Bisonology (BUFFALO) Encore with various bisonologists

Oh hi, So twenty twenty five me here, and last night was our first ever live in person show. It was at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, and it was so fun. I got to see so many of you in person. We talked about tree Sap, we talked about Funeral Bells. I don't know we're ever going to release that one. It was just sort of a fun experiment and I think I'll go on the road more in the future. But this is an encore episode just because it's been kind of a heavy week and I'm going to take

Doctor Ken Canon.

And you're a bisonologist.

Uh, that's part of my jobs.

Yes, this is this news to you that you're a bisonologist.

Yes, it is very much.

So.

I heard that term before.

Would you ever use that term like in a cocktail party, like, Hi, I'm a bus knows.

I think so?

Yeah, yeah, I think so.

Well you're welcome, yeah, thank you, And so how long have you been studying bison?

Well, I first got interested in a bison when I started working for National Park Service in nineteen eighty seven, when I was just a little kid.

And.

I got interested in it because we were working at Grant Teeton National Park and there was an archaeological site there that referred to itself as a as a bison kill site, a bison jump site. It was interpreted a numerous different ways, and at the time, there weren't that many bison in Granteeton National Park PS.

Grand Teton is in Wyoming, And if you're like, I'm in New Zealand, I have no idea where your parks are. Isn't Yellowstone in Wyoming? The answer is yes, and I'm sorry. So both are gorgeous, mountainous, grassy places in Wyoming. They're just a few miles away from each other, but they have separate entrance fees unless you get like one big pass that covers both. So essentially Yellowstone is Disneyland and

And the previous archaeologists that work there always minimize the presence of bison in there, and so I just started looking at the literature, and the more I looked at the literature, every time there were fallen remains bones preserved at archaeological sites, nine out of ten times there were bison bones. And it's like, well, how can you minimize bison and the archaeological record when all the bones that

So how old were those kill sites and what exactly is it kil site?

So kill site it can vary in a lot of different ways. The traditional ones that we always think of for great planes are running bison over a cliff, oh hundreds of bison over a cliff and then dispatching them at the bottom of the cliff.

This is a kind of a stupid question. But when you say at kill site, like let's say they were over a cliff, is that for to then use that meat and fur? Or was that like a hunting technique?

Yes, it was a hunting technique.

Yeah.

So that was the best easy, I guess, and most economically efficient way of getting a lot of bison to get you into the winter. So typically they're they're in the fall at these these events happen, bi center are coming into the to the fall in the winter, so they're really fat, and fat's good. Not like today, but fat was good back then. Everybody, all hunter gathers. Everybody wanted fat. So you hunted bison in the fall, they're at their prime nutritionally, they're their fur is at prime.

Going back into some history, much much more recent, tell me a little bit about how you started to love bison er. Now you mentioned you mentioned that you have a New Jersey accent. Yeah, okay, so now you grew up in New Jersey, But what brought you out to Yellowstone and Natural Park Service at P At what point did you want to start working in nature.

Well, I've always wanted to work in nature. I grew up on the Jersey Shore and I actually started out as wanting to be a marine biologist. So my undergraduate work was as a biologist like Jack Rousteau. And and because I used to scuba dive and hang out on the beach and I and I swear when I was seventeen, I would never live more than half a mile from the ocean. So here we are, yes, and here we are in so so be careful about those things that you say put out there in nature to the gods.

Okay, no, you're not losing your mind. Last week's guest, future ologist Rose Evlyth, also wanted to follow in the flipper steps of Jacques Cousteau before finding her own path.

Weird cute, right and anyway, So I went there and I got a little bit frustrated with with the biology program there was. It was largely geared towards pre med students. But then I started taken anthropology courses. It was a small program, really good professors treated you like a human being and not just a number. And I learned that I could I could do biology within as an archaeologist.

Oh so Ken graduated from the University of Florida and did grad school in Tennessee, and then got his PhD from the University of Nebraska Lincoln, studying the biogeography of prehistoric bison isotopes. So how did this Jersey dude wind up so far from the sea?

I wanted to get out of town, essentially and see something different, and as a fluke, I just applied for a job with the National Park Service and got hired by the Midwest Archaeological Center and the first job was to go and work in Granteeta National Park. So you know, it's just those weird things that happen in life, and you just got to kind of go, okay, let's go, let's go. So yeah, it's just it wasn't a plan.

But it seems like it served you well.

Yeah, yeah, I'm very glad that it all happened. I remember when I got hired and drove out I had this, of course, I had a nice little VW bug that I drove all the way out to grant teet from Tennessee, And when I got there, my boss told me it's like you were the last person we picked.

Ouch.

I said, okay, well, and mostly because I didn't have any experience out there, and I but it was it was a slam and I was like, okay, take that as a challenge, right, you know, do you live up to it?

Then?

I don't know. I'm still trying. It's an ongoing process.

Is there something about Bison themselves that that intrigued you? I feel like as an American, I think that there's so much lore and history and and maybe even a dark history to them as well. Is that something that kind of grabbed you as an archaeologist.

It grabbed me as an archaeologist because in the Mountains they were never seen as being an import and part of the subsistence economy of Native American groups, and that was intriguing to me. But also I think you're right, Yeah, there's there's there's an iconic history to bison. It's a it is a deep, dark history, but it's also a very exciting positive history because we brought them back from from extinction and and it was and it was you know, it was it was the efforts by a small group

And they're majestic.

They are majestic.

Yes.

Now, Ken's colleague, doctor Dan McNulty, no relation to squid expert Sarah McNulty, got his bachelor's in environmental studies at the University of Colorado and got a master's in wildlife conservation and a PhD in ecology, evolution and behavior from the University of Minnesota. So how did he get lured into the bison life? And now are you from Utah?

