Specializing in outings with the American Bison, and their great American story. Set on the Western Plains of Oklahoma.
*Cowboy Entertainment **Buffalo Meat with Dinner ***Native American Dancers
Buffalo!!
History
Nothing strikes a more compelling image of the American West than the sight and sounds of buffalo rumbling over an endless sea of grass. The American buffalo, or American Bison, was the most important animal on the western plains and prairies. Despite its rather odd physical appearance, a full-grown bull is a majestic and formidable animal. It can live 40 years, weigh over 2,000 pounds and easily reach speeds up to 30 m.p.h. The large hump and forequarters of solid muscle allow him to use his knife-sharp horns with deadly force. Perhaps no animal in the history of any nation has played a more prominent role. For the Native Americans, they were an irreplaceable resource that sustained their way of life. For the westward moving settlers they became a burden, and then a sport, and finally, a short lived economic boom. Until then, they had made up the largest concentration of animals anywhere on earth and thrived on the land they dominated.
Some migrating herds were so large that trains were sometimes forced to wait for hours, even days, before the tracks were clear. It became a bit of a rage for early travelers to indiscreetly shoot as many animals as they could from the opened windows of the railcars as the passed. Excursions onto the Great Plains hosted foreign dignitaries with elaborate demonstrations of frontier marksmanship and even a chance to dispatch a few of the beasts themselves. By the 1870’s hides started making their way to fashion markets back east while the carcasses rotted where they had fallen. Later, wagons scoured the open range like scavengers collecting the bones to be shipped away and made into fertilizer. Soon most of the remaining animals had fled into canyons and isolated areas to avoid the onslaught. Toward the end of the 1800’s, buffalo herds that had once numbered over 50 million had been reduced to less than 1,000.
In the 1890’s, one of the most incredible stories ever in animal husbandry began. A handful of compassionate and farsighted men captured several wild buffalo to raise and breed in captivity. Many of these came from Palo Duro Canyon in the Texas Panhandle and the ranch of Charles Goodnight, the well-known cattleman. They were kept on a few private ranches and at the New York Zoo, where genetics and breeding were closely monitored as their numbers began to slowly rise. By 1902, Congress took action to protect the new buffalo herds as they were released onto protected federal lands. Ironically, in earlier years, the U.S. Government had encouraged the decimation of these animals as a means to help control the “Indian problem”.
Today, the buffalo population is over 500,000 and growing. And as sure as human nature can demonstrate wanton disregard, it also allows us the ability to make a profound and positive difference. The taste and benefit of this healthy and nearly fat free meat is once again being enjoyed and the sights and sounds of this “Monarch of the Plains” are once again present.
OK Buffalo Tours
Mailing Address
4340 NW 19th Street
Oklahoma City, OK 73107
Ranch is 5 miles north of
Mountain View, OK on
State Highway 115,
on the Wichita
Mountains Scenic
Byway
Phone: (405) 947-5179 (405) 250-3937 (580) 347-2756
E-mail: Jack@OKBuffaloTours.com
lnk