The Thunder of Bison Finally Returns to the Osage Prairie | WILD HOPE

They were just getting daylight and I could hear a rumbling. Thunder. That's the sound that I heard. But all of a sudden you see all these buffalo running. Everything that that buffalo had was a sacred part of our life. The Osage Nation has revived this pasture, this part of the world, for buffalo. They've got a home now. We can be part of this land with them. Oklahoma's DePolska Elementary, established in 2015, is the only school of its kind. Its students are taught how to strengthen their Osage identity and practice Native American traditions like the buffalo dance. By you guys doing these little things, participating and learning these, it's a way of carrying it on. It's part of who you are. O.J. Littlecook is a teacher at DePolska. Today, his lesson focuses on a creature that's culturally and spiritually important to the community, the North American bison, also known as buffalo. All right, so how do you say buffalo? Okay, so the animal itself, they used everything. Food source, tools they needed, clothing and shelter that they needed. It was a part of their life, a way of living. The Osage community hasn't heard the thunder of buffalo on their prairie for over a century. Tribal nations are returning this sacred animal to their ancestral lands. These young Osage will be some of the first to once again grow up alongside buffalo. All right, gonna be rough going down there here, so I'll stay up here on the side. There's a bull right there, see? He don't look like it, but he's watching everything we're doing. Osage elder John Henry is a member of the buffalo clan. Today, he's visiting a new reserve that his community established for a very special herd. This particular herd here in the Osage is, again, taking care of Indian people. There were a mere handful of bison on the land when the tribe purchased it in 2016, and many Osage saw an opportunity to build a herd of their own. They say we've revived it in some ways, but it's always been here in the 1800s, and we followed the buffalo from north to south and east to west, bring them back to the people so that they'd have food to eat for winter and clothes to wear. They took care of all Indian people, all Indian people. Now, a new generation of Osage leadership is fighting to restore the connection with buffalo that their ancestors once had. They went on at least two buffalo hunts a year. Went on that last buffalo hunt, they had a very difficult time finding any buffalo, and some of the folks couldn't find any. In the early 1800s, it's estimated that there were between 30 and 50 million bison ranging across most of North America, but within 100 years' time, they were driven to the brink of extinction. As railroads expanded across the Great Plains, European settlers slaughtered vast herds of bison. The killings had a sinister motivation. The real reason the bison was driven to the brink of extinction was because the American government recognized that if the bison were eliminated, they would be better able to control the indigenous tribes that relied so heavily on bison. It's estimated that we've lost in that 80-year period 90 percent of our people, and we lost so much of our tribal memory and our ceremonies, and what we have now are not the same. The buffalo massacre that led to such loss was the largest deliberate destruction of a mammal species in modern history. In less than a century, bison dwindled from almost 60 million to fewer than a thousand. The once-teeming species was on the verge of extinction. But an effort to save the buffalo arrived just in time, in an unlikely place, New York City. When New York's Bronx Zoo first opened 125 years ago, one of the first exhibits included a small herd of bison. Bronx Zoo's first director was actually at the forefront in trying to save the American bison. Before he became zoo director, William Hornaday was a taxidermist and a hunter. In 1886, he headed west to conduct a survey of the surviving bison. The devastation he witnessed transformed him into a conservationist. Hornaday wanted to acquire as many bison as he could, with the hope of eventually reintroducing them. And in 1905, he was instrumental in the formation of a group called the American Bison Society, which led the push to try and re-establish bison back in the American West. The group soon shipped bison to a wildlife reserve in Oklahoma, the very first animal reintroduction in North America, and eventually sent others to South Dakota. Decades later, the zoo picked up where the society left off and launched a breeding initiative. We want our animals to serve a real purpose in conservation. So we decided to create a herd of bison that was genetically and demographically robust for restoration programs. But early on in this project, it was really difficult for us to acquire bison of conservation value. Many surviving bison had been crossbred with cattle, diluting their unique bison genes. The zoo wanted animals as close to wild as possible. But they were hard to come by. So they reached out to some of the indigenous tribes who, despite all the challenges, had managed to maintain small herds of their own. By the 1990s, these native nations had banded together to systematically transfer bison between tribes and conservation organizations, all to keep the population genetically healthy. One such transfer came to the Bronx Zoo in 2016. It really wasn't until we were gifted a small group of bison by the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes out of Fort