Twilight on the Trace

A peaceful scene that I shot from the trail at Buffalo Trace trail at Mahomet. Many years ago the area was a feasting site for wild buffalo, who munched on tallgrass praire plants and sipped water from the nearby Sangamon River. I paused to take these photos while running on the trail a couple of days ago. A nice sunset when wildflowers abound is a favorite time to run the trail, as is winter with sparkling snow illuminated by a full moon.A field of wildflowers that borders the trail. A while later . . .

. . . a group of eight deer were browsing on the vegetation in the same field. The photo is fuzzy and I got only two of the deer in the shot. The group slowly moved away at my approach. Fantastic sight.

The trail is interrupted in a few places by small streams, which can be quite muddy after rains like we've had. The makeshift plank bridge on the left was nice, but sometimes it was easier just to run right through the muck to cross the stream.

The Moon Master, my buffalo buddy Chris Migotsky, resorts to a little walking near the end of an all-day 56-mile run on the Buffalo Trace trail. He's not mentally right. Chris organized this week's "seven-day run as many miles as you can" race. So far, I've been out there every day, logging five miles a day.

The Face of a Mass Murderer

"Buffalo Bill" Cody got his nickname by killing 4,280 buffalo in eighteen months (1867-68). He did this as part of a contract to supply meat to railroad workers building the western railroads. That face reminds me of a certain modern-day colonel who was responsible for the deaths of millions of chickens condemned to a deep fryer.

MIA from the Herd

I've missed many a trail run with the herd lately, but starting Sunday that will end as I begin daily trail runs of at least five miles per day for the next week, rain or shine. Head 'em up, move 'em out. I'll try to take some photos on the Buffalo Trace Trail as I run.

Cousin to a Star

Cody II and me at the Indian Pow Wow.

How do you like that photo above of me and my new lawn mower? Yup, bought myself a buffalo. The price of gas being what it is, I can sell my mower and my car and turn the buffalo loose on my lawn as well as ride him to work.

Not practical, you say? Yeah, you're right. It's not really my buffalo. It belongs to a gentleman from Minnesota, Ron Fogel, who also owned the famous buffalo Cody, star of screen and television. Cody was in the movie Dances with Wolves, and the video above tells the story of the Oreo-eating, beer guzzling Hollywood bison. Cody's obituary is HERE. What a story. Wolf Woman and I met Cody II (above, with me), cousin of the deceased Cody, at a pow wow of the Kickapoo Indians near Moraine View State Park near Bloomington this past weekend. This is the closest I will ever be to a buffalo. I was able to pat him on his steel-wool-like head.

Good Times - Memorial Day Weekend

Red Chief and his Princess Mother. That look on his face tells me the Princess probably said something that irked the Chief.

Little Bull with Bull Daddy (son Tim) and Mama Lanata.

Wolf Woman's birthday was on Memorial Day weekend, and she came over to my mom's house to meet my sister and her family. We surprised her with a birthday cake.

While in the batter's box during a 1932 World Series game, Babe Ruth pointed to seats in the outfield, reputedly predicting he would hit a home run to that spot. And he promptly did just that. Red Chief (above) calls a shot to the outfield at Westview School during a ferocious pitch and hit session with me on Memorial Day. The Chief then hit a slow grounder to third. Some day he will clear the fence with a mighty shot.

Bring it on!

Busy these days with a flooded basement yesterday and watching Red Chief all day today and tomorrow. Quick post and a political cartoon for now. Obama . . . by a knockout.

Going Lunar: Seven Days on the Trail

I have signed up for a seven-day trail race at the Buffalo Trace Trail at Mahomet. For this informal race each runner will strive to complete five miles on each of the seven consecutive days June 15-21. The organizer of the race is my lunatic buddy and fellow buffalo Chris Migotsky (above left, with me after completing a 31-mile trail race in a single day at Owen-Putnam State Forest in Indiana a few years ago). Those long legs of the tall Moon Master, as Chris is known to the herd, meant long strides, which I had to keep up with while we ran the trail together. Chris has been the coordinator of the full moon runs on the Buffalo Trace Trail, when the herd gathers on the night of each full moon during the year and runs the 5-mile trail, sometimes under beautiful moonlight, sometimes in bone-chilling cold, sometimes in a driving rainstorm. The moon run of June 18 during the trail race will be the 100th moon run.

Coming Soon: Recap of the Memorial Day Weekend. Don't miss adventures with the Wolf Woman, the Princess, Red Chief, Little Bull, Bull Daddy and Lanata, and the migration of my sister's herd from up north to the central Illinois prairie.

