Buffalo (or Bison)

Bison or buffalo are large, even-toed mammals. "Bison" is a Greek word meaning ox-like animal, while "buffalo" originated with the French fur trappers who called these massive beasts bœufs, meaning ox or bullock—so both names, "bison" and "buffalo", have a similar meaning.

By 10,000BC the mammoth was beginning to die out in North America and the buffalo took its place as a principal source of food and hides.

The buffalo formed the mainstay of the economy of the Native Americans, providing them with meat for food, hides and fur for clothing and shelter, and sinew and horn for tools.

Native Americans could easily take down the buffalo. The buffalo’s lungs share the same compartment (unlike humans who have two separate compartments). So when an arrow/spear pierces the Buffalo’s lung cavity (pleura), both lungs collapse, bringing the buffalo down swiftly.

After a successful buffalo hunt a Native American adult might consume as much as four pounds (1.8 kgs) of buffalo meat a day.

The Indians' hunting activities had little impact on the buffalo population, but with the westward movement of white civilization in the 18th and 19th centuries, the bison were wantonly slaughtered in ever-growing numbers.

In the days of pioneer travel great buffalo herds, wading streams, sometimes halted a boat in midstream or, moving over the prairies, blocked and occasionally even derailed a train.

The westward-moving pioneers and railroad workers wantonly killed the huge animals by the thousands for food. Only the choicest pieces of the slaughtered buffalo, the hump and tongues, were cut out of the carcasses.

In just 50 years, between 1830 to 1880, the US slaughtered 40 million bison. The near-extinction bison hunting in the 1800s was not only to gain food. The pioneers also wanted to restrict the American Indians' dominant food supply; herds were shot from trains and left to rot where they died. 

By 1870s, the buffalo had been decimated east of the Mississippi River thus removing a major source of meat. The extension of railroads across the Great Plains had led to the destruction of the huge herds that foraged on the vast grasslands there.

One hunter, William F. Cody who was nicknamed "Buffalo Bill", killed 4,280 animals in 17 months while supplying buffalo meat for railroad construction crews.

The first buffalo ever born in captivity was born at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in 1884.

The Buffalo Protection Act of 1894 was one of the earliest official recognitions of an endangered species problem in the United States. By the late 1880s fewer than a thousand bison were left on the continent, two thirds of them in Canada. The law to protect the few remaining in Yellowstone National Park was the first federal legislation that focused on conserving a once-vast wildlife resource.

President Barack Obama signed into law on May 9, 2016 the National Bison Legacy Act, which designated the bison as the official mammal of the United States.

The United States Senate has passed resolutions each year since 2013 making the first Saturday of November National Bison Day. The purpose of National Bison Day is to encourage celebration of the American Bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo.  

The species is acknowledged as the first American conservation success story, having been brought back from the brink of extinction by a concerted effort of ranchers, conservationists and politicians to save the species in the early 20th century. Bison can also play an important role in improving the types of grasses found in landscapes to the benefit of grasslands and hold significant economic value for private producers and rural communities.

Bison and wisent are the largest terrestrial animals in North America and Europe.

The Yellowstone Park bison herd (approx. 5,500) is descended from a remnant population of 23 individual bison that survived a mass slaughter in the 19th century by hiding out in the Pelican Valley of Yellowstone Park.

There are about 150 bison living on Santa Catalina Island, a small rocky island off the coast of California. They’ve been there since a film crew imported 14 bison for a movie shoot in 1924, then left them behind when the shoot was complete.

Today there are approximately 500,000 -550,000 bison that live across North America.

Male bison live apart and only enter the female herds during mating season, when the males fight over access to females.

European bison herds move by majority rule: each bison “votes” by facing the direction it wants to go, and the herd goes in the direction chosen by the largest number.

Buffalo can jump over 6 feet high from a running start. These massive animals possess surprising athleticism, considering their size. Their powerful legs and strong muscles allow them to clear obstacles with relative ease.  

Buffalo milk contains 25 per cent more protein than cow's milk.

Source Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc, National Bison Association