Buffalo, River Crossings & Grasslands

In the fall of 2003 we moved our buffalo onto the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands for the first time, after 125 years of their absence. Even though we have repeated this every year since, it never gets old or loses its emotion. 

Moving them onto the grasslands is the easy part, it's the bringing them back, that's the not so easy part. Finding a herd of buffalo on 24,000 acres is a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.

This can take weeks, with weather not always in our favor. Colton starts the process by going out to get a general assessment of their locations and then he and Dan begin the process of bringing them back, as they find them. 

Jilian, Gervase or I are on the home side of the river, in a truck to guide them home. I usually try to take some photos and video, which if I'm in a moving vehicle or it's blowing 60 miles an hour can be iffy.

This also makes capturing the natural sounds a challenge. I enjoy this annual experience so much, that I thought you might too... so I'm sharing a video that I stitched together of last fall's release and this spring's gathering. I hope that it transports you to the prairie where our buffalo roam! 

The song in the video, Buffalo Roam was written and performed by our good friend and customer Pat Wyss. Thank you Pat! 

An Entertaining P.S.: Once the buffalo move onto a new pasture, they always put their heads down and start grazing. The Starlings and Buffalo Birds are also back and they follow the herd. They can occasionally be a bit pesky. In the sequence of images below, an almost 2-year-old bull, becomes very annoyed. He literally ended up on his hind legs trying to chase them away with his front hooves, a shot I was unable to capture.