On Memorial Day - Remember Them

A Bison by Any Other Name is a Buffalo

A Yellowstone bison. Or is it a water buffalo?

I have just finished chewing on my computer because of the following message, from an anonymous source, on the WEBSITE of the Buffalo Allies of Bozeman (Montana), a group dedicated to the conservation of the Yellowstone buffaloes: "You are not helping your cause by misnaming the creatures you wish to protect. The only true buffaloes are cape buffaloes and water buffaloes which I believe here in North America are all kept in zoos. If you wish to protect bison, then that's what you should call them and your organization. That is their proper name of which you should be aware. To further promote the misnaming of these animals may be counterproductive. I support the protection of bison but will never support any organization that doesn't use their proper name."

Good God. I just wanna smack people like that. Bison are commonly known as buffalo. No one needs narrow-minded views and silly "correctness." Using the term buffalo counterproductive? What crap. We're not talking about Asia or South Africa here, for Christ's sake. Look at the website. It says Bozeman. That's in Montana, which is in the United States. The message might have been written by someone with a grudge, or a troublemaker. If he or she is neither of those, then they are just plain aloof, or pretty damn silly. C'mon, just climb out of your high chair and do what you can for the buffalo, or bison. If the name is such an issue, then disappear, please. You are counterproductive.

An Evening with the Family Herd

The Princess daughter and Red Chief in a photo taken a couple of days ago.

Red Chief and his uncle Tim discussing the malfunctions of the Bush administration . . . or something just as silly.

Fellow Icons of the West in Trouble

With the drastic reduction of buffalo over the winter at Yellowstone, where the only continuously wild herd struggles to survive, we now get THIS news about horses out west. I know there are enough caring people out there to help these animals, but these are situations that need immediate action.

Alaska, the Undoing of Tom's Tribe

A grizzly would find Ali to be a nuisance.

I've been watching with great interest "The Alaska Experiment" on the Discovery Channel. On the website HERE, we meet the four groups of volunteers for the experiment in the Alaskan wild for a three-month survival tour. After watching the first episodes, I wonder how much longer the dad and his two college-age daughters can stand one another. If I were the dad of the two girls, I would lock them out of the shelter and leave them for the bears. If you've seen the show, you would understand why I feel this way.

(Reference: See my cast of characters in the right-hand column) Now, I wonder how I would fare in this show with, say, the Wolf Woman as my partner. Now the Wolf Woman loves animals, especially wolves, and very especially cats (she has five, and feeds a stray outside regularly). Wolf Woman and I would probably lose a lot of weight; both of us would find it very difficult to kill an animal. In fact, the Wolf Woman doesn't even kill cockroaches in her house, preferring to "lead" them out the door, as she says. But she does like to cook, so maybe I could look for the carcass of an already-killed animal in the wilds.

Or if I did the show with Princess and Red Chief. The Chief would want to go out and play with the animals or have a snowball fight, while the Princess, once the initial rations were gone, would be ready to go home. I can hear her now: "Dad, the Princess doesn't want to be eaten by a bear."

Or, with Tim and his faithful hound Ali Baba. Ali loves snow, and to see him prance around in a deep snow is a laugh riot. So, he would probably love Alaska, and would be a pretty good watchdog. I would expect a lot of barking at bears and other critters. Tim would want to know where he could get a Marie Callender pot pie or where the nearest fast food place was.

And if it were just me and Maddie . . . well . . . Maddie would cower in a corner of a cabin and not be seen for the entire winter, except occasionally to sit in a sun spot.

Considering all this, I think I'll just stay in the wilds of central Illinois.

On Sunday . . . Hang with Mom

Kennekuk on the AT

"Kennekuk" (Grant Cunningham) somewhere in the mountains of Virginia.

Grant Cunningham, the hubby of one of my co-workers, began hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) in March and intends to do the whole 2,174 miles of the trail stretching from Georgia, where he started, to Maine. THIS blog, maintained by his wife Connie, tells of his progress. Click on the reference to the AT map on the blog; shows the whole trail. Grant estimates it will take him about five months to hike the entire trail, and his attitude is good: if he can't finish the entire thing, no big deal. He'll stop when he's had enough. I'm jealous of his journey. I'm what they call a section hiker of the AT, having done two sections stretching from Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, south through the Shenandoah Valley to Waynesboro, Virginia. I hope to hop on the AT again sometime this year. Grant is a "thru hiker," doing the entire trail in one span. And he has the trail name (most thru hikers have one of these) of Kennekuk, the running club to which both he and I belong. My advice to Grant: Be a buffalo. You will endure.

A Friend of the Buffalo

This 1908 sketch and text by Charles M. Russell mourns the demise of the buffalo of the Old West. ("You sleeping relick of the past, if I but had my way Id cloth(e) your frame with meat an(d) hide and wake you up to day.")

