her to keep off the wolves. Another time, onlookers watched as a half-dozen bison repeatedly scattered eight napping wolves.30 Videographers in the park even captured a week-old calf hold off an attacking wolf long enough for mom to arrive.31 And, at a state park in Florida, a bison was photographed running off an alligator. Some Yellowstone visitors have experienced the temper of bison firsthand, having been gored and even flipped into the air by those that they approached for photos too closely.
Bison are community builders, too. The grazing of their herds assists prairie dogs in building their colonies, and provides nesting habitat for the melodious western meadowlark, chestnut-collared longspur, and other songbirds. Explore prairie grasslands and you’ll find the mountain plover, lark bunting, and ferruginous hawk. More than three dozen bird species are associated with grasslands once tended to by millions of bison.32 Some birds have something of a symbiotic relationship with bison. Starlings and cowbirds will hop a ride on the back of bison, in part to be close by when the animals kick up insects out of the prairie grass, and also to pluck insects out of the fur they’re clinging to. It’s also thought that there is a collaborative relationship between bison and prairie dogs, as the dogs’ constant nibbling on grasses in their sprawling colonies spurs fresh growth, even into the fall, that bison relish.
Through their grazing, bison also stimulate vegetative growth, and they inhibit the spread of woody vegetation by rubbing not just their horns on shrubs and trees but their entire bodies as they scratch a massive itch. If there are no trees around, a nice boulder will suffice. The grazing habits of bison created de facto firebreaks on the prairie, as flames would run up to the vegetative mosaics bison formed with their shifting meals and sometimes stall, diverting into areas with heavier vegetative fuels.33 While bison cows can live to twenty years—with many of those years prime for producing offspring—males are into old age by their twelfth year. Hard winters with deep snow can quickly cut those limits.34 But even in death bison give to the landscape, their bodies feeding wolves, bears, coyotes, and the various scavengers that trail those predators, and returning nutrients to the soil, nourishing fungi and microbes.
On North America, the descendants of Blue Babe eventually separated into two subspecies, the plains bison and the wood bison. The two are similar in appearance, though the plains bison are a bit smaller and stockier with thick “chaps” of hair down their forelegs. The taller, more angular wood bison carry a more square hump, have a darker pelage, and tend to have straighter, less frizzy hair on their heads. While Yellowstone is home to the largest wild herd of plains bison, Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park claims that distinction for wood bison. But outside of national parks and some state parks, the loss of grasslands to settlement and agriculture has affected many of these species. Bison, of course, have lost vast landscapes they once roamed at will. So, too, have black-footed ferrets, small, slinky, carnivorous cousins of weasels, that were thought extinct until 1981. That’s when a ranch dog in Meeteetse, Wyoming, trotted home with one in its mouth, happy but ignorant of the significance of its catch. An ambitious captive breeding program has boosted their numbers. And yet, while recovering ferret colonies today can be found in Badlands and Wind Cave national parks in South Dakota, the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Montana, and more than a dozen other locations in the Plains states, they remain endangered as a species.
The examples of negatively affected species go on. The US Fish and Wildlife Service considers swift fox populations to be ample, but their natural habitat on the Plains has been cut by about 60 percent due to growth of the human footprint.35 Also struggling to survive against this loss of room is another Great Plains native, the mountain plover. The transformation of grasslands into industrial agricultural plots and asphalt rectangles surrounding big box stores has plovers heading toward threatened species status, something their East Coast and Great Lakes relatives already have. These diminutive birds are known to some as “prairie ghosts,” as their dusky coloration helps them blend almost seamlessly into the landscape. The name could be prophetic if their habitat continues to shrink.
As land has gone into agricultural production, or been cleared for other development, non-native bird species in the Plains have increased in number as the native vegetation that many species evolved with has been lost. Ring-necked pheasants, gray partridges, and house sparrows are among the invasive species competing with native species.36 But if we could give bison a larger slice of the public landscape, some of these other species just might expand, as well. Because bison utilize the landscape differently than cattle—moving more often, not lingering around water sources, favoring a different vegetative menu—native vegetation would gain an ally against invasive species, riparian areas wouldn’t be so trampled, and the prairie not so heavily grazed. Wildfires, more likely in a warmer, drier climate, might not be as destructive on the Plains thanks to the vegetative patchwork left by bison.
Though the Great Plains is defined by prairie and sometimes referred to as the Great American Desert, it is an arid but not a waterless region. The Missouri and Platte rivers and their tributaries funnel snowmelt through the Plains. For early nineteenth-century explorers, these rivers provided access to the unknown West as they traveled by canoe, keelboat, and pirogue. These waters also provided the explorers’ larder, as lakes, oxbows, and kettle ponds lured deer, elk, and bison, as well as mallards, pintails, teal, and Canada geese, among other species. Beavers were the engineers of the water world of the Plains. Their dams affected water flows, created ponds that in turn became lush riparian areas, and even “managed” woodlands to a certain extent by chewing downing trees.
Considering their size, horns, demeanor, and long, indomitable presence on the continent, it’s understandable that bison for so long have been held in esteem. We marvel at their long history, how their very being exudes the concept of wildness in today’s over-populated and developed world, their encapsulation of raw power. They appeared on the back of the Indian Head nickel that was minted from 1913 to 1938, became a symbol of the Interior Department in 1917, and have been part of the National Park Service arrowhead emblem since 1952 because of bison’s reflection of conservation. They were designated the national mammal of the United States in May 2016. But admiration for bison goes much further back. They played a key role in nourishing civilizations, literally and figuratively. For more than ten thousand years they were a veritable cupboard for Paleo-Indians, Native Americans, and settlers, providing food, clothing, and shelter. At day’s end, Native Americans would return to tepees made with bison hides, use bison robes as insulating carpets and as blankets, and cook meals in massive bison stomachs. They and mountain men alike would use bison sinews for thread; turn horns into goblets, powder horns, and ladles; and reduce hooves through boiling into glue for attaching arrow points to shafts. Bison fur—fine, insulating hairs close to the body covered by more coarse outer hairs that provided a layer of protection against rain and snow—filled pillows, was woven into ropes, and adorned headdresses. For some, it even found new life as human hairpieces.37 The coarser outer hairs also were used to fashion horse halters. Not overlooked were bison tails, which became fly swatters.38 Portions of hide served as saddle blankets, were fashioned into moccasins as well as drums, and used as palettes. Bison brains tanned these hides, while hearts became pouches. The animals’ manure, plopped down as patties on the prairie, when dried became fuel for fires when wood was not available.
Meat was not just a given, it was survival and a daily meal for many native cultures.39 That which wasn’t to be eaten promptly had to be cured, and that meant hours carving thin strips from the carcasses to hang in the sun. This work was done by the women, who also spent hours fashioning tools and utensils from bison bones, and more time adding artistic flare to both clothing and tepees.40 Sections of the hide were fashioned into “parfleches,” early storage trunks. In North Dakota, I gazed at one of these handsomely decorated bags that was hanging from the roof of an earth lodge at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Geometric designs painted in vivid reds, blues, oranges, and whites covered the hide. These nineteenth-century suitcases safely stored clothes, dried foods, and trade items. In an effort to keep the parfleches safe from rodents and any rain that might leak through the lodge ceiling, rawhide swatches were threaded onto