No?

I born in Illinois. I grew up in California, went to school in Colorado.

So one might say you've been roaming around as well.

I have been a bit nomadic, right, although not lately.

And so you are a bisonologist. You study bison as part of your job. Whether you would call yourself that or not.

I would say that bisonology is part of my program yet.

Okay, yep, And so how long have you been into science and field work and animals. What was it that drew you to this?

Well, I lived in Hong Kong for three years when I was in junior high and so that was obviously very urban environment. And when I got back to California, I was like in the eight or seventh grade, and we lived on the edge of big open space, lots of live oaks and hills, and it kind of just sucked me in, suck me right in soon after we got back, and I've been kind of at it since then.

Dan said, growing up he always loved animals and being out in nature observing them.

But I never really thought i'd actually make a career of it. I was an undergraduate at Boulder, Colorado, and then went up to Yellowstone and actually it was that was kind of when I was sort of the aha moment that, yeah, you know, I think I can make science into a career. Was when I arrived in Yellowstone. This was ninety five, and I just got to see

And now, how did you end up in the bison arena?

Sort of following wolves? Okay, yeah, the wolves brought me to the bison, so the.

Wolves brought him to the buffalo. But you know, before we go much further, let's clear this up. Buffalo or bison. So buffalo etymologically comes from the word for an African antelope and then expanded to mean a wild European ox and then French fur trappers saw bison and called them both meaning oxen or beefs, so they were like bolo. But currently is there a difference when referring to the

No, we absolutely do not.

I'm so excited to talk to you about this because it's like, I know people who actually get to see buffalo and bison every day. This is so exciting. Okay, my first question is the difference between a buffalo and a bison? Stupid question. There is none, no such thing as the difference.

No difference, Yeah, I mean just whatever.

Okay, So it's either or yeah, yeahotato potato, tomato, tomato.

Yeah, that's kind of what it is.

And then how long have you had buffalo?

Twenty years?

Twenty years? Yeah, Boyd and Lila started with just six a few decades ago. What made you go get the buffalo?

Just start we try that, just give it a shot. Yeah, do you know you have to take those chances.

Once again, the life lesson is get a buffalo or six cut bangs, text your crush because we're all gonna die. So they took a chance. They now have fifty two bison. Also, I felt very stupid because I've read and heard both Blackfeet or Blackfoot, and the name comes from the dark souls of these bison hunters moccasins, and I didn't want to say it wrong. So I asked a very smart person a stupid question and it correct me. Is it Blackfoot,

Okay, all right, there is a Blackfoot confederacy, which is our black Feet tribe, the Blood tribe in Canada, and the Blackfoot tribe in Canada, and the Sarci tribe and one other tribe, but I don't remember what it is. They're all connected. That's the Blackfoot Confederacy, okay, But we are actually the Blackfeet tribe in Montana, and we're the only ones on this side of the line.

And traditionally and historically, what has the Blackfeet relation to bison and buffalo been like?

Historically that's what they lived on. They followed the buffalo, and then when and then when they became big things back east, like when their hides became really valuable back east for hats and overseas, then everybody went to killing buffalo. And that's basically how the buffalo a most died completely out.

And it should also be noted that the mass slaughter of bison has been cited as part of the genocide of Indigenous people in North America, because killing off a major food source and a foundation to their way of life had irreparable and intentional impacts on not just the bison, obviously, but the people who have depended on them. And we talk more about that genocide in the twenty twenty four

I think the bison and buffalo, they're interchangeable terms. Okay, I think I'm I'm sure some taxonomous. I'll write you an email and say, yeah, I don't know what he's talking about, but but I refer to him as bison. Okay, so North American bison. The species is bison, bison?

I read that, isn't it bison?

It can be by yes, And the taxonomy of bison is still being debated.

Really, yeah, what are they thinking the bison derived from? Where are they what taxonomy is being debated, and where do they think these this species came from?

Well, I think what's being debated is the the Holocene or the you know, the last ten twelve thousand years of bison history. After the so during the place of scene, we had a species of bison called Bison antiquis. Some people might say by some bison antiquus, but that was probably about a third larger than the modern bison are. The herd sizes probably weren't as big they're, their behavior

So bison, bison, bison, plains of Buffalo. But there's another subspecies of North American bison, and it's bison bison a thabis guy I think, which were nearly extinct in the early nineteen hundreds until this small group of about two hundred were discovered in this remote reach of Alberta, Canada. And Boyd and Led told me that they're even bigger, I think twenty eight hundred pounds as opposed to the smaller two thousand pounds planes bison. So these wood bison

And then there was also some argument that the woods bison extended down and was present in the rocky mountains, and that was different than the plane spicon. Some people think have argued that they looked a little bit differently. Their skull structure was a little bit different. They tended to maybe have longer legs, lower humps, and that was an adaptation to deeper snows trying to forage in the winter time.

Going back to bison history, where did they evolve from? What species do they evolve from? When did they get to North America? And how many were there? Give me a brief, give me a brief.

Brief line, a brief, brief timeline. So bison originated in Eurasia, migrated to North America during periods of interglacial They've been here in North America probably summer twenty million years ago, in different.

Forms twenty million years, twenty million years, and in a period of twenty to thirty years they were nearly extinguished from the continent and rendered extinct.

One of the coolest bison species that was around is called Bison latifrons, and I was here during the Plesis scene, probably died out twelve fifteen thousand years ago, but had huge, huge, huge horns like ten feet long. Oh my gosh, greta horns. Yeah, just a monster.