Russell's painting "When the Land Belonged to God" depicts hundreds of buffalo crossing the Missouri River. Charlie's intent was to show a magnificent array of buffalo in bygone days, long before human settlement on the plains. The original painting hangs in the Montana Historical Society in Helena.

Charles M. Russell painting in a tent.

Charlie Russell in his studio.

When I left Yellowstone last October, the buffalo herd numbered 4,700. Hunting, slaughter, and as many as 700 dead from the unusually cruel winter has reduced the herd to less than 2,300. The actual number left could be even lower.

Charlie Russell would probably be furious about this.

Charles M. Russell, one of my favorite artists (I have prints of two of his paintings at home), was a prolific illustrator of the Old West. And, he was fascinated by buffalo. He painted at least 42 representations of buffalo hunts (mostly by Indians), and buffaloes were the main subject or a part of hundreds of his works. Even his personal stationery had a buffalo skull at the top. Russell, who lived with the Blood Indians during the winter of 1888-1889, also had a deep respect for Native Americans and their reverence for the land. ''Their God was the sun, their church was all outdoors and their only book was nature, but they knew all the pages,'' he wrote.

Charlie Russell was cantankerous, being described in 1909 as "fire and voluble, constantly talking and full of stories. These are the greatest collection of wit combined with vulgarity I ever heard.” One of my favorite Russell quotes comes from a talk he gave to the Great Falls, Montana, civic boosters in the 1920s: "In my book a pioneer is a man who turned all the grass upside down, strung bob-wire over the dust that was left, poisoned the water and cut down the trees, killed the Indian who owned the land, and called it progress. If I had my way, the land here would be like God made it, and none of you sons of bitches would be here at all."

Upon Russell's death in 1926, this account appeared in the New York Herald Tribune. Headed THE END OF THE TRAIL, the text is by Gutzon Borglum, who created the Presidential monuments at Mount Rushmore.

"Charles Marion Russell was of the self-reliant race of lone explorers, a pioneer, a student, a painter of life. I've read the rubbish about him, how he drank, lived with the Indians, trapped, punched cows, which has filled columns with cheap newspaper gossip.

"Of course he drank, and I'll wager he could drink in competition with the fabled Danes, dry up the swollen streams to let his lady pass. Gamble? Certainly! He gambled his life to record the sob of a lone trapper. Swear? I hope he swore -- and as picturesquely as Shakespeare, as meaningfully as Washington."

They are considering reintroducing buffalo to the CHARLES M. RUSSELL NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE in Montana. I think Charlie would like that.

Tarmac

Rumblings on the Prairie

The epicenter of the earthquake at 4:30 this morning was not at West Salem, Illinois, a hundred miles south of here, as reported in the national media. It was on Maplecrest Drive in Champaign, where I repeatedly banged my head against the wall during my breakfast of rage about the killing of almost half of the Yellowstone buffalo herd. I regularly read dozens of blogs and newspaper accounts out of the Yellowstone area about the buffalo fiasco. Plenty of well-meaning folks out there, but positive action and results on behalf of the buffalo are tough to come by. Pass the Tylenol.

UPDATE, 10:16 a.m. - Earthquake aftershocks just felt. A good shaking of our office building. Must be the buffalo ghost herd on the move.

The Laugh of the Little Bull

Grandson Devin's latest photo. Definitely a Buffalo Warrior.

Life is Cruel

Buffalo mom and her newborn calf at a Yellowstone roadside last Friday. Heavy snow cover in some areas prevented grazing.

Every day I check Ralph Maughan's Wildlife Reports (link in right-hand column). Ralph gives us much useful info on wildlife, especially on wolves and Yellowstone buffalo. THIS account with photos is crushing. Maybe Yellowstone visitors should wear THIS apparel. (I'm trying to inject a little humor into a very bleak situation.). The numbers of slaughtered bison at Yellowstone continue to rise.

Hope

Those words, spoken by Buffalo Field Campaign media coordinator Stephany Seay, give me hope. For an excellent interview with Stephany, who gives a good summation of the buffalo situation at Yellowstone, listen to the audio at THIS site.

Happiness

The simple things are the best: Seeing joy on the face of Red Chief as he flies his new Spiderman kite. Click on the photo to get a closeup of a happy six-year-old.

Road Warriors

Fed up with mistreatment, gangs of buffaloes roamed the roads of Yellowstone National Park recently, surrounding vehicles and displaying such protest antics as sticking out their tongues. (I make light of this but I get as angry as anyone about the whole mess. THIS latest report and Jim Mcdonald's excellent comments below the article details the mismanagement of America's herd.)