Peck, Montana, that our breeding program was really able to take off. Meanwhile, the Osage Nation had also been growing their own herd and trying to strengthen its genetic diversity. The Bronx Zoo chooses some of the most genetically pure American bison in the world. And Jan Hayman, our director of natural resources, worked with the zoo and brought them down here. In early 2022, the Bronx Zoo transferred six bison to the Osage Nation. For that genetic line to be maintained for so many years and to set foot back on the Osage Nation ranch is a pretty significant step. It was thrilling just seeing them come out. It was emotional. Thanks to transfers from other tribal partners and another seven bison from the Bronx Zoo in 2024, the Osage herd is now nearly 300 strong. It's really exciting to be a part of the growing herd of bison across Indian country and to know that we're getting back to our history and bringing our culture and our food back to our people. We expect to grow the herd very strategically, but it has been very important that we look at the greater land management techniques as well. The bison, as big as they are and as much as they eat, will transform the prairie they live on. So as the tribe grew their herd, they partnered with neighbors who'd seen the changes and benefits firsthand. The team at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. This is the last big example of tallgrass prairie in the world. What makes this place special is the native plant community. Having that plant diversity means you have more insect diversity, means you have different species of birds. It's an abundant, fertile landscape. Bob Hamilton with the Nature Conservancy has been an ally of the Osage Nation for years now. You're trying to restore a native ecosystem. You want to restore as many of the native species as possible, and bison are critical to that. Since the Nature Conservancy's bison project began in 1993, their herd has grown to over 2,000, one of the largest conservation herds on the continent. They've been called a keystone species just because of their tremendous effect to maintain the biological diversity of the prairie and how they diversify it even further, so they are kind of the kings of the prairie. Bison dung fertilizes the soil and supports hundreds of insect species, while bison fur provides prime nesting material for birds and mice. The giants also shape the land with brute force. Bison can weigh up to a ton. So when a bison wallows repeatedly, it pulverizes the vegetation, compressing the soil and leaving behind a crater. These are the sites that in the springtime in March and April, when typically we're getting a lot of water and the ground is saturated, these will explode with life, with salamanders and frogs, all sorts of stuff going through their life cycles, and so this is an interesting little micro-habitat. Bison once shaped life all across the prairie, and so did the people who lived with them. The challenge as a land manager is how do you restore the way the prairie used to function, and that means grazing and fire. Prairie doesn't remain prairie without fire. For untold generations, Osage and other tribal nations helped the grasslands thrive by setting fire to them. Today, they're reigniting that tradition. This was a patch that we burned just, I think, what, 10 or 11 days ago? Prescribed fire has been a real important component to the Osage people as we've managed our land over thousands of years, and we look forward to incorporating some of the techniques that the Nature Conservancy uses through their patch burning on the landscape as well. Not only does a regime of fire maintain the grassland and keep invasive species at bay, the ashes also return vital nutrients to the soil. New vegetation emerges in just a few days after a burn, and it's irresistible to bison. Burn it and they will come, that lush regrowth that comes up after a fire. If you're a grazing animal, that might as well be ice cream sandwiches out there. These ongoing cycles of wallowing, grazing, and fire create a patchwork mosaic of different habitats within the prairie that in turn support a variety of species. Today, the tall grass prairie preserve boasts 750 plant, 250 bird, and 80 mammal species, all reaping these bison benefits. Bison carry a big load, and it's so rewarding to see them brought back and to see them playing a significant role again in our native grasslands. With the Nature Conservancy, we can see after decades of bison on the landscape what that looks like, and it really motivates us to continue the work that we started. The Osage Nation's herd hasn't been on the land as long, but the tribe already sees real benefits from it. The bison provide a reliable source of food and income, and the promise of a healthier, more biodiverse ecosystem. The Osage aren't the only ones taking this approach. Across the U.S. and Canada, other native nations are taking similar steps, re-establishing their herds and rebuilding their ancient connection to the bison and the land. Today, the North American bison population has reached almost half a million. Their thunder no longer doomed to echo in American history. Their fire rekindled for a new generation. They've got a home now. We're thanking these buffalo out here for coming home, and they make us stronger. Thanks for watching this episode. If you'd like to dive deeper into this story or learn how you can help protect biodiversity near you, visit wildhope.tv. And come back on Mondays for more Wild Hope, right here at PBS Nature on YouTube.