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.