Close-up of a bison with a woman in the foreground.

HOME AGAIN

From petri dish to prairie: The Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd restores bison and invigorates Native American culture

By Coleman Cornelius | Photography by Matthew Staver | June 6, 2024

ASHTON BARBONE KNELT so she was face to face with a young female bison. The animal struggled in a chute designed to keep it still and safe as it was ear-tagged for identification, vaccinated against infectious disease, and samples of its blood, hair, and feces were collected for health studies. But even confined, the yearling hammered the chute’s metal panels with hard hooves – a wild animal never before handled by people.

“Hózhó,” Barbone told the bison amid the clamor on the Colorado State University Foothills Campus.

Peace, harmony, she said in the language of her Navajo people, invoking a tribal philosophy of well-being. As she spoke, Barbone calmed the yearling, using a rope to hold its head steady. Meantime, a team of CSU students, veterinarians, laboratory researchers, and volunteers swiftly accomplished their scientific tasks, pulling on medical gloves and wielding syringes, needles, sample containers, and tagging equipment, then logging the bison’s sex and new identification numbers.

Barbone, among the CSU students, gently touched the animal’s face as she helped with springtime vaccinations. “Hózhó,” she repeated.

Aerial view of a bison herd.

Soon, this bison would be among 27 transferred from a CSU conservation herd to burgeoning tribal herds at the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. Since it was established nearly 10 years ago, the Colorado State bison program has donated 127 animals to 11 Tribal Nations. This represents 70 percent of the total number of bison the Fort Collins seed herd has given to other conservation and restoration programs, ranging from the Bronx Zoo in New York to the Southern Plains Land Trust in southeastern Colorado.

The transfers are part of a flourishing nationwide movement to reintroduce the American bison – the national mammal of the United States – to landscapes where the species has been absent for some 150 years after near extinction. Native Nations are helping drive the movement as they revive herds that historically have sustained their Tribes, and Colorado State and its collaborators have quickly become a vital part of regional recovery efforts.

“The number one goal of Tribal buffalo restoration is cultural and spiritual preservation,” said Troy Heinert, a member of the Sicangu Lakota Tribe and executive director of the InterTribal Buffalo Council. The organization is a consortium of 83 Native Nations, almost all west of the Mississippi River; these member Tribes collectively manage some 30,000 bison on 1 million acres of Tribal land.

There’s a healing that begins to take place when you provide opportunities to return buffalo to Tribal lands. Buffalo are a key piece of our culture that’s been missing for a long time. Buffalo restoration is optimism in its purest form because it allows us to reconnect with who we are as a people – and it has the potential to grow.”

Animals join Tribal and other herds from major sources, such as the U.S. National Park Service, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the Nature Conservancy; as well as smaller sources, such as Colorado State University and the city and county of Denver, which maintains conservation herds at Genesee Park and Daniels Park outside Denver. In April, CSU donated bison to Native Nations for the fourth time, sending animals out the gates of a unique program known for raising at least some of its bison from petri dish to prairie.

“There’s a healing that begins to take place when you provide opportunities to return buffalo to Tribal lands,” said Heinert, who crisscrosses vast terrain with a truck and trailer to pick up and deliver bison. On a sunny day in late April, he gathered 10 bison from CSU and drove them 350 miles to Taos Pueblo. “Buffalo are a key piece of our culture that’s been missing for a long time,” he continued. “Buffalo restoration is optimism in its purest form because it allows us to reconnect with who we are as a people – and it has the potential to grow.”

A man hauls the gate to a pen holding bison closed with a rope.

James Zafarana, a member of the ecological stewardship team with city of Fort Collins Natural Areas, helps secure metal gates as bison are gathered and separated before transfer to Tribal lands.

In the early 1800s, bison numbered in the tens of millions on the Great Plains. But the animals, often called buffalo, were nearly annihilated as newly constructed railroads carried hordes of hide hunters to the Western frontier. In this crusade of carnage, there was a bonus for railroads and industrialists: Hide hunters cleared troublesome obstacles from the tracks, allowing commerce to chug ahead. Armed with buffalo rifles, the hunters laid waste to a species that dominated the landscape, often leaving skinned carcasses to rot on the prairie.

“It was the largest destruction of animal life in modern world history,” historian Dan Flores says in The American Buffalo, a recently released film by Ken Burns.