Just Trying to Survive

With the recent removal of the gray wolf from the endangered species list in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, the wolf probably faces more immediate endangerment from those who would kill them outright. THIS article tells the story well. For an example of how people are divided about the wolf out west, read THIS.

Buffalo Warrior: Shock and Awe at Yellowstone

When all else fails, a way to stop the slaughter of Yellowstone buffaloes. Arm the bison!

From the Herd: Moonmaster and Little Bull

Fellow Buffalo Chris Migotsky (aka the Moonmaster, above) put a lot of people in pain this past Saturday as the race director of the Clinton Lake Trail ultra. The 30-mile run is the toughest race I've ever run, having tried it last year but finishing only 20 miles. The Moonmaster is also the grand bison of the herd's moon runs, where lunatic buffaloes turn out on the night of each full moon to run the Buffalo Trace trail no matter what the conditions. Nothing like running in moonlit snow or around a crowd of fireflies on a misty evening.

Grandson Little Bull bagged a big chick and a rabbit during a hunt on Easter Sunday.

For the Buffalo

Miriam Wasser and Cat Simonidis under arrest by Yellowstone police.

For my birthday yesterday, this was a nice present. Action on behalf of the Yellowstone buffalo. See the Buffalo Field Campaign website HERE for full details. I applaud the two ladies for their efforts.

Fear and Loathing of Butch Cavendish

Butch Cavendish, scorn of my childhood.

The Gunsmoke gang. Marshal Matt Dillon (front) was next to God in my book, and Miss Kitty was dern purdy. However, her employment of Butch Cavendish (left, who now went by the name of Sam Noonan, bartender) years after he messed with the Lone Ranger is unforgivable.

So, I'm on the phone last night with the Wolf Woman talking about the old days of TV and I chatter on about one of the most evil people I remember as a small boy: Butch Cavendish. The name still strikes terror in my heart. Butch and his gang ambushed the Texas Rangers group to which the Lone Ranger belonged before he donned his famous mask. He was wounded by the Cavendish gang and was the sole survivor of the attack. I can remember my disgust of Butch. And then what do I find after a little research today? Miss Kitty hires the guy as the bartender, name now Sam, in the series Gunsmoke. I guess the human resources people at the Long Branch Saloon didn't check the background of this hire. I now wonder if either Butch or Sam (both portrayed by actor Glenn Strange) shot buffalo in the Old West. That would really traumatize me.

Dead Buffalo Walking

Terror in the eye of a Yellowstone buffalo about to be trucked away from the park.

Or maybe better titled "The Sounds of Silence." Read THIS and watch and listen closely to the video. The clatter of buffalo hooves is a testament to the mismanagement and mistreatment of a treasured creature whose life will end at a slaughterhouse. As THIS New York Times article states, "This was not the Yellowstone National Park that tourists see."

Trail Tradition

“Heavy, fleet of foot, capable of covering scores of miles a day, the buffalo tore his roads [traces] from one feeding ground to another . . . these wild roamers of the prairie in great masses thronged from water course to timber belt in search of water and food. That the prairies here were once the home of vast herds is well known by accounts left us by the early French explorers.”
- From J.O. Cunningham, The History of Champaign County, Illinois, 1905

I'll be running with the herd, my buffalo trail running buddies, after work tonight at the Buffalo Trace Trail. This is the ninth year of running every Thursday evening from March through October at the 5-mile long trail. The trail is near the route of a very old buffalo trace, created by herds that traversed the area to reach the waters of the nearby Sangamon River and to munch on the tallgrass prairie. It is likely that buffalo roamed on the very ground we run on today. Large sections along the trail have been replanted with the original prairie grasses native to the area. This replanting is an ongoing project and is carried out by Grand Prairie Friends, a group that restores and preserves natural areas in east-central Illinois. The trail is on an abandoned livestock farm, but it is hoped that one day the entire trail area will be much like the original prairie again. It's happening slowly but surely. The original buffaloes that roamed here were all gone by 1830, but our "human herd" (a.k.a. the Buffaloes) has embraced the area. Free-range buffalo, you might say.

Death Row

Recent photo of Yellowstone buffalo in holding pen. For roaming beyond the boundaries of the park in search of food, these bison will be put to death. Many more will be rounded up and slaughtered in the weeks to come. This doesn't have to happen. One-fourth of the Yellowstone herd has been gunned down or sent to slaughter this winter. I hope to post more enlightening information on this complex mess.

