Yellowstone officials: Rare white bison, sacred to Native Americans, has not been seen since its June 4 birth

Yellowstone National Park officials said Friday that a rare white bison sacred to Native Americans has not been seen since its June 4 birth. The birth of the white bison, which fulfilled a Lakota prophecy that foreshadowed better times, was the first recorded in Yellowstone’s history and is a landmark event for the ecocultural recovery of the bison, park officials said in confirming the birth for the first time. It’s an extraordinarily rare event: A white bison is born in the wild once in 1 million births, or even less frequently, the park said. It’s unclear whether the calf – named Wakan Gli, meaning “Sacred Return” in Lakota – is still alive. The park statement mentions that each spring, approximately one in five bison…

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