The buffalo trade dealt in meat and robes, to be sure. Yet, as the Industrial Revolution expanded in the latter 1800s, bison hides were in high demand as a new source of leather for machinery belts. Then, bison bones scattered across the vast Plains became the basis of a second thriving market: The bones were gathered by homesteaders, shipped East, and used for fertilizer, sugar refining, and the manufacture of fine bone china, among other industrial uses.

Historical map outlining large swaths of North America as former bison territory.

A map illustrates the decimation of herds that spanned much of North America. Source: William T. Hornaday, U.S. Library of Congress.

“The Great Slaughter,” which peaked around 1870, was devastating for Plains Indians who depended on bison for food, clothing, and shelter – and who have revered buffalo in stories, songs, and ceremonies for millennia. Many Native people starved as bison numbers plummeted.

In fact, according to PBS, “some U.S. government officials actively destroyed bison to defeat their Native American enemies who resisted the takeover of their lands by white settlers.” It was a calculated strategy of starving Native people into submission as they were being forced onto reservations – and out of the way of Western Expansion. The military directed troops and encouraged others to “destroy buffalo as a way to control American Indians,” according to the National Park Service. “Kill every buffalo you can,” Col. Richard Irving Dodge reportedly urged. “Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.”

As Chief Sitting Bull, the Lakota leader, said: “A cold wind blew across the prairie when the last buffalo fell – a death wind for my people.”

Historic photo with a mountain of bison skulls, 3-4x taller than the man standing in front of it.

After the “Great Slaughter” of bison across the Plains, a second industry exploded in the trade of bison bones. Photo: Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Considering this history, cultural and spiritual preservation are paramount reasons for Tribal buffalo restoration. But there are others, Heinert said. These include production of a steady supply of buffalo meat for Native people, the ability to pursue business ventures tied to bison, and rehabilitation of grassland ecosystems.

“An elder once said buffalo were the missing component in our lives, and with the buffalo being present all those connections are there again. The presence of the buffalo is important to everything we do,” said Teresa His Chase, a leader with the Northern Arapaho Business Council. She traveled to Fort Collins from the Wind River Inidan Reservation in April to celebrate the transfer of bison from CSU to her Tribe. “It’s really special getting buffalo from Colorado,” she said, “because this is our ancestral home.”

A bison runs in a pen with two people standing on the fence.
Four people work to construct a metal pen.

The first step in transfer of bison to Tribal lands occurred at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area in March, when CSU and city of Fort Collins staff worked with volunteers to gather all bison in the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd. Yearlings, bound for Wyoming and New Mexico, then were separated from cows and bulls and were trailered to the CSU Foothills Campus. The cows and bulls were released back onto the prairie.

Last year, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland issued an order boosting the Interior Department’s work to restore wild American bison and the prairie grassland ecosystems in which they thrive. It is a dramatic policy shift from decades before, with the nation’s first Native American cabinet secretary leading the efforts.

Grasslands coevolved with bison, Haaland’s order says, and the keystone mammal enhances soil health through grazing patterns and by churning the ground with its hooves, among other benefits. This helps restore native plants and promotes the vigor of other wildlife, ranging from pollinators to birds, small mammals, and predators. The department’s efforts to promote bison restoration rely on collaborations with Tribes, states, landowners, and federal agencies; they include new initiatives, such as a federal bison working group and apprenticeship program. Tribal partners are central to the plan.

“Significant conservation work is necessary not only to ensure that bison will remain a viable species but also to restore ecosystem function, strengthen rural economies dependent on grassland health, and provide for the return of bison to Tribally owned and ancestral lands,” Haaland’s order says. In April, the assistant secretary for Indian affairs, Bryan Newland, joined leaders at Taos Pueblo in welcoming the 10 bison from CSU, underscoring the Interior Department’s goals.

These guys give me a moment to reflect. I just love being around them. Their presence alone brings a lot of joy and reassurance. If they can go through all they have with their herds being wiped out, and then come back, then I can come back from anything I’m dealing with.”

Yet, Barbone, the CSU student who helped with vaccinations, doesn’t think about federal policy when she considers bison. For her, being around the animals is highly personal. Barbone is a first-generation CSU student studying zoology and business, with her sights set on becoming a veterinarian. She is one of three Native American students hired as interns to help tend the CSU bison herd.