She's a bise mate.

And then that became a stink and then we had you know, bison antiquis, which was probably a contemporary of latifrons, and then you know, and then monern bison. So that's a really dirty history. But yeah, bison latifrons are really cool too.

So I just looked up bison ladder fronds and boy, how did be Jesus these horns? Oh god, they look like if a buffalo made a Melissafant Halloween costume out of like half a hula hoop. Oh my god, these a gore jess get it. Megafauna became extinct between twenty and thirty thousand years ago. But there, Luke ooh, And how far back does your research go when it comes to the history of bison in say, North America?

Well, the history of bison in my research is kind of kind of dependent on preservation. We've worked on older sites up to ten thousand year old sites, but I haven't been lucky enough to find bison that old and the archaeological record. And a big part of that, I think is is this preservation issues. Yellowstone and the mountains in general are just not a great place or preservation. There's lots of soils tend to be acidic, they get

Let's say that we're looking at a bison. Can you explain to me any of the pieces parts of the bison? I know that there are horns, there is a hump of some sort. How big is a bison? If I say, just beamed down to Earth from an outer planet. I'm a Martian and I'm like, what is this big free creature?

So I'm about five to six on a good day, I think a good bull we would be looking at each other straight straight on. I mean I be looking at his forehead. Okay, so pretty good size to twelve hundred pounds a good sized male.

What about females?

Smaller females a little bit smaller Okay, yeah, probably eights. The hump is so they have these really big spinal processes that come off of the thoracic vertebrae and the hump is the the fat and the skin that goes over that. It stores a lot of a lot of it's fat and energy in that in that hump. That's the part that hunter gatherers really like because that's where all your nutrition comes from. What's pretty cool they've got they've got beards.

I have noticed that. Is that a thing or that?

I don't know. They've been They've been hipsters for a long long time time.

They're not hipsters.

Side note, bison beard's kind of like a scarf on an airplane. Serve to insulate these critters in the snow. And get this, I just found out that their hair shoulder region it's a cape. So more evidence that these creatures are not only strong and powerful, but also just quietly flamboyant. So let's get back to Dan who describes a situation similar to the wood bison discovery in Canada. So in the late eighteen hundreds in Yellowstones Pelican Valley, something cool happened.

Pelican Valley historically significant in the story of bison generally in the United States because it was there that the last while bison survived. Back in the very early twentieth century, in like nineteen oh six, nineteen twelve, they're only like a couple dozen bison left. Those are the last while bison, and they were hiding out in Pelican Valley. And the reason why they were hiding out back there is well, there weren't people, but also because it was geothermally active.

For more on the super volcano that is Yellowstone Park, please see episode one all Chinology with just Phoenix. But yes, anyway, most of today's American bison are descended from those Pelican Valley survivors. Tell me a little bit about the bison population and where it has been in the last say, one hundred and fifty years. What's happened to the bison population.

Well, it's like the sea, it's just sort of receded and got really small. The tide went out with bison, and they, like I said earlier, they found refuge in places like Pelican Valley in the interior of Yellowstone. One of the most remote areas in the lower forty eight United States, especially back then in the early part of the twentieth century, and remarkably since then, we have more bison now in Yellowstone National Part than at any time

Ken the geobiologist archaeologist. If bison are on the move, a lot like equally enigmatic hardcore Dave Matthews fans. And now what is there? What's their yearly life cycle?

Like?

Did they tend to migrate in certain times of the year. Do they go from the north to the south? Do they look for where are they moving around?

I think well, the males they migrate around a lot, and they seem to have a pretty big range. And the females that they tend to stay in calcaf groups for most of the year, and a lot of the younger males probably stay stay with the herds those calcaf groups for a couple of years. And the fall is when you have the rut because I'm rot so they all all the males come back from the high country and you know, beat on each other for selection of females.

Is that how that works? Is there is there an alpha bison.

There's usually several alpha bison that yeah, that have access to the females the cows.

Is that common in an ungulate group.

Or yeah, I think so elk are pretty interesting. They gather up what's known as a harem. So ten twelve cows get elk cows get wow, get one guy wow.

So it's like sister wives a little. I mean, I guess we are in Utah. You know, a quick aside before you tell me that I'm making generalizations, I'm just honestly sharing data. I looked it up and there are an estimated thirty thousand folks in polygamous marriages in Utah, which is six times the popular of wild bison in America. Now ps, I don't know or really care how they counted the polygamous people. It's not in my business. But what about the bison? I asked Dan? If they have

How do you keep track counting with aircraft?

Really? How does that work?

They just get into a small day. Being park service biologist will get into a small fixing aircraft, a supercub. They will fly certain routes through the park where bison are known to range, and they just count them up, so it's a total count, it's a census. And they do that at least once a year. Sometimes they do it multiple times.

And do they just film it and then later look at the footage.

No, they'll count them as they go.

Theyeah, that seems so easy to lose track, But they're so big they're actually easy to count.

I think you kind to say, like elk really well, yeah, bison are darker elk or lighter, Okay, And in the bison tend to be more out in the open. Some of the elk will be in the trees.

So counting sheep is out. Counting bison's where it's at, I guess I think so.

Yeah, if I had to choose, I would count bison.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think that bison biologists dream of bison? Do you dream of bison sometimes? What kind of bison dreams do you have?

I can't remember if any off the top of my head, but I have definitely have had dreams, especially when I'm in the field.

