The American Buffalo (bison bison) is distantly related to the European Bison (wisent). They typically have long brown coats and can be 6 feet tall and 10 feet long, weighing 2,000 pounds. They live 15-25 years with the females having one calf every year.
They migrated to America from Asia over the Bering Strait about 10,000 years ago. During their peak they lived from Canada’s far northwest south to Mexico and to the Appalachian mountains in the East.
From Wikipedia:
“When Plains Indians obtained horses, it was found that a good horseman could easily lance or shoot enough bison to keep his tribe and family fed, as long as a herd was nearby. The bison provided meat, leather, sinew for bows, grease, dried dung for fires, and even the hooves could be boiled for glue. When times were bad, bison were consumed down to the last bit of marrow. Firearms and horses, along with a growing export market for buffalo robes and bison meat had resulted in larger and larger numbers of bison killed each year.
“Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s. They were hunted for their skins, with the rest of the animal left behind to decay on the ground. After the animals rotted, their bones were collected and shipped back east in large quantities.
“The US Army sanctioned and actively endorsed the wholesale slaughter of bison herds. The US Federal government promoted bison hunting for various reasons, to allow ranchers to range their cattle without competition from other bovines, and primarily to weaken the North American Indian population by removing their main food source and to pressure them onto the reservations.”
Over time conservation efforts were started and today there are several areas in the Northwest where wild or protected buffalo roam. Yellowstone National Park has about 3,000 buffalo originally descended from 23 that hid in the park area during the 1800s. Some cattle ranchers in Montana are opposed to the buffalo because of range competition and the undocumented belief that they transmit diseases to cattle.
Buffalo meat has become popular and today many ranchers raise a few just for that purpose.
Cowboys with cutting horses can practice on buffalo. The buffalo are faster than cows and have better stamina so they don’t seem to burn out as fast. I’ve done that several times and it was really a lot of fun.
In the end they are just majestic animals and an integral part of our western heritage.
(that’s me cutting a buffalo in the picture above)