“These guys give me a moment to reflect. I just love being around them,” Barbone said. She drove a Bobcat utility vehicle among more than two dozen bison that had been gathered from grazing grounds and corralled on the university’s Foothills Campus before they were vaccinated and transferred to Wyoming and New Mexico last spring. “Come on, baby,” she called out to a yearling blocking the path of her side-by-side. Wearing work boots, with her long dark hair looped into a bun under her cap, Barbone admitted she would be sorry to see the yearlings leave.

“Their presence alone brings a lot of joy and reassurance,” said Barbone, who has Navajo, Assiniboine, and Gros Ventre heritage. “If they can go through all they have with their herds being wiped out, and then come back, then I can come back from anything I’m dealing with.”

Ashton Barbone pets a bison's face.

Ashton Barbone, a Native American student, helps calm a yearling during the vaccination process; she landed an internship tending bison through the CSU Native American Cultural Center. The cultural center has been in important partner in the bison project from the beginning and has funded numerous undergraduate research positions for Native American students.

When she was 5 months old, Barbone and her family were staying on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana when a blizzard struck. Her parents were perplexed that the infant sat calmly – listening intently to the howling wind – because she always wailed at any loud, unsettling sound. The two adults were also rattled because they thought they heard another, inexplicable noise – that of a bison herd galloping frantically through the snowstorm. But there were no bison in the vicinity, so a stampeding herd was impossible. Even so, they were sure their infant heard the phantom noise too.

Later, the baby’s grandmother offered an explanation. “‘If you hear the sound of buffalo running, it’s a good sign. Only certain people will hear the rumbling of the buffalo,’” Barbone recounted. “I was a baby when I heard that rumbling. For me to be blessed to hear that means a lot. It was like the ghosts of buffalo running, like a crazy phenomenon, and I was the only one who was calm.”

Troy Heinert stands with his back to the camera in a trailer that says InterTribal Buffalo Council.

Troy Heinert, executive director of the InterTribal Buffalo Council, is a leader in the nationwide effort to restore bison to Tribal lands; he trailered 10 animals from CSU to Taos Pueblo in April.

Jennifer Barfield, an assistant professor in CSU’s Department of Biomedical Sciences, did not predict the far-reaching effects of the bison program when she became its scientific leader nearly a decade ago. With a doctorate in conservation biology, she had come to Colorado State University from her home state of North Carolina to work alongside the late George Seidel, a University Distinguished Professor, researcher, and giant in the field of reproductive physiology. He became her mentor.

During 50 years at Colorado State, Seidel made important advances in in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer, the sexing of semen, and related procedures, such as superovulation and embryo freezing. These advancements transformed the dairy and beef cattle businesses because assisted reproductive technologies allow ranchers to identify and combine the genetics of stellar livestock, resulting in offspring ideal for food production. The university is also well known for developing such tools for use with high-value performance horses. Incidentally, many CSU students trained in reproductive science enter the field of fertility medicine, helping people achieve pregnancies.

But Barfield was interested in applying reproductive science in a different way – to help conserve wild animals by propagating important genetics. The idea is gaining traction worldwide. For instance, early this year, a group of international scientists made news with a breakthrough that could help save the critically endangered northern white rhinoceros from extinction. They achieved a rhino pregnancy using in vitro fertilization – the joining of egg and sperm in a petri dish – and embryo transfer into a surrogate rhino mother. Unrelated to the procedures, the surrogate died of an infection. But scientists said they had achieved proof of concept.

Jennifer Barfield standing in a lab in a white lab coat.
Bison embryos.

Jennifer Barfield is an assistant professor in the CSU Department of Biomedical Sciences and scientific leader of the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd. She has used assisted reproductive technologies to develop bison embryos that carry genetics from animals in Yellowstone National Park but are free from a devastating infectious disease called brucellosis.

In 2010, Barfield zeroed in on bison after a meeting over coffee with scientists and land managers from the city of Fort Collins, Larimer County, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their big idea: Use reproductive technologies to raise bison directly descended from those in Yellowstone National Park. They would release the animals on city and county open space – known as Soapstone Prairie Natural Area and Red Mountain Open Space – 25 miles north of Fort Collins. Through this collaboration, CSU would own the bison, the city and county would provide land, and the USDA would add scientific expertise; the main players would join in program management. Better yet, the public could visit the city and county parks to see the bison.