Real quick, what does it mean if you dream of buffalo well, according to sleep culture dot com, which likely employees kind hearted interns to make up omens for like every noun in the dictionary, seeing a buffalo in a dream is a symbol of survival and abundance. It means that you should pay attention to the path you're following in your life. Sure also family side notes. So Boyd and Lila and my cousins Crystal and James and Jamie

I think.

Being in Yellowstone and seeing how tourists think that they are like cows and can go up to them and take their picture, and I think that's a that's a big myth, is that somehow Yellowstone is this is this petting zoo out there, and and you know, these are big wild animals and they are fairly tolerant. I think of people are a lot more tolerant than I would be if I was them and somebody who was coming

How did that happen over twenty or thirty years.

Well, that's I think that's hard to understand, but I think a big part of it was just the trade and bison robes, and there was this great demand in the eighteen sixties and seventies for bison rose, and you know, people were going out there, they were they were killing them, and I think they were they were disrupting herds. They were just taking the hides. They weren't wasn't like they were using them for food or anything. And and I think that had a great disruption of the breeding process,

And now how do you do you work also with indigenous groups and anthropologists and other archaeologists to learn more about the relation between hunter gatherers in what's now in North America and in a prominent food source, which is bison. Does that figure in a lot to your work?

And yeah, most most of the work that we do is either on public lands or funded by by public dollars, and we do consult with tribes in Yellowstone. Typically we consult with the Shoshoni Bannock on the Fort Hall Reservation and also the Eastern Shoshone that are over on the Wind River Reservation, and they're kept a prize of our work and are certainly able to come and visit and comment on it, and we try and do more and

Ken told me that he's been helping out using his archaeological techniques to understand the events and the landscape of the eighteen sixty three Bear River massacre that killed possibly hundreds of members of the Shoshone tribe in a place that's now South Idaho, near a town called Preston, And there's a small memorial there now, but the tribe is trying to raise funds for an interpretive center to memorialize what had happened on that site. Does that ever get emotional for you?

Working with it at the Bear River Massacre site is incredibly emotional, just because it was a horrible event and no way, shape or form could ever be justified. And seeing people that are too generations removed from the survivors of that and them telling their story, Yeah, it's hard not to be emotional if yeah, you wouldn't be a human if you're not. So yeah, that does get to

History, and how do indigenous communities keep that history alive? The Inner Tribal Buffalo Council ITBC is this collection of sixty nine tribes from nineteen different states, and they work on programs to return buffalo to tribal lands, but hyper locally in their own community. Boyd and Lilah themselves donated one of their own prized buffalo. I know that in

Oh, it was the Indian studies class the high school.

They wanted to get a hands on experience and show everybody what how they originally butchered buffalo, what all parts took.

Also, you may be too embarrassed to ask is it Indian or Native American? And there are several opinions on words like Indian versus Indigenous, versus Native versus First Nations, and different people have different preferences depending on the era and the region. This deserves its own whole episode and that is in the works. So if you are Native, thank you for any emotional labor that you have spent

I was at a meeting in Bozeman, Montana a few years ago. National Academy of Sciences was doing a review on brucellosis and they had the chair of the Inner Tribal Bison Cooperative give a talk, and one of the things he said that struck me was that, you know, from his point of view, it doesn't really make much of a difference if this bison has got you know, if it's eighty percent bison and twenty percent you know hereford or five percent, you know, like it's a bison.

Okay, so what about raising bison. I've looked it up, and it turns out that bison babies are cute to the point that it is enraging. They are like shaggy muppets. It's infuriating. My heart hurts. I want to hug them. Any idea where we're at in terms of bison as a livestock commodity, Like, where is that industry going to do that?

Ted?

That's what he does. Yeah, go to you can go to Ted's grill and order yourself up a bison steak. I mean, he's he's and this is this is not a secret. That's part of what he's been doing for a number of years. He's been growing bison on a number of his properties and using that bison and selling it in his restaurants. Ted's grill, I think is what it's called.

Do you eat bison?

Sure?

Yeah, you're not like, oh sorry, no.

No, bison are super tasty, Oh bison?

But are raising them better for the planet than cows? Some ecologists argue yes, because their poops and their hoofs have evolved along with the planes, and unlike namby Pamba cows, bison typically don't need winter shelter, which saves on energy costs,

They're a lot smarter really?

Yeah, they're independent their wildlife.

Do they kind of communicate with each other more than cows do? Are they more social or less social?

What?

Are they equal?

Way? More social?

Yeah, they run around, They run around in one little pack.

What kind of noises do buffalo make?

Grunts?

The grunt?

Yeah, they kind of like shit. Kind of like pigs.

Real, yeah, kind of like pigs. That's kind of what they sound like.

Ps. Thank you YouTuber Jim Dass who posted this nine second video of a male by and sticking his tongue out like it was a fraternity burping contest and just letting the grunts rip. When when do they have occasion to grunt? Do they do when they're happy or when they're pissed off or what?

When they're communicating with each other and mostly when they're in a little bunch there. Yeah, they talked to each other that way.

Do they have any favorite treats? Are they like, yes, it's apple season? Or is it just like they eat grass? That's it.

They love crab, It's absolutely love.

Do they grunt each other? Like, yo, come and get these man?

I don't know.

Buffalo going batshit on crab apples is such a joy to imagine. I would like to be their friends. And I asked Dan if bison are social, mostly because I would like to know if it will be my friends.

So they're extremely social bison are they?

You know?

They they aggregate together and they'll help each other. They're not like elk, which sort of flee in every direction. It's sort of every man for himself. Generally, bison are very cooperative in how they defend themselves, but when there's deep snow, that defense breaks down and it becomes every man for himself.

