White buffalo calf delights park visitors

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – Standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park, TJ Ammond looked through binoculars at hundreds of buffalo dotting the verdant valley below.

Beige calves frolicked near their mothers while imposing bulls wallowed in the mud.

As his wife and children gathered behind him, Ammond scanned the vast herd and shouted, “I see a white one!

“Or no, it’s a pronghorn,” he soon corrected. “It’s white and it’s small.”

Grizzly bears and wolves are usually the star attractions for wildlife watchers in Yellowstone, but this spring an extremely rare small white buffalo stole the show.

The white buffalo – also known as the bison – is considered sacred by many Native Americans who welcomed the news of a buffalo’s birth in Yellowstone as an auspicious sign.

It all started when photographer Erin Braaten of Kalispell, Montana, took several images of the unsightly little creature snuggled up to her mother on June 4, shortly after she was born near the banks of the Lamar River. Braaten and her family were driving through the park when she spotted “something really white” and took a closer look through her telephoto lens.

They turned around and stopped to watch and take photos of the calf with its mother for more than half an hour.

Despite crowds of visitors with glasses and photographers with telephoto lenses in the Lamar Valley, a prime spot for viewing wildlife in Yellowstone, few others saw the calf and no sightings have been reported since. Even Braaten and her family did not see the calf again despite returning over the next two days, she said.

As in the legend, the calf remains mysterious in life.

Some people think his life was short. Bison calves often don’t survive when their herds decide to plunge into waters like Lamar, which runs high and muddy from melting mountain snow.

Yet even though he died, the event is no less important to Native Americans, said Chief Arvol Looking Horse, spiritual leader of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota Oyate in South Dakota, and 19th guardian of the sacred pipe of the white buffalo calf woman. and Bundle.

“The fact is we all know he was born and it’s like a miracle to us,” Looking Horse said.

The creature’s birth fulfills a Lakota prophecy that portends better times, according to members of the Native American tribe who warn that it is also a signal that more must be done to protect the land and its animals. They are planning a ceremony in the coming weeks to commemorate the event.

In the meantime, the rumor of the white buffalo has spread widely. Ammond had heard about the white calf on The Weather Channel and was eager to see it during his family’s trip to Yellowstone from Ohio.

Usually, white bison are born in ranch herds due to crossbreeding with cattle. They are rare but not uncommon, with births occasionally making the headlines in local newspapers.

Two genetic variations, leucism and albinism, explain this unusually light-colored animal. Experts doubt the Yellowstone calf is an albino.

Either way, a wild white buffalo is extremely rare – perhaps unheard of in Yellowstone, one of the last sanctuaries for free-ranging American bison. The animals once numbered in the tens of millions before commercial hunting drove them to near extinction. The Yellowstone herd numbers approximately 5,000 individuals.

Near the site where Braaten said he took his photos, New Mexico native Bob Worthington stood outside his truck Thursday and looked out at a distant hillside. He said he has been visiting Yellowstone for 26 years with one goal: to see grizzly bears.

Worthington gruffly dismissed a question about the valley’s bison herds. But when we talked about the white calf, he lit up with a smile.

“I’d love to see this little rascal,” he said.

