THE BUFFALO TODAY
As gross numbers continue to climb, wild American bison
are threatened, and remain functionally-extinct.
are threatened, and remain functionally-extinct.
Headline Fact: A treasured artistic tableau -- a veritable icon of wild America -- has been re-discovered, restored, and returned to public view. The famed American Bison Group, former centerpiece in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum in Washington, D.C., is now seen at Fort Benton, Montana, in the Museum of the Northern Great Plains.
Encountering this historic creation, behold the bodily remains of six of America's last wild buffalo: "keystone" drivers in an ageless web of life encompassing the nation's Great Plains and prairies, reflecting for posterity the past, present and shimmering future of all bison everywhere.
Today, although burgeoning numbers bring talk of this animal's once-and-future glory, the Bison Group retains its place at the center of deep controversy. Current symbolism of this display is not altogether auspicious.
The Riddle of Bison: After more than a century of active conservation, the American bison -- once key to the biological functioning of North America's grasslands -- languishes. As "kept" animals, most bison now suffer slow erosion of their remaining genetic endowment in what biologists call "artificial selection regimes." Here, small, isolated groups are subject not to natural selective forces, but to a regime of human-influenced artificial management. Control by humans is changing the course of bison development: Removed from the diverse and extensive ecological crucible which created them, most bison are now propagated in simplified monocultures -- i.e., ranches -- risking gradual domestication of their species. Despite their former influence on the natural growth and productivity of America's grasslands, bison today remain functionally-extinct across almost all of their native range.
The problem for bison is especially acute, given the heavy losses sustained in their mass killing from the late-1700s through the early-1880s nationwide. During this period, over 99% of North America's estimated 30 million wild bison were systematically eliminated, with but a few hundred survivors remaining. From this relative handful of wild stock has come all of the bison alive today -- some 500,000 animals and rising. This is good news. But raw numbers alone can mislead; massive losses sustained historically have profoundly impacted the bison species. Preliminary results of a 2017 study of bison genetics by researchers at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in North Dakota, reveal that somewhat less than one quarter of their original genetic endowment survives today. Seen in this light, conservation and enhancement of this precious genetic remnant appears all the more critical to preserving the future of bison as a wild species.
So, domestication is the major threat facing bison today. In terms of their genetics, bison can ill-afford another serious 'hit' to their biology. If they continue to languish under the human thumb as wild traits ebb, it could well take another 100 years to correct that mistake (if that is even possible). As wildlife, bison don't have the time. The last thing they need now is more bison "ranches."
The only real solution lies in restoring the bison ecosystem on remaining public lands where that remains feasible -- like the million-plus-acre Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, in Montana, for example. The fact is, under established Trust Law, mandates of the responsible federal authorities -- Department of the Interior; Fish & Wildlife Service; the National Refuge System -- require restoration of wild, public bison in such places. And those mandates require this be done in behalf of all Americans (i.e., the public).
The Central Question: The real question for bison in our time is: Public or Private? If private livestock ranching is to be our sole answer, on what grounds do we justify turning Nature's animal into a human commodity for short-term commercial profit? Ranching of other wildlife as "livestock" -- deer and elk, for instance -- is commonly seen as destructive to the animal, and is widely frowned upon. But, for these species at least, their access to a broader portion of their native lands remains. Not so for the bison.
Are bison different in some way? The answer is obvious, or it should be: Attempting to justify bison ranching on grounds that their wholesale destruction as wildlife is somehow over-and-done, is no grounds at all. Fortunately for them -- and for us yet today -- bison persist as wild animals, retaining a high potential for their successful restoration as wildlife; as such, they are and should remain an integral part of the public trust.
The Bison Future, and Our Own: It is perhaps impossible to find another American species so constantly revered as a national symbol of Nature's bounty and resilience, yet so long-kept from wildness in its own land as the American bison. In an ultimate irony, history has stolen bison from the land -- and from us all -- while modern agricultural and ranching interests now work to prevent their return.
Of course, attitudes toward bison have always been diverse and variable. Different people and groups want different things from the bison, always have. But do we all know what bison need? How will we justly gain what we seek through their continued utilization? And can that future be achieved without further damaging the beast?
Now, again today, in our search for answers to these difficult questions, we can look to a symbol renewed: Today, it is the American Bison Group -- the spirit and essence of the creature itself -- which shows us what the bison is, how the wild form can be saved, and what we both must have -- humans and bison -- to survive the future.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Referring to the six individual bison used in Hornaday's American Bison Group, the late Dr. Robert S. Hoffmann -- former Assistant Secretary for Research at the Smithsonian Institution -- makes the following observation in his Foreword to the book, The Dashing Kansan:
Encountering this historic creation, behold the bodily remains of six of America's last wild buffalo: "keystone" drivers in an ageless web of life encompassing the nation's Great Plains and prairies, reflecting for posterity the past, present and shimmering future of all bison everywhere.
