Sacred bison calf offers hope in efforts to revive species

With cream-colored fur and jet-black eyes, one of the smallest specimens of America’s largest native animal stumbles into the spotlight on shaky legs.

Defenders hope that Birth of a white bison in June – an extremely rare event – will provide new momentum for a decades-long effort to revive the species in the American Great Plains.

Many tribes consider the birth of a white bison to be a sacred omen that signifies change. The herd into which this bison was born has also become an important cultural symbol: it is the last herd of wild bison in North America.

The herd is entering a new chapter in its life as management of the species is increasingly overseen by Indigenous communities and conservationists push to increase bison populations.

The American bison, also known as buffalo, once numbered in the tens of millions before being driven to the brink of extinction in the 1800s. Today, the only wild herd in the United States is limited to just 5,000 animals.

But tribes and bison advocates see opportunity as Yellowstone, the United States’ first national park and home of the white calf, considers a proposal to expand the size of the wild herd for the first time in decades.

The white calf has added spiritual significance to the bison conservationists’ efforts as they test a long-standing status quo in which government policies prioritize cattle ranching over the beliefs of indigenous tribes.

A Prophecy Revealed

Just after noon on June 4, Yellowstone photography guide Jordan Creech was touring the park with his clients when he spotted the newly born white buffalo calf taking its first steps in the park’s Lamar Valley.

Bison can walk within two minutes of birth and run alongside their herd within the first seven minutes of life.

“It’s the most unique experience I’ve ever had,” Creech says.

Erin Braaten, a Native American photographer from Kalispell, Montana, also witnessed the calf’s first moments before it disappeared from the herd.

“I thought I would have a better chance of capturing Bigfoot than a young white bison,” she told BBC News.

For 2,000 years, the Lakota, Dakota and Nakoda people have told the story of a woman who arrived in need.

One version tells of two scouts searching for food and bison in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The mysterious woman appeared and presented their tribe with a set of sacred gifts, including a pipe carved from red rock, and explained to the people how to live and pray.

She transformed several times before taking the form of a young white bison with a black nose, eyes, and hooves. When she left, a large number of bison returned to feed the people.

Dozens of other tribes have stories of white buffalo, interpreting their arrival as both a blessing and a warning.

Chief Arvol Looking Horse, a spiritual leader of the Lakota tribe, is known as the keeper of the sacred bundle, the bundle and pipe left by the spirit. He compares the return of the white calf to the second coming of Christ.

Looking Horse, 70, said that before she left, the woman told people she would return as a white buffalo “when things are bad and not good, and when people are not in a good frame of mind.”

“It’s the spirit. It means the spirit is acting,” he added.

On June 26, more than 500 supporters officially celebrated the white calf at an event in West Yellowstone, just outside the park. Nearly a dozen tribes were represented.

Together they heard the calf named—Wakan Gli, which means “sacred return” or “holy come” in the Lakota language. An altar made of three buffalo skulls and three buffalo hides marked the occasion.

Waemaetekosew Waupekenay, 38, who came from Wisconsin to attend the ceremony on behalf of the Menominee tribe, said the birth of the sacred calf was a spiritual awakening.

His arrival, he said with amazement, shows that there is “a lot of healing, a lot of love going around. People are united.”

Yellowstone National Park rangers confirmed the birth of the white bison, but they themselves did not report any sightings.

“The birth of a white bison in the wild is a milestone in the National Park Service’s ecocultural recovery of bison,” the park said in a statement June 28, confirming that it was the first white bison ever seen inside Yellowstone.

They added that this “may reflect the presence of a natural genetic inheritance that has been preserved in Yellowstone bison, and which has come to light due to the successful recovery of a wild bison population.”

“The National Park Service recognizes the importance of a young white bison to American Indians,” he added.

A species is reborn

Yellowstone bison are the only wild herd in the United States and are among the last genetically pure bison in existence.

But Yellowstone National Park regularly reaches the legal capacity of 5,000 people.

Tribes that support the species’ growth have stepped in, saying the species’ health is tied to their own history. Since 2019, the U.S. National Park Service has transferred 414 healthy bison from Yellowstone to 26 tribes in 12 states through the Bison Conservation Transfer Program.

Native Americans also have their own system of distributing bison, independent of the park’s efforts. Since 1992, the Intertribal Buffalo Council, a collective of 83 tribes working to “restore cultural, spiritual and historical relationships” with the animals, has sent 25,000 bison to 65 herds on tribal lands in 22 states.

“People don’t understand or realize that what happened to the bison happened the same way to Indigenous people, and that the history is intertwined,” said Jason Baldes, vice chairman of the council and a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe.

The return of the bison to the tribal populations marks a major shift in federal policy in a country whose soldiers were once ordered to kill them all to deprive the tribes of food and supplies.

Officials aren’t just reintroducing animals, they’re considering more: The National Park Service just completed an environmental impact study in Yellowstone and determined that the herd size should increase from 5,000 to 6,000, but could accommodate as many as 10,000. It’s the first time in 24 years that the park has proposed increasing its size.

The herd’s growth is all the more striking given that up to 60 million American bison were killed in the rush to conquer the American frontier.

Unlike indigenous peoples, who were known to use almost every part of the animal for food, shelter and more, settlers killed them recklessly, taking their furs and leaving the carcasses to rot.

By the 20th century, there were only 1,000 bison left in the wild.

Large-scale cattle ranching operations have taken over vacant land, and commercial interests continue to be a source of conflict between those who want to see wild bison roam as they once did and the ranching industry.

Ranchers and the state’s Republican governor oppose the park service’s proposal to expand the herd, fearing that a disease called brucellosis — which is carried by about 60 percent of Yellowstone’s bison — could infect cattle herds and cut into profit margins.

The Montana Bison Ranchers Association, which opposes the plan, warned that the new policy could lead to “exponential growth in bison numbers.”

Elk are also known to transmit brucellosis to domestic livestock, but they are not subject to the same restrictions as bison.

Mike Mease of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a Montana-based nonprofit that works to increase wild bison numbers, says the debate “is part of the old grazing wars of the West, the competition for grass and which animals get to eat it.”

Yellowstone officials have already acknowledged that the controversy over bison management is a complex challenge involving several competing interest groups.

“This is probably the most complex wildlife issue in Yellowstone,” Cam Sholly, the park’s superintendent, told The New York Times last year. “Bison are the only species that we restrict to a boundary.”

But for the tribes, the birth of the white calf is proof that more needs to be done to support the bison. The fact that the calf comes from Yellowstone gives it added spiritual significance.

“The Yellowstone herd is made up of the purest, wildest bison – the only ones left in the country,” says Chief Looking Horse.

“It is a message that Mother Earth transmits through the animal nation.”