The project would be called the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd, named for the foothills that form a transition from mountains to Plains northwest of Fort Collins. And it would serve to both reintroduce bison in Northern Colorado and supply other conservation herds with needed animals.

As soon as she saw the sweeping prairie that would become the herd’s home, Barfield felt sure the project would work. “I thought, ‘Oh, we could really do something out here.’ It was a realization of the potential of the project,” she said. “I envisioned this herd retaking their place on the prairie. I thought, ‘Wow, we could really do it for bison.’”

Jennifer Barfield standing in front of a bison herd.

We bring in new genetics with embryos and sperm, and that is a unique aspect of what we have done. From a research standpoint, using reproductive technologies for species conservation has been a driving factor for me.”

Barfield’s expertise with reproductive technologies was critical to the project, chiefly because collaborators hoped to reintroduce bison directly related to those in Yellowstone National Park. The park was established in 1872 – during the height of the bison slaughter – and a surviving wild herd of about two dozen animals was protected within its boundaries, among several hundred bison left. Other survivors were conserved by ranchers and at times were interbred with cattle. That means Yellowstone bison are most closely related to those that once roamed the nation’s grasslands.

Introducing these heritage genetics to conservation herds enhances bison health, Barfield explained. “Species that are genetically diverse are more able to deal with challenges that come their way, whether it’s diseases or climate change,” she said. “Genetic diversity gives them the flexibility to adapt, and we want to build herds that can be sustained in the face of challenges.”

But bison cannot simply be moved from Yellowstone to other herds. That’s because an infectious disease called brucellosis is persistent around the national park and has circulated among cattle, elk, and bison. The disease is worrisome to ranchers and wildlife fans because it causes spontaneous abortions that can ravage herds.

Barfield thought reproductive technologies could provide a workaround: Instead of moving Yellowstone bison, the scientist could move their genetics – in the form of eggs and sperm – and develop embryos in a CSU laboratory. These reproductive building blocks could undergo a special washing process in vitro, which would rid them of potential brucellosis infection, then could be transferred into mother bison. Alternatively, disease-free females could be artificially inseminated with rinsed sperm. Nine months later, bison calves would be born on the prairie as they were through the ages.

And that is largely how the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd was established. In November 2015, the herd’s 10 foundation bison were released at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area. Of these, two were conceived with the help of reproductive technologies, and eight were donated from a federal Yellowstone research herd after repeatedly testing free from brucellosis, thus passing quarantine requirements.

A bison is released from a trailer.
Two people observe something off-camera.

Left: Jake Two Bulls traveled from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to help with the process of bison gathering and separation. Right: Members of the Eastern Shoshone tribe watch as bison are loaded into trailers that will carry them to the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and to Taos Pueblo in New Mexico.

Top: Jake Two Bulls traveled from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota to help with the process of bison gathering and separation. Bottom: Members of the Eastern Shoshone tribe watch as bison are loaded into trailers that will carry them to the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and to Taos Pueblo in New Mexico.

The Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd is the first such herd established with use of assisted reproductive technologies and is the only known university program directly built with Yellowstone bison or their genetics.

Since the herd began, most of its calves have been the result of natural breeding. Yet, the bison program continues to occasionally use reproductive technologies, and Barfield’s lab has produced and frozen hundreds of Yellowstone bison embryos so they may be used in the future.

“We bring in new genetics with embryos and sperm, and that is a unique aspect of what we have done,” she said. “From a research standpoint, a driving factor for me has been use of reproductive technologies for species conservation.”

Barfield said she is gratified by the herd’s benefits for Tribal Nations. “The herd and our ability to give animals to Tribes has surpassed what we expected. It’s very rewarding,” she said. “I have a sense of peace about it. These animals are going to communities that really value them as relatives and as a deep part of the culture.”

Bison running.

The most recent transfer process started on a windy day in early March. That’s when Matt McCollum, an infectious disease researcher and bison herd manager, used cubes made with grains, minerals, and molasses to lure more than 60 animals making up the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd into a large corral at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area. A crew of volunteers and city of Fort Collins employees then got to work separating 27 bison yearlings from their mothers and herd bulls.