Today, although burgeoning numbers bring talk of this animal's once-and-future glory, the Bison Group retains its place at the center of deep controversy. Current symbolism of this display is not altogether auspicious.
The Riddle of Bison: After more than a century of active conservation, the American bison -- once key to the biological functioning of North America's grasslands -- languishes. As "kept" animals, most bison now suffer slow erosion of their remaining genetic endowment in what biologists call "artificial selection regimes." Here, small, isolated groups are subject not to natural selective forces, but to a regime of human-influenced artificial management. Control by humans is changing the course of bison development: Removed from the diverse and extensive ecological crucible which created them, most bison are now propagated in simplified monocultures -- i.e., ranches -- risking gradual domestication of their species. Despite their former influence on the natural growth and productivity of America's grasslands, bison today remain functionally-extinct across almost all of their native range.
The problem for bison is especially acute, given the heavy losses sustained in their mass killing from the late-1700s through the early-1880s nationwide. During this period, over 99% of North America's estimated 30 million wild bison were systematically eliminated, with but a few hundred survivors remaining. From this relative handful of wild stock has come all of the bison alive today -- some 500,000 animals and rising. This is good news. But raw numbers alone can mislead; massive losses sustained historically have profoundly impacted the bison species. Preliminary results of a 2017 study of bison genetics by researchers at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in North Dakota, reveal that somewhat less than one quarter of their original genetic endowment survives today. Seen in this light, conservation and enhancement of this precious genetic remnant appears all the more critical to preserving the future of bison as a wild species.
So, domestication is the major threat facing bison today. In terms of their genetics, bison can ill-afford another serious 'hit' to their biology. If they continue to languish under the human thumb as wild traits ebb, it could well take another 100 years to correct that mistake (if that is even possible). As wildlife, bison don't have the time. The last thing they need now is more bison "ranches."
The only real solution lies in restoring the bison ecosystem on remaining public lands where that remains feasible -- like the million-plus-acre Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, in Montana, for example. The fact is, under established Trust Law, mandates of the responsible federal authorities -- Department of the Interior; Fish & Wildlife Service; the National Refuge System -- require restoration of wild, public bison in such places. And those mandates require this be done in behalf of all Americans (i.e., the public).
The Central Question: The real question for bison in our time is: Public or Private? If private livestock ranching is to be our sole answer, on what grounds do we justify turning Nature's animal into a human commodity for short-term commercial profit? Ranching of other wildlife as "livestock" -- deer and elk, for instance -- is commonly seen as destructive to the animal, and is widely frowned upon. But, for these species at least, their access to a broader portion of their native lands remains. Not so for the bison.
Are bison different in some way? The answer is obvious, or it should be: Attempting to justify bison ranching on grounds that their wholesale destruction as wildlife is somehow over-and-done, is no grounds at all. Fortunately for them -- and for us yet today -- bison persist as wild animals, retaining a high potential for their successful restoration as wildlife; as such, they are and should remain an integral part of the public trust.
The Bison Future, and Our Own: It is perhaps impossible to find another American species so constantly revered as a national symbol of Nature's bounty and resilience, yet so long-kept from wildness in its own land as the American bison. In an ultimate irony, history has stolen bison from the land -- and from us all -- while modern agricultural and ranching interests now work to prevent their return.
Of course, attitudes toward bison have always been diverse and variable. Different people and groups want different things from the bison, always have. But do we all know what bison need? How will we justly gain what we seek through their continued utilization? And can that future be achieved without further damaging the beast?
Now, again today, in our search for answers to these difficult questions, we can look to a symbol renewed: Today, it is the American Bison Group -- the spirit and essence of the creature itself -- which shows us what the bison is, how the wild form can be saved, and what we both must have -- humans and bison -- to survive the future.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Referring to the six individual bison used in Hornaday's American Bison Group, the late Dr. Robert S. Hoffmann -- former Assistant Secretary for Research at the Smithsonian Institution -- makes the following observation in his Foreword to the book, The Dashing Kansan:
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... in a high-tech twist to the story, these last individual wild bison to have been collected now provide an opportunity for modern biologists to assess the amount of genetic variation that occurred in the vast herds of wild bison that once roamed the Western Plains. Small fragments of tissue adhering to the specimens still contain DNA that can be used, through the magic of modern biochemistry, to produce samples sufficiently large for analysis of the genetic characteristics of each individual. Thus, Hornaday's rationalization concerning the scientific importance of those collections proves to be true, and the specimens may contribute once again to the continued existence and health of the bison.
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Quoted from Bill Sharp and Peggy Sullivan, The Dashing Kansan, Lewis Lindsay Dyche: The Amazing Adventures of a Nineteenth-Century Naturalist and Explorer (Kansas City, Kansas: Harrow Books, 1990):xii-xiii.