We're a woman side note, of course, or non binary bison. I'm sure they're out there. I was recently reading American Indian Thought, which is an Anne Waters anthology of Native writers, and I came across this passage by Alice Kehoe, which happens to relate to the Blackfoot Confederacy. Alice writes, what really matters to a Blackfoot is autonomy. If a person competently engages in work or behavior ordinarily the domain of people of the other sex or another species, onlookers assume

Well, in my experience in the Greater Yellowstone, I would say we're running up against limits just in the you know, twenty twenty five years that I've been working up There areas that used to be range land have houses on them now, So it isn't just an issue of livestock grazing on the borders of the park. You know, it's pavement, it's houses, it's fences, it's people, swing sets, that kind of stuff. It's encroaching, and there doesn't really seem to

Morden Lila echoed, Ada, is there anything like population wise of the plains Buffalo that y'all would like to see happen as people who have land and have livestock? Would you like to see the population right again? Too closer to what it used to be?

Like?

How do you guys feel about like how many buffalo should there be on the planes?

Not one hundred million? Yeah, they would overrun.

They would overrun in Nebraska and Kansas, Missouri, and there wouldn't be any cornfields.

There wouldn't be any wheat fields.

You know, there's they have a place, but it's proportionately Okay.

I know futurology was last week, but I asked Dan about what might be in store for our buffalo friends. What is the aim? What's the goal in terms of numbers of bison? What can the continent support given what we've maybe done to the land in terms of agriculture, and.

And well, it's completely in our hands. Were our hands being sort of you know American society. If we want more bison, we can have more bison. There are ways of doing that. Likewise with other wildlife, the question is whether or not we're willing to make the choices in the trade offs in order to do that. So, for example, in Northern Yellowstone, very few bison are permitted outside the

Okay, side note. Brucellosis is caused by bacteria, and in humans, it's most commonly picked up by eating unpasteurized milk or soft squishy cheeses like a goat cheese. But who is Bruce and why did someone name a disease after him? Well, it turns out it's named after David Bruce, an Australian born microbiologist who worked on investigating the disease right around the time I guess folks were running around North America

And if a domestic cow contracts this disease, they're at risk of a spontaneous abortion. There's a massive economic cost to having livestock infected with bison because it means that you can't move your livestock out of state, meaning that you can't sell them across the state lines because other states don't want to get infected with brucellosis. And so it's a major economic issue having these species that carry

You probably sociologists. I have not done an episode on you yet, but I will. Any economists. I am so sorry, but you are not econologists. Hey, all those in favor of some spin off shows maybe anologies network you can tweet at me. Okay, But first let's bust some more myths. What about any myths or any flim flam that you would debunk that you see people having a there's so much flin flam, I know, debunk it. You got the stage here.

About bison specifically, Well, yeah, that I would just sort of echo Ken's point that they're not farm animals. And so if you're going to Yellowstone in the summer to see bison, don't underestimate how quick they can be to you know, kick you, pounce on you, stomp on you, and hurt you. I will cut you, keep your distance. Other myths about bison. Here's a big myth, and that is that they are a major source of brucellosis. That's

Boyd and Lila echoed that, and they said that it's a big limiting factor in growing bison numbers via ranching.

They're they're never going to populate like beef because there's too many myths out there.

For one thing is brucellosis is a big scare and it has nothing to do with to me, but like even people here on this reservation don't eat buffalo because they're afraid of this brucellosis stuff.

Really really, so that's a big that's some flim flam right there.

Yeah, it really is. In our our food program has buffalo meat.

They have buffalo meat that they ration out, but they have they have trouble getting people to take it.

Really, that's kind of that's surprising given that buffalo is such a part of Blackfeet history. Is it ever weird to you that it's difficult to get over the myths?

You know?

Yea, it is. I mean because they've.

Spread these rumors, I don't you know, I don't know for how many one hundred years or whatever.

You know, and so it's it's, uh, it's kind of frustrating that jeez.

Maybies won't even really try try it.

And is there is there anything any kind of causes or any charities that are helping bison or helping people maybe relate to bison or helping like boyd, how you guys donated a buffalo to a school anything like that that is doing good stuff that you guys would want to shout out or have like a donation go to it all.

Yeah, you know.

The they do have several buffalo coalitions.

One in North Dakota and one in South Dakota and then one several Indian tribes are all in foot buffalo in different places. When if somebody in New Mexico want buffalo, they can get buffalo from the tribal coalition.

So, I mean there's lots of opportunities in buffalo.

Okay, quick aside, I found one in this week's The nation goes to the Intertribal Buffalo Council, whose mission is to restore bison on tribal lands for cultural and spiritual enhancement and preservation. So the ITBC coordinates education and training programs and the transfer of surplus buffalo from national parks to tribal lands and works with their partners including National Bison Association, the National Park Service, the US Fish and

Oh?

Sure, yeah, they might be they might be stupid you okay with that? Yep, we may have gone over a little bit of this too. But John Worcester wants to know how many bison were around during their peak population period? Do you think thirty million?

Yeah?

I think yeah. I think thirty million is a good number.

And how long ago was that?

Eighteen sixties? They are probably at their peak eighteen fifties, eighteen sixties, thirty.

Million me and Dingman says, for a very long time, I thought the American bison was extinct, that the good old boys back in the railroad days had hunted them to extinction. Fast forward to me being today years old, and I still don't know what the story is. So they are not extinct. This is the same species from the eighteen hundreds. It's not a hybrid species or a let's see a bunch of people. I'm going to read

Like what is there?

Essentially their their closest. I know, you're like, where are they in terms of the musk ow ox and water buffalo. I guess I didn't realize it was a European bison.

