It's a quick drive through a couple of gates and up a hill for Jimmy Jestes to look out over about 300 acres where the Pawnee Nation's bison herd will soon roam.
Jestes, the director of the nation’s agriculture division, has been working with a team to clear thickets and red cedar trees on the land in preparation for what he refers to as buffalo.
“Right now, we’re getting ready to build a fence for the buffalo herd,” he said.
The Pawnee Nation hopes to start off with a small herd of about 10-15 cows and their calves on their land in northern Oklahoma. Any meat from the animals won’t be sold. Instead, these animals will be for cultural purposes.
Still, Jestes knows keeping a healthy herd of non-domesticated buffalo will be challenging.
“What the tribe had 150 years ago is totally different than what we're doing now, getting buffalo back,” Jestes said. “Whereas, 150 years ago, they was running free on the plain.”
Buffalo are central to many Indigenous groups’ traditions, history and spirituality, especially for Plains tribes that once used the animals for food, shelter and clothing.
Today, buffalo are also a symbol of resiliency for Indigenous groups. After being hunted to near extinction, there are roughly 450,000 Plains bison now living in the U.S., according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Each year more tribes and tribal nations seek to have buffalo restored to their lands.
Jessica Evans, the Pawnee Nation’s agriculture land manager and outreach coordinator, said as a Plains tribe, buffalo are an integral part of their culture. Reestablishing the animals on the landscape is about reconnection.
“For me personally, it will feel really good to get to have a piece of that back and share that with everybody else who also has that hole in their heart of what could have been, what was and just is not anymore,” she said.
Ongoing efforts to reestablish bison
About 30-60 million bison once roamed the continent. It took less than 100 years of over hunting to bring the animal to near extinction, according to the National Parks Service.
“It seemed like overnight that they just disappeared,” said Rosalyn LaPier, a history professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “So for a vast majority of people, it would just seem sudden, like all of a sudden. It was just like, ‘Wait, there aren't any more.’”
Even as Indigenous peoples were removed from land or massacred, they were also dealing with fewer bison, LaPier said.
“Since bison are primarily an animal of the plains and prairies, many of the tribes that had the closest relationship were the Plains tribes,” she said.
In the early 1900s, conservation efforts began to protect small herds of bison. Those efforts and the herds grew throughout the 20th century with the environmental movement, and later, tribes worked to see bison restored on their land.
The InterTribal Buffalo Council, founded in the early 1990s, has been an important part of that work.
The council has more than 80 members, who manage about 20,000 bison on over 1 million acres. ITBC President Ervin Carlson said their mission is to return buffalo to tribal lands for cultural and spiritual connection.
“You know, it's real gratifying to see when we first bring back a herd to a tribe — how excited or emotional to them to finally get buffalo back on their lands,” he said.
The group has grown from an initial seven to 10 tribes to eight times that size, and Carlson said the organization continues to welcome more members, including the Pawnee Nation.
“Some of the tribes don't have herds yet but are in the process of doing that, and we help them put together, getting ready to have a herd,” Carlson said.
The council has programs, hosts educational events and worker trainings. It also provides technical services to assess land and looks at needs such as infrastructure and water.
Carlson said the biggest need for the tribal nations that have buffalo herds is funds to sustain and build their herds. He said he has been working on raising the amount of federal money for buffalo programs for years.
“I mean, that never covers all their needs, but it's actually helped them to just to exist and keep going,” he said. “And, of course, way below what is needed. But the tribes are just like buffalo. They're resilient, and things keep on going.”
Herds thrive on tribal lands
The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma welcomed bison back to their land a couple of decades ago with help from the InterTribal Buffalo Council.
Lush grasses flutter in the field where the tribe’s herd of just over 30 bison roam. In the adjacent field, there is a big red corral and squeeze chute. Lyle Washington, the tribe’s agricultural assistant director, drives a pickup truck into the field to take a look.
“We do routine checks,” Washington said. “And we feed on Mondays and Fridays and we'll go out and get a count, and just kind of spend time with the herds and see how they're moving and acting and just kind of inspect each and every animal.”
Washington has seen the herd grow to as many as 100 buffalo and every year, he said, a few animals are processed for the tribe’s meat distribution program.
“It's real fulfilling and getting to raise and nurture these animals, and seeing them grow and thrive, and then be able to bless our tribal members with food, you know?” he said. “It's awesome.”
For the Omaha Tribe in Nebraska, their herd also plays a role in food sovereignty.
Justin McCauley, the tribe’s director of Wildlife and Parks, said they first got buffalo back in the 1980s.
“So we started off with like four head, and then I believe, those four were harvested and fed,” McCauley said. “And then several years later, when we were able to obtain some more acres to keep them.”
McCauley said the entire community is involved with the herd. He’s noticed how parents will bring their children to see the buffalo and take pictures with them standing by the fence.
“Just seeing them is a very powerful and moving thing,” he said. “We look at them as a holy animal, they’re ‘qubé,’ you know, holy. We do our best to take care of them every day and in return, even to this day, they still take care of us.”
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