The process involved moving all the bison through gates, metal alleyways, and chutes; the adult bison were released back onto the prairie, and the yearlings were loaded into a trailer and hauled to the CSU Foothills Campus. It took the better part of two days.

Even with the clanging and banging of wild animals moving through handling equipment, Gayla Weasel Bear was cheerful at her work, opening and closing gates to control bison movement. “They’re magnificent,” said Weasel Bear, an Oglala Lakota woman who had traveled with her brother from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota just to assist with the bison gather. “It goes back to our ancestors. There’s a connection there that I can’t really explain.”

Truck hauling a trailer.
Bison running in a chute.
Group of people hauling hay bales.
Two people look through paperwork at a picnic table.

Top left: Once loaded in a trailer at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, 27 yearling bison are transported to the CSU Foothills Campus, where they are temporarily held before transfer to the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. Bottom left: Yearling bison race out of a trailer and into a corral at the CSU Foothills Campus. Top right: A team stacks hay for bison at the natural area north of Fort Collins. Bottom right: Jennifer Barfield and Matt McCollum, key collaborators in the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd, confer over records before bison are sent from CSU to Tribal lands in April.

Top: Once loaded in a trailer at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, 27 yearling bison are transported to the CSU Foothills Campus, where they are temporarily held before transfer to the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming and Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. Second: Yearling bison race out of a trailer and into a corral at the CSU Foothills Campus. Third: A team stacks hay for bison at the natural area north of Fort Collins. Bottom: Jennifer Barfield and Matt McCollum, key collaborators in the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd, confer over records before bison are sent from CSU to Tribal lands in April.

A month later, it was time to vaccinate the yearlings and to gather samples for health testing. This time, the bison were moved through handling equipment on the Foothills Campus. As each animal came into the holding chute, a small army went to work.

They clipped in ear tags for identification. They administered vaccines against brucellosis, rabies, respiratory disease, and other infections. “It’s gonna be a hard poke, so you’ve got to commit,” Dr. Rhyannon Moore-Foster instructed CSU pre-vet students pitching in. Others on the team gathered hair for genetic testing. They collected feces to check for parasites. They drew blood to monitor for disease. And they took nasal swabs to check for SARSCoV- 2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and has been found in numerous wild and domestic mammals.

Dr. Timothy Holt, a CSU livestock veterinarian, guided student volunteers in drawing blood from the jugular vein of each animal. Barbone was there to help restrain and calm the yearlings during the procedure. “Don’t be nervous, you’re just bleeding a bison,” Holt said with an easy laugh, as a local high school student stepped forward to assist. “Right here is the jugular. Poke. Now, draw,” he instructed the high schooler, while steadying a needle and spotting her hand with his. “You did good!” he exclaimed, as the student drew back a plunger and blood filled a syringe. “Fantastic! Nice work!”

“We’re good behind. All clear,” Barfield called out when all the samples were collected. With that, another bison was processed, released into a corral, and ready for transfer.

People preparing vaccines.
A man draws blood from a bison.
A woman looks in on a bison in a pen.

Top left: During the second step in transfer of bison from CSU to Tribal lands, university students, veterinarians, laboratory researchers, and volunteers vaccinate animals and collect samples for health testing. Bottom left: Dr. Timothy Holt, a CSU livestock veterinarian, collects blood from a yearling; it would be screened for disease. Right: Jennifer Barfield shushes a nervous bison in a chute at the CSU Foothills Campus as she collects samples for health testing.

Top: During the second step in transfer of bison from CSU to Tribal lands, university students, veterinarians, laboratory researchers, and volunteers vaccinate animals and collect samples for health testing. Middle: Dr. Timothy Holt, a CSU livestock veterinarian, collects blood from a yearling; it would be screened for disease. Bottom: Jennifer Barfield shushes a nervous bison in a chute at the CSU Foothills Campus as she collects samples for health testing.

That day came in late April. Heinert pulled up with his truck and trailer as meadowlarks warbled in the morning chill. He would haul 10 yearlings to Taos Pueblo. Colleen Bell, an Eastern Shoshone member, arrived with a similar rig. She would ferry 17 bison to the Wind River Indian Reservation, where some would join the Eastern Shoshone herd, and others would add to the Northern Arapaho herd; managers of the two herds jointly promote buffalo restoration through the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative.

