Confused by the bison of Prince Edward Island? Let’s explain

This story is from this week’s episode of CBC’s new podcast, Good Question, PEI. Listen now.

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Alberta could have given us a few barrels of oil. Maybe wheat. Or some of those thick T-bone steaks we hear about.

Really, a cake would have sufficed.

But no.

Instead, as a gift for Prince Edward Island’s centennial celebrations in 1973, the province of Alberta sent 15 buffalo — seven males and eight females — across the country by train, ferry and truck to their new home at Milltown Cross, Kings County, Prince Edward Island.

They’ve been raising eyebrows ever since, given how out of place they seem among the sandy beaches and red potato fields of Prince Edward Island.

Even the provincial government seemed baffled by the bison, unsure of what to do with this unusual gift, especially as the years passed.

The buffalo roam a 40 hectare pasture at Milltown Cross. (Nicola MacLeod/CBC)

William McGuigan remembers watching buffalo as a child in eastern Prince Edward Island. He was curious to know more, so he checked out CBC’s Good Question, PEI podcast.

He came to the right place. It’s a bizarre story that we’ve been covering for years – when they were first introduced in 1973, when the government decided in 2012 that it could no longer continue to spend $30,000 a year maintaining them , when some of them escaped from the fence. pasture.

And sure enough, when the Buddhist nonprofit Moonlight International Foundation purchased them and Buffaloland Park for $1.

That’s when things got interesting. Buddhists, by the nature of their religion, are taught never to harm any living creature. They don’t even boil a lobster, so they weren’t prepared to continue the provincial practice of culling buffalo herds. Waiting for them to die naturally was an option, but the herd now numbered over 50 individuals and was growing.

They decided that castrating the males was the best option. Very easy.

Well, not quite.

“It’s very stressful to herd them together, that’s the problem,” Dr. David Lister, a veterinarian at New Perth Animal Hospital, said in a 2018 interview with CBC News.

Lister and his team were tasked with identifying the males, tranquilizing them and castrating them.

Visitors can observe the buffaloes behind a fence. (Shane Ross/CBC)

This plan did not work with at least one of the males, who managed to evade capture and impregnate five females.

But other castrations succeeded in slowing population growth. In an email to CBC News last week, the Moonlight International Foundation said there may only be one or two left to go.

Buffaloland remains a nondescript place where people can watch animals for free, seven days a week. It’s not fancy, just a 100-acre plot of land with a small barn. You might miss it if you didn’t look to the side and do a double take.

There was a baby boom in Buffaloland in 2018. Today, the population has stabilized, after most of the males were neutered. (Shane Ross/CBC)

You might not even see another human there, depending on the time of day.

The buffalo are fenced in, but be wary if you try to feed them, Lister said.

They are not always friendly, although the males, at least, are not as frisky as they once were.

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