Yeah, so yeah bison. Let's play some bonassas. Is the European bison a little bit smaller? Mostly it seems like it was adapted to woodlands. Okay, probably not nearly as prevalent, but probably just as good to eat. They show up in the archaeological record, so they're all there. They're all bow vines.

Yeah, okay, okay. So side note, an ungulate is an animal that has hooves, and a bovine is a type of ungulate that includes cattle and African buffalo and yax and water buffalo and bison, and the bison, like cows, are also ruminants, which means it chews its food and then kind of gags it back in its mouth and enjoys an encore meal of it. And I dare you to try that during the salad course at your next business dinner. Just do it so gross, soballer. A bunch

Yeah, they have really thick, dense fur that they that they grow throughout the years. They're fat, Yeah, it's they're they're they're well adapted to cold temperatures that you know, it gets twenty thirty below in Yellowstone and up into Canada and these animals are out there and it's and what really I think is is really amazing to see is in the middle of the winter, they have snow on their backs, and the snow is not melting because of the insulation, so they're not losing a lot of

Extremes and they can handle one hundred degree weather because again the insulation, I.

Think they well, they they lose a lot of their fur. And look at the difference between a bison in the winter and a pison the summer. There they don't have a lot of for a left on them in the summertime.

Oh wow, it just sheds off. And yeah, just by by, I wonder there's any application for that. Just go around collecting bison firm.

Yeah, you go up there and look for it.

So while that fur protects them from the elements. And I asked Boyd and Lila about it, having seen it firsthand half the year where it can get to negative fifty degrees fahrenheit. Also just super syde note just this past week, my dad, which is your granddad, just told us a story about growing up in Montana walking to school a mile and a half each way in snowy negative seventy degree weather, and pop, I am so sorry. I live in LA and I use a space heater

Like?

How cold does it get up in Brownie?

Snow doesn't bother them at all?

Yeah, no, cold, cold doesn't bother me.

There's the kind of the opposite of cows.

Buffalo looks into the wind, into the storm and the counters are back.

Is that right?

They really do?

I mean they're totally different than the stores.

And then what does their fur feel like? Because I've gotten a chance to sleep, and obviously like fuel your buffalo hide because we have one, But how would you describe their their hide and their.

Fur kind of wooly?

They have a nice fur, but they're more wooly than it's not just hair, it's.

More of a cross between hair and wold.

Do you remember that story when we were up at the homestead and you guys had the tepee up and it was me and my parents sleeping in it. So we're sleeping in the teepee and the planes winds are flapping, the smoke flaps and you can see the stars, you know, through the top of the teepee, and my parents are sleeping and they're, you know, to keep warm, They're sleeping on one of your buffalo hides. And then we go

Well, if he ever gets lonesome, now you know what, I'm giving a piece of buffalo.

But every time I have to go flat iron my hair, I always think it's a lot like a buffalo.

Man.

If I want a haircut, though, I can't roll around like a bison until it just falls off. It's pretty damaged actually, so I probably couldn't.

So they roll around and yeah.

And naturally full off is just wallowing. Yeah, that makes sense because someone asked why they wallow, and I thought they just meant, like in disposition that they were kind of emo. So I thought they just seemed like an eore and I was like, that's rude. But okay, so wallowing is an actual verb, but it relates to behavior. That makes sense. Some people asked Melissa Houston and Mike

Well, they're they're moving to find food, so they're they're constantly looking for good nutritious grasses to you, So that's why they're constantly on the move.

Shopping.

So they've already eaten that patch and now they're just keep going yep.

Oh god.

It kind of like really big furry locusts.

But you, yeah, that makes sense. Very big locus, huge locus. Let's see, more cuddly than locus.

So I think I think they're more cutly. I think they would probably pick to differ. They're like no 'or not, don't touch me? Okay, So side note. The excellent science writer and Young published a piece in the Atlantic a few months back titled What America Lost When it Lost the Bison, and it was about bisons surfing a green wave of new shoots and grasses to eat, and researchers recently discovered that the bison's grazing changes the landscape and

That's a good question, all right, I guess it's all in the hump, I guess, and that's where their power comes from.

He explains that by having a big chest upfront, the bison is able to act like a wedge through the snow, pushing aside these frozen drifts so that they can forage at these grasses below the snow. And they invested all of their muscular material toward their head and their shoulder muscles. So business in the front. They're like, why are you even bothering with my butt? Look at my hump. This is where I get my stuff done. Okay, so that

Mean?

What's their temperament?

Like?

Do they have friends? This is a lot of questions, and I'm not sorry, they.

Say, I don't know. They're certainly prevalent in our lexicon, and I think maybe that goes back to their just because they're such an iconic species.

A lot of people have this question. Ramon, Jay Deutsche, Laura Kunitz, and Heather Dunsmore all wanted to know are bison related to wooly mammoths? Not in the least really, other than their mammals. The bison, by the way, as of twenty sixteen, is the official mammal of the United States, so their hair has nothing nothing to do with it, No, okay.

Is that true?

And what do you do if you upset a danger cow?

Yeah?

Yeah, hide behind a rock.

The bessing is not together?

Mad?

Yeah?

Mad.

Charlotte Grazerowitz wants to know. I heard somewhere that bison can jump six feet in the airs. Is true?

I don't think so. We did see a bison were when we were working up along Yellowstone Lake, and this I think a test to the quality of their eyesight. As we had an excavation unit opened up and we were eating lunch and a little bit removed from probably about twenty yards away from our excavation unit, and this loan bowl came came walking up and got right to the edge of our hole and saw it, and he kind of wheeled up like whoa.