“Bringing them home and getting them back to Native people, where they need to be, it changes you,” said Bell, who works as an equipment operator for the Eastern Shoshone buffalo program and the broader buffalo initiative.

A woman stands on the hood of a car to peek in the window of a trailer.

Left: During a lunch stop, Patti Baldes checks on bison in a trailer as a caravan carries the animals from Colorado State University to the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Right: The view from Colleen Bell’s truck as she transports bison from CSU to the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Top: During a lunch stop, Patti Baldes checks on bison in a trailer as a caravan carries the animals from Colorado State University to the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Bottom: The view from Colleen Bell’s truck as she transports bison from CSU to the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Her truck and trailer were the nucleus of a four-vehicle caravan that covered more than 300 miles to carry bison from Fort Collins to the Wind River Indian Reservation. The trailer, reverberating with nervously shifting animals, traveled through the boundless sagebrush steppe, past rocky ravines and imposing mesas, always with the snowy peaks of the Wind River Range gleaming under sunshine in the distance. If this land has a memory, it remembers bison. And if the people who live here have a collective memory, they, too, remember bison – having held that memory in their hearts for generations.

“When that first hoof hit the ground, I met a part of myself I didn’t know was there,” said Patti Baldes, who has Northern Arapaho and Northern Paiute heritage and was part of the caravan taking bison to Wind River.

After more than five hours of driving, Bell pulled onto acreage for the Eastern Shoshone herd. Nearly 20 people gathered around the trailer and readied cellphone cameras to record the release.

“Ready?” Bell asked, looking around the small crowd. She swung the gate open. After a pause, 10 yearling bulls rushed one by one from the trailer, kicking up dust as they bounded across the prairie toward the Wind River and the mountain range beyond. Bell watched with a wide grin. “That was awesome!” she exclaimed. “It was badass.”

Bison are released from a trailer.
A bison runs on the prairie.

Left: Dennis O’Neal and Colleen Bell embrace as bison arrive to expand the Northern Arapaho herd at the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Right: Colleen Bell, who drove a truck and trailer carrying bison from CSU to Wyoming, releases yearlings onto Tribal grounds.

Top: Dennis O’Neal and Colleen Bell embrace as bison arrive to expand the Northern Arapaho herd at the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming. Middle and bottom: Colleen Bell, who drove a truck and trailer carrying bison from CSU to Wyoming, releases yearlings onto Tribal grounds.

The deliveries expanded the Northern Arapaho herd to more than 80 bison and the Eastern Shoshone herd to more than 100; calves born in the spring pushed the combined number well over 200. Bison were first reintroduced here in 2016, and leaders of the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative hope to build the total number to more than 1,000 free-roaming buffalo. Already, the two herds have supplied buffalo meat to Tribal elders and military veterans, and the initiative provides tours and regularly makes educational presentations for Tribal schoolkids.

Yet, initiative leaders envision much more, said Jason Baldes, executive officer. They hope to acquire more buffalo habitat through purchases and changes in land use; provide buffalo meat to Tribal schools and families; build a buffalo visitors center and ecotourism program that would attract travelers bound for Yellowstone National Park; offer horseback buffalo tours for Tribal youth; and continue robust regional and national advocacy for Tribal bison restoration.

Four people sit on the hitch of a trailer.

A team with the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative relaxes after trailering yearlings from the university to Tribal lands in Wyoming. They are, from left, Xavier Michael-Young, Colleen Bell, Patti Baldes, and Barbara Burnside.

But, more than anything, initiative leaders are pleased their children and grandchildren now live with animals central to their culture – a presence with healing power. “These are their buffalo,” said Dennis O’Neal, vice president of the buffalo initiative. “It’s satisfying to be part of this. I’m grateful I can be here for the return of the buffalo.”

Bell’s final stop was on the grounds of the Northern Arapaho herd. Once again, she swung open the trailer gate – this time, for seven female yearlings. The bison scuffled loudly on the metal floor of the trailer, then raced onto the prairie and into a group of mature bison that had gathered around, curious about the newcomers.

Jason Brown, Northern Arapaho herd manager, watched as the yearlings from Fort Collins settled in. Tears filled his eyes. “The bison made it home,” he said.

Photo at top: Jennifer Barfield, CSU research scientist, is eyed by a bull bison as she checks animals at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area.

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