Record Number of Buffalo Killed

It's official: with 200 more buffalo sent to slaughter today, the herd at Yellowstone National Park, 4700 strong before winter, will soon be reduced by 1214, the toll of this winter's hunt and slaughter. This is a record number of Yellowstone buffalo killed in a season. And that number will rise. Many have tried to stop the slaughter, including the Humane Society of America, but to no avail.

From a letter written by a buffalo advocate:

“Dear people in charge of killing our nation’s last wild bison. (Our bison, not yours.) Please read and heed the letter below. I have written you, Dr. Zaluski [Montana Dept. of Livestock] , you, Suzanne Lewis [superintendent of Yellowstone], and also the governor of Montana about my outrage and heartache concerning this unwarranted and immoral slaughter. None of the three of you has bothered with the courtesy of a reply, in fact at times emails have not even been accepted. This is not the way government employees should conduct their duties in a democracy. Perhaps you do not know, although I cannot imagine that you don’t know, the thrill for people visiting Yellowstone to see the bison there in great numbers in their natural habitat. Should they step across park boundaries, what of it? Artificial park boundaries are the intruders, not the bison. I must tell you that it appears that all of you have completely sold out to the cattle interests. Whether or not that is true, that is the appearance, and the Montana Department of Livestock and all of you above appear to the rest of the country to be a bunch of rowdy and out of control cowboys. Is that the image you wish to project to the rest of the nation? Each of you that wears the park service emblem with the bison on it should at least have the good grace to remove those patches if you cannot ensure the safety of the bison. Otherwise you are also guilty of hypocrisy. I am sorry to be so harsh, but I have been begging for the lives of the bison for years, and you do not hear. Please hear the cries of the bison, and the people who love them. Thank you.”

Pssssst, Spread the Word. Today is Red Chief's Birthday

Grandson Ethan is 6 years old. Although I've got him somewhat interested in buffaloes, Spiderman wins out.

Unhappy Hour: The End of the Road

The Associated Press reports that 13 buffalo who wandered to the Happy Hour bar near West Yellowstone, Montana, just outside the Yellowstone Park limits, were rounded up yesterday and will be shipped to slaughter. Guess it doesn't pay to roam for a little brew. Many caring and determined people have tried to stop the unnecessary slaughter of buffalo at Yellowstone, but to no avail. Extremely frustrating. My God, that makes more than 800 buffalo destroyed this winter. More coming on the killing of America's herd.

Buffalo Grandkids

Red Chief and I with the newest herd member, Little Bull.

I Wonder How Potbelly is Doing

George Catlin traveled extensively in the 1830s, observing many Native Americans and buffalo.

Buffalo Bull, Pawnee warrior painted by Catlin in 1832.

Potbelly, big buffalo bull at Yellowstone.

George Catlin was a visionary, but a little too optimistic sometimes. In a letter published in 1841, he lamented the decline of the buffalo due to hunting: "It is a melancholy contemplation for one who has traveled as I have . . . and seen this noble animal in all its pride and glory, to contemplate it so rapidly wasting from the world, drawing the irresistible conclusion too, which one must do, that its species is soon to be extinguished, and with it the peace and happiness (if not the actual existence) of the tribes of Indians who are joint tenants with them, in the occupancy of these vast and idle plains. And what a splendid contemplation . . . when one imagines them as they might in future be seen (by some great protecting policy of government) preserved in their pristine beauty and wildness, in a magnificent park, where the world could see for ages to come, the native Indian in his classic attire, galloping his wild horse, with sinewy bow, and shield and lance, amid the fleeting herds of elks and buffaloes. That a beautiful and thrilling specimen for America to preserve and hold up to the view of her refined citizens and the world, in future ages! A nation's Park, containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature's beauty!"

Well George, a little more than 30 years after your wrote this a national park, Yellowstone, was established, with elk and bison in their natural habitat, but the Indians . . . well, they were being decimated by a not-so-protective policy of the government.

Many of today's Indians, George, are on reservations, but the buffalo numbers at Yellowstone are way up thanks to some conservation measures begun in the early 1900s. But wouldn't you know it, the shaggy giants are once again being slaughtered. The Yellowstone herd is the only continuously wild, genetically pure herd left in America. There are other herds in other national parks and many on private ranches, but the Yellowstone herd is a treasure that must be respected.

I wonder how one particular Yellowstone buffalo, Potbelly I call him, is doing. I took the photo of him above in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone as he peacefully grazed this past October. Is he doing alright in the deep snows at Yellowstone? Or has he roamed off park grounds for better feeding and been gunned down by hunters or herded into a holding pen to be slaughtered for no good reason? I guess I'll never know. The "advance of civilization" has been cruel. [See the latest info from the Buffalo Field Campaign link in right-hand column.]