Was?

Yeah?

That was pretty freaking hole.

Like, can you imagine if a bowl tumbled into your hole?

Yeah?

I didn't. Yeah, that's all we could think. I was like, Okay, who's going to get that one out? Oh no?

But have you ever had a scary encounter with the bison?

Yeah? Again, working along Yellowstone Lake with geologist Ken Pierce because we were trying to understand how the archaeological record is related to lake level changes. So we're walking along the cutbank and collecting samples and Ken doing his thing of describing soils and everything, and we came up around this little wash that we were able to climb up, and there was a bison sitting right there and he's like and then we jump back down and he went

I'm surprised that they startle. I mean, I guess they're probably not Yeah, I.

Think a lot. Yeah, I think their their eyesight is not great. And you know, you all suddenly say this funny white guy with a hat on, and it's like, what would you do combing up out of the GORYA.

That's just me.

Evan Jude wants to know how similar are bison to domesticated bovine. Can a bison produce offspring with a cow the way a horse can with a donkey.

That was a big thing that was going on in the in the nineteenth century, the late eighteen nineties and into the teens. They were they were trying to breed cows and bison. I don't think they were. I think the biggest problem was is they were using mail or bull bison and and cow cattle, and a lot of times the babies, the fetuses, we're too big and we're killing the cow. You know there's bufalos out there, so yeah, you wouldn't breath like a Yorky mom with a great Dane dad.

Also, I feel you should know that some cattle bison hybrids are called bifalo or cattle low, and I think personally ancient cattleo sounds like a really good TV spy name. PS. Neither one of them have a favorite Buffalo movie. I tried.

I asked, I have a buffalo joke, though, I'll hear it. Hey did what does the mom of Buffalo say to their kids as they go off to school? By son?

That's great?

How did I not see that? How did I not see that coming. I'm like a bison, have very poor eyesight when it comes to wonderful jokes. I have finally been outdated. And also that's a great note to leave on. So now let's get to the questions that you asked wildlife collogists Dan, who I always want to call Ken, but Ken is the archaeologist. This is Dan. Okay, let's talk to wildlife ecologists. Dan, can I ask you some

It's going on with the birds?

Oh, they're eating parasites Okay, yeah, ticks, flies, things like that. You see this with magpies. We'll sort of perch on a bison and you know, do a little foraging.

Okay, they're bros though they're friends.

Yes, that's not very convincing. However, if the bison is sick and if it does have a wound, it can attract a lot of scavengers and it turns into sort more of a harassment type of an issue. Yeah, yeah, so, but generally speaking, you know, it's it's not a big deal for bison to have a magpie on him.

Kristin Smith wants to know do bison really only have one lung or was that just a myth made up by white people who couldn't fathom how Native Americans were able to kill an animal so big without a gun.

Wow, that's a really interesting question. I did not know of that myth, and so I really can't comment on, you know, whether it was a good one or a bad one, other than obviously it's not true. They do have two lungs.

Okay, ps, This myth started because while bison have two lungs, they share one lung cavity with no division between the lungs. So now you know that little trivia nugget, and all you will talk about will be buffalo. This is a question I got from two pastologists. Jennifer Boose, an areologist. She's a Mars expert, also Julie Lesnik, who studies eating

No, I'm afraid not.

This was also asked by Graham Tattersall. In your experience, do buffalo buffalo buffalo, buffalo, buffalo, buffalo buffalo and I have no idea what they're talking about, but I have a feeling that there's something, some kind of grammatical loophole where that is a sentence.

And yeah, I'm sort of queasy just thinking about it.

Yeah right, I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna. I'll unpack it. Let's see. I know. I was like, I was like, is this are how are two ologists both on the same hallucinogen submitting questions? Of course I look this up and in this case, it's indeed a grammatically correct English language sentence, with buffalo meaning of Buffalo, New York, another buffalo meaning bison, and another buffalo meaning the verb to

God, I need no.

So a lot of people asked this question, and I will put them all on the side possibly hungry patrons Teresa Dizazzo and Layol Staffkova, plus a bounty of first time question askers Britney Kay, Milo Questa, Hollybood, Daniello Buchanan, Michelle Grundin, and Samantha Kenny specifically all asked why do we eat bison burgers? Are there enough bison for that? And if they're threatened to low numbers, how can they be used as a food product.

Oh, well, they're commercial herds, okay. Yeah, they live on big ranches out in places like South Dakota elsewhere. Yeah, so these are not what I would call conservation herds like Yellowstone or wind Cave or the Henry Mountains or National Bison Range. Those wild conservation herds are not you know,

Yes, is even though they were down to a couple dozen at the turn of the last century, they have never been on the endangered species list.

Why is that?

It's a good question.

I don't know, but they have never been nominated as an endangered species even today, no one has taken that task.

On That seems is that a political choice? It couldn't be that big an oversight. I'll look into that.

There's probably some interesting history there.

Yeah, that's bananas. I'll look into that. That's nuts. So from what I can gather, the population was so regally boned by European settlers that bison were just considered ecologically extinct. And while there may only be a few thousand in wild herds, ranching has now grown bison's numbers to several hundred thousand in the US, So they're considered near threatened, which is the lowest level of concern. It offers pretty

Well, they're dealing with the difficult problem in terms of increasing numbers of bison and not necessarily increasing amounts of area in which to have bison, and so they're forced to come up with a plan to keep numbers at a level that, you know, in which they have enough habitat for him, because if bison aren't allowed to roam unhindered outside the park, then you're gonna need fewer bison.

Which of course is shitty. Now, what is shitty about Archaeologist Ken's job. What's the hardest thing about your job or what is something that you dislike about your job? Something about your job that sucks that you're like, I wish this didn't happen.

Lack of funding, Yeah.

That's the biggest thing. Grants, trying to find funds, Yeah, and spending an inordinate amount of time begging for money to do research.

Do you have to present a case why this is important to ecology? Why this is? What is is your angle more ecological or anthropological?

It's both. It depends on what we're looking for my dissertation research and continue research on his bison ecology. So it's yeah, it's understanding the ecology of bison. And yeah, it's it's tough. We don't need a lot of money. We work really cheaply and get a lot out of the money we do get.

How much does a field season cost? I asked this of a Dinosa, of a paleontologist. He could fund a field season for less than a used toyota.

Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah what Yeah.

I was like, you could have the cheapest wedding, or you could find a dinosaur.

Yep, so are we?

So you have to petition and petition petition for funding that other people might spend on, like a rafting trip. Sure, yeah, a very nice bicycle or something.

Yeah, very nice bicycle. I get a lot of samples right analyzed. Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it's kind of crazy. And what's equally annoying is that it takes as much time to write a grant for fifteen hundred dollars as it does for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

That's a lot of time you could be spending looking at things.

Yeah, politicians complain about they're always having to raise money get reelected. Well so do we. Yeah, and I think we do a better job with the money that we get.

Bison for president. And let's talk crap with Yellowstone down And what's the shittiest thing about your job?

What sucks?

Does it get cold? Do you get snow in your pants? Something must suck.

I think that and I think this is not an uncommon complaint. I think a lot of people have this problem with their jobs. Is just the volume of work that we're all expected to do in a very short period of time and trying to do it all as well as you want to do it. That's tough. Yeah, yep.

What's the best thing about bison? The best thing about your job?

The best thing about my job is that, for the most part, I get to set my own agenda in terms of the questions that I ask the people that I seek out as collaborators. Is there are all decisions that I get to make. And what was the other part of your question?

Just what you like about your job or about bison?

Oh?

About bison. I like bison because they're so tough. Byson are really interesting because you know, you'll see them out in the landscape and they'll sort of lull you into this sort of false sense of knowing what they're all about, because, oh, there they are. There's a herd of bison, and that's the same hurd of bison that was there last year and the year before that year before. Then all of a sudden, the following year, they're gone. You don't know

And a last question I always ask is what do you love most about your job? What do you love about bison?

What I love about my job. I think what's great about archaeology is how we get to do a lot of things. I mean, we get to be in the field to get to click data, we get to get dirty, we get to get rained on, and then we get to come back and sit in front of computers and try and make sense of all that stuff. So it uses a lot of different parts of your brain and your body. And some of the best people my best friends I've met doing this work. My wife I met doing this work.

Is she a bisonologist.

She's not a bisonologist, but she's an archaeologist and we do a lot of work together there.

How'd you guys meet she was working with me.

Yeah, did you guys work alongside each other for a while before you're like, oh no, there's a smoldering attraction happening.

Well, yeah, we have to. It's a different time period.

Okay, it's actually her boss.

But it seemed like it worked out.

Yeah, yes she has. You have to file any suits against me.

How long have you been married?

Oh god, what do we know? Seventeen years?

Seventeen years. So it's working out.

Yeah, I got four kids.

Oh you don't wear a ring though I broke. Oh no, how did it break?

I think just cut that.

Oh boy, well that's one way to do it. You're just storn up for the winter. Yes, you're just.

Storn up for the doing that for way too long.

So great people.

Wonderful people, Yes, wonderful people.

It never gets old.

It never gets old.

No, no, it never does.

Thank you so much for talking to me about bison.

Sure, bison, And thanks to your listeners, sir, great questions.

They care about bison.

They do.

Yeah, that's nice to hear.

Everyone loves a bison, everyone including my cousin Boyd and Lila. What is your favorite thing about a buffalo? Is there anything that's just like charmed its way into your heart?

Oh they're really playful. Oh yeah, yeah, like uh you.

Can watch them and chase each other around over there and run and jump and play.

And then if a car stops to watch them, they all stop and watch the car.

The picture.

They're models, they're total goofballs, and then they act when people are looking so cute. I want to come visit when I come in summer for the reunion. Can I come visit?

Oh?

Yeah, and welcome. We have an extra bed at the house.

Ya.

One more very important question. Do buffaloes accept hugs or is that a bad idea?

Oh?

Bad idea?

Okay, yeah, all right, fine, I'll cross that off my list. Then I won't hug a b.

Yeah you don't want to when you okay, I'll.

Make sure my health insurance policy is up to date before.

But when you come up, we'll take you out to a guy's place sets out by the border that has white buffal What there's white buffalo.

Some of them are born white and some of them are born brown and then turn white.

Wow. Oh that's nuts. I want to look that up. I don't even know that existed.

White buffalo is yeah, that's yeah. What is really big medicine to all the tribes?

What does that mean? Big medicine?

It's like the top of the medicine.

Insists, so alease like god.

Yeah, Oh wow, gosh, I bet that's gotta be such a sight to see, especially in the snowy cool. Oh my gosh, this makes me want to look at pictures of Buffalo all day now. I just want to go online look at pictures of Buffalo. Let me go do that. We'll have a good rest of your Sunday. Guys. Yup you too, Okay, bye, love you guys, love you by bye bye. Sen love you too. But I will not hug you out of respect of your big ass horns.

Okay, by bye, pacadermatology, hobbiology or do zoology, lithology, zeminology, meteorology, ptology, anthology, seriology, sethnology.

Don't touch it.