The issue of future management of bison hybrids and genetically distinct bison is one of enormous importance.

Modern Bison Conservation Initiatives

The American Bison Society, originally founded in 1905, deserves special men-tion, having helped to save the bison

from extinction. One hundred years later, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) revitalized a moribund ABS with the goal of securing the ecological future of bison in North America. ABS is now undertaking a long-term, multidisciplinary initiative to protect and increase the American bison. This initiative recognizes the challenges associated with the complex modern iden-tity of the bison as icon, wild animal, and domestic livestock.

WCS, in honor of the 100th anniversary of ABS, along with other organizations and individuals, supported a working group that developed the Vermejo Statement. Their intent is to integrate bison manage-ment at local, state/provincial, national, and ecoregional levels into a vision that informs and coordinates all efforts, from how individual ranchers work their domes-tic bison to national biodiversity plans for wild bison. The team of 28 people prepared a valuable summary report (Sanderson et al. 2008) that established when ecological restoration of the North American bison will have occurred. This condition will be met when multiple large herds of plains and wood bison move freely across extensive landscapes within all major habitats of their historic ranges, interacting in ecologically significant ways with the fullest possible set of other native species, and inspiring, sustaining, and connecting human cul-tures. Humans can achieve this outcome through a combination of domestic herd management, wild population manage-ment, and ecological restoration of wild bison habitats, with the ultimate goal of allowing bison to roam their native lands, subject to natural selection and ecology. In addition, this goal can be promoted by providing conservation incentives to groups who breed and manage bison, by educating the public and policy-makers, and by monitoring bison habitats.

In a 1987 article in the academic journal, Planning, provocatively entitled “The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust,” academicians Frank and Deborah Popper proposed that it would be both wise and practical to return the Great Plains to what they once were: a bison range. At the time it was made, this proposal struck many as the impractical solution of two East Coast academics with no basis whatsoever in reality. Yet the Pop-

pers made some observations that turned out to be both accurate and strangely pro-phetic. They pointed out that large regions of the Great Plains – including Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and parts of other states in the region – were already becoming depopulated of humans. In the years since the Poppers wrote, this process has only intensified.

According to a 2009 Census report, “nearly two-thirds of Great Plains counties declined in population between 1950 and 2007, with 69 of those counties losing more than half their people” (Samuels 2011). The Poppers pointed out as early as 1987 that “Soil erosion is approaching Dust Bowl rates. Water shortages loom. Farm bankruptcy and foreclosure rates are higher in the Plains than in other rural areas.” As many as half a million farmers in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Montana, and Wyoming are leaving for the cities with the realization that the landscape, weather, and grasses are not conducive to industrial agriculture or cattle, but only to bison (Popper and Popper 1987, 1991; see also Geist 1996).

With this reported trend as background, it may not be surprising that the Poppers’ once heretical point of view gained strong support in surprising quarters in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported in “Making Way for Buffalo” (29 October, 2003), that “the oversettlement of the Great Plains has turned out to be a 150 year long mistake. The rural parts of the Great Plains are emptying, and in some cases reverting to wilderness.” Citing the Poppers’ vision, an editorial in the Kansas City Star (15 November, 2009), called for the establishment of a “Buffalo Commons National Park” in Kansas. Some of the arguments advanced by the Kansas City Star were both detailed and practical:

“The prairie is the greatest long-term carbon sequestration landscape available, as the grasses take carbon from the atmo-sphere and bury it deep in the ground, where it stays to nurture plant growth.”

“A new national park would attract tour-ists. Europeans, in love with the romance of the American West, would be drawn


to it, as would other international visitors and Americans. Parks of similar size and remoteness in Texas and North Dakota at-tract at least 300,000 visitors a year. With the central location of Kansas, it has the potential to attract more.”

“Tourism could grow into a lifeline for surrounding counties, all of which are struggling to find ways to keep native sons and daughters at home, but have largely failed to build enough industry or create enough jobs.”

”Grasslands are the world’s most endan-gered eco-system, and re-establishing a large patch is important to America’s natural and cultural heritage.”

This editorial by a major Midwestern news-paper well complements the ecological vision of the Vermejo Statement on bison restoration (Sanderson et al. 2008): “Bison wallowed, rubbed, pounded and grazed the prairies into heterogeneous ecological habitats; they converted vegetation into protein biomass for predators, including people; and they shaped the way fire, water, soil and energy moved across the landscape.” If the vision of the Vermejo Statement becomes a reality, the American plains bison will once again perform these functions for the prairie landscape, thus benefitting both its human and nonhuman inhabitants.

Although the recent gas and oil develop-ment in some Midwestern states may seem to provide a strong counter-trend to the declining human population of earlier decades cited in the 2009 census, two recent reports – one by a former oil and gas indus-try geoscientist (Hughes 2013), the other by a former Wall Street financial analyst (Rogers 2013) – suggest that the forms of gas and oil extraction behind the pres-ent boom may well lead to a bubble burst similar to the housing bubble that burst in 2008. If this occurs, it may be premature to write off the Poppers’ idealistic vision of a buffalo commons, a vision shared by increasing numbers of people.

Most recently the American Prairie Foun-dation (APF), along with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), has launched an ambitious

program in Montana of establishing a “Bison Commons” (reported by David Samuels in Mother Jones, March–April 2011). Their strategy is to buy up local ranches in order to gain associated graz-ing rights to large expanses of public land; their vision is that, in time, it will become a bison reserve the size of Connecticut.

The hope and expectation behind all of these conservation initiatives is that in restoring the bison, the entire Plains ecosys-tem will be renewed. As Edward Valandra, Sicangu Lakota, who sits on the Board of Directors of the Great Plains Restoration Council put it, “In the ‘80s, the Poppers basically hit all these white people on the head with a two-by-four with this idea. Way back then, they were onto something really powerful that resonated really well with us. When I first heard them, I thought maybe the ghost dancers’ prophecy of the returning buffalo might be coming true” (cited in Williams 2001).

Providing more substance to the return of the bison, Ted Turner has purchased 15 ranches encompassing 8094 km2, where he raises 50,000 bison, in part for his network of ecological restaurants featuring bison, called Ted’s Montana Grill. In addition, the Inter Tribal Bison Cooperative (ITBC), with a membership of 57 tribes in 19 states, is raising close to 18,000 grass-fed bison in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota as a way to preserve and restore native culture. Not only is the ITBC bringing back bison, but they are restoring the cultural health of participating tribes by raising aware-ness about the dietary benefits of bison as a way to address and reduce a diabetes epidemic among Native Americans. Eco-logical restoration of the prairie is part of their strategy to bring back endangered species, including fritillary butterflies Agraulis vanilla (L.), swift foxes Vulpes velox (Say), and prairie dogs Cynomys ludovicianus (Ord). Sage grouse Centro-cercus urophasianus (Bonaparte), mule deer Odocoileus hemionus (Rafinesque), and burrowing owls (Athene cunicular-ia (Molina) also seem to increase their numbers as well when bison are restored to western state ranges (Chadwick 2006) (Figure 2).

The ITBC similarly advocates preventing the killing of Yellowstone bison as they leave the park in winter because of cat-tlemen’s fear of brucellosis. This bacterial disease, caused by Brucella abortus, has been a long-term issue in bison manage-ment – particularly when moving animals across jurisdictional boundaries (e.g., park or state). Federal and state agencies and the livestock industry have spent billions of dollars in attempts to eliminate it. Because of these fears, the attempts by the state of Montana to relocate some Yellowstone bison to reservations and public lands have been fiercely fought by ranching groups and others in the cattle-raising industry. Regional conservation groups, on the other hand, have supported the State’s policy.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in the Department of Agriculture, the National Park Service, and Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks carried out a successful brucellosis quarantine study from 2005 to 2011. The 213 Yel-lowstone bison calves that originally tested negative for brucellosis exposure survived the quarantine period; these agencies now consider them, and their offspring, brucel-losis-free. In 2010, the state of Montana relocated 87 of these bison to the Green Ranch owned by Turner Enterprises, Inc. The remaining 61 bison were transferred to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana in 2012. Both of these relocated populations will receive five additional years of testing to increase the level of scientific confidence that the bison are bru-cellosis-free and, hopefully, to assure the public as well that the quarantine process can result in brucellosis-free bison.

Further work addressing the fear of brucel-losis will require environmental reviews for both unmanaged bison migrations and supervised relocation and transfer across jurisdictional boundaries. The various agencies and partners striving for long-term conservation of plains bison are exploring the establishment of a brucellosis-free facil-ity. This effort would protect high-priority satellite herds of bison from the disease. By providing brucellosis-free bison for additional satellite herds, it would also facilitate the management of wild bison across multiple landscapes (Gilsdorf 1997; Howe 1997; Soukup 2007).


Department of Interior Bison Conservation Initiative

In addition to the organizations throughout North America committed to the goal of protecting plains bison and their habitats, in October 2008, the Department of the Interior (DOI) demonstrated its commit-ment by launching a buffalo conservation initiative, which continues to the present day. Beginning then, DOI bureaus began accelerating buffalo protection as well as planning and expanding partnerships to sustain a strong and well-coordinated conservation effort throughout this country. DOI bureaus manage almost 7000 wild buffalo in several national wildlife refuges (e.g., the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma and the Bison Range in Montana) and in national parks such as Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, and Grand Teton National Park in northwestern Wyoming. A DOI working group provides the leadership for this initiative. It includes representa-tives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The working group is addressing scientific issues that include determining an acceptable level of hybridization with cattle in DOI herds, developing strategies

for moving animals between small herd units to prevent inbreeding depression, preserving the genetic integrity of plains and wood bison, and reducing the levels of cattle hybridization while preventing the loss of rare bison alleles. The working group also is considering the possibility of providing genetically appropriate animals to states, provinces, tribes, and private conservation herds.

The working group’s goals and activities include retaining the genetic integrity of the DOI’s buffalo herds and maximizing their genetic diversity by: (1) applying recommendations of a September 2008 Bison Conservation Genetics Workshop; (2) involving buffalo experts in the DOI’s activities including assisting with tribal buffalo initiatives; (3) seeking buffalo conservation projects that involve partner-ship efforts; (4) increasing environmental education by seeking partners to showcase DOI lands with small genetically distinct buffalo herds; and (5) working with zoos to maintain genetic integrity and related objectives in areas where there are no DOI bison herds.

A DOI committee convened specifically to address genetic issues ranging from hybridization to herd migrations produced findings in their completed report (Dratch and Gogan 2010) that seem more positive than many would have predicted, given the harsh history bison have faced. For example, they found that most of the 12

federal herds “show low levels of cattle introgression dating from the time they were saved from extirpation” and “despite the fact that most of the federal herds were founded with very few bison and have been maintained for many generations at relatively low population sizes, they do not show effects of inbreeding.” The latter finding reflects, in part, that most of these herds are not remnants of a single popula-tion. Results such as these can provide a meaningful road map for further protection of the genetic diversity of the plains bison (Figure 3).

A current National Park Service initiative, “A Call to Action,” includes an action, “Back Home on the Range,” that has the objective of returning the American plains bison to our country’s landscape in collabo-ration with tribes, private landowners, and other public land management agencies. To give one example, the staff of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado have started cooperative bison management discussions with several state and federal agencies along with private groups. Their idea is to create an area for semi-free-roaming bison to roam both within, and adjacent to, the park. Through use of conservation agreements and estab-lishment of habitat corridors, they believe a large landscape in this region could sup-port a sizeable bison herd to complement already robust elk Cervus Canadensis (L.) and deer populations in this area.

Figure 2. A herd of bison graze on fall grasses of Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park. Photo provided by Andrew Bennett; photographed by Thomas Mangelson.


CONCLUSION

Bison today have considerable agricultural importance. Many ranches raise them for meat and commercial products, such as leather, clothing, and furniture. Bison also bring in tourist dollars to the economy, benefitting hotel, travel, restaurant, and other industries. Yet their importance transcends economic considerations. For millions of visitors, regardless of their age, social class, ethnicity, or national origin, the sight of living bison herds profoundly reconnects people with nature and history. For North Americans, this viewing experi-ence provides an inspiring link to their heri-tage. Moreover, these herds demonstrate a major success in the field of conservation. They point to a hopeful future at a time of widespread global species endangerment and loss of biodiversity. Buffalo thus sit at

the intersection point of cultural, spiritual, historical, ecological, and economic fac-tors. Sound conservation goals take all of these elements into consideration.

It was European settlers of North America who were largely responsible for the de-mise of the buffalo, and it is their descen-dents today who must take responsibility for restoring and safeguarding the bison’s future. We European-derived Americans, perhaps more than most other of the world’s cultures, suffer from a profound cultural amnesia and a dangerous disconnection with the events of the past (Bertman 2000). The story of the great buffalo herds that once covered the continent, their decline and near-extinction, followed by their res-toration and renewal, can serve to reconnect us with the achievements, and the tragedies, of our past as well as the challenges and dilemmas of our historical present.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the National Park Service, Pa-cific West Regional Office, San Francisco, California, USA, for supporting Mietek Kolipinski’s time and efforts in this proj-ect. We are grateful to Iona College, New Rochelle, New York, USA, for provid-ing financial support to Sibdas Ghosh to successfully complete this project. We wish to thank California State University East Bay, for supporting Steven Borish and the Dominican University of California for supporting Arthur Scott and Sibdas Ghosh to conduct this research. We want to express our appreciation to Peter Gogan and John Dennis for their critical evaluation of this manuscript.

We extend a special thank you to Dr. Peter Hoag, Department of Human Development,

Figure 3. A group of plains bison forages for food back-dropped by the Tetons in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Photo provided by Andrew Bennett; photographed by Thomas Mangelson.


California State University East Bay, for allowing us to photograph, and submit for use on the cover of the July 2014 issue of the Natural Areas Journal, the painting entitled “Bison Hunt,” a personal family heirloom painted by his grandmother, Elizabeth Lochrie (1890–1981). It was photographed in Dr. Hoag’s home, and subsequently edited by Ms. Joyce Anastasia (www.leadbywisdom.com).

We appreciate the help of Dawn Eurich, Ar-chivist, Special Collections, Detroit Public Library, who arranged for use in this article of the historic photo displaying a large pile of bison skulls. Similarly, Andrew Bennett, who works with photographer, Thomas Mangelson, streamlined the process to obtain two photos for use in this article that Mr. Mangelson generously provided.

Mietek Kolipinski, Natural Resources Management and Research Programs, is employed by the National Park Service, Pa-cific West Regional Office in San Francisco. He is also an Honorary Teaching Fellow at Dominican University of California, San Rafael, California, USA. Dr. Kolipinskl received his PhD in Marine Science in Miami, Florida, USA. For 50 years, he has worked with the US Geological Survey and NPS. Current NPS projects at Dominican include preventing non-native plants from invading national parks, investigating fish parasites, and studying the biodiversity of bees.

Steven Borish, Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development, Cali-fornia State University East Bay, Hayward, California, USA, earned a PhD in cultural anthropology from Stanford University, supplemented by an M.S. in biology and an interest in fields ranging from ecology to developmental. Borish’s research is guided by a focus on issues of health and education in a cross-cultural perspective. He is the author of two books, one of which has been translated into Japanese.

Arthur Ken Scott, Assistant Professor of History and Social Cultural Studies, Dominican University of California, San Rafael, California, USA, is the first adjunct professor to be awarded Teacher of the

Year at Dominican. Scott has served on many Community Boards including the Marin Interfaith, the Marin Museum of the American Indian, the International Association of Sufism, the Latino Film Festival, and the Afghan Summit.

Kristen Kozlowski, Grant Writer at Bread for the City in Washington, District of Columbia, received her BA in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Cali-fornia, Santa Barbara, California, and her MA in Public Anthropology from American University, Washington, D.C.

Sibdas Ghosh, Professor of Biology and Dean of Arts and Science, Iona College, New Rochelle, New York, USA, earned a PhD in Plant Molecular Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of Waterloo, Canada. Ghosh has had 38 articles/chapters and two edited books published, and has over 100 conference presentations to his credit, many with student co-authors.

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bison: yesterday, today, and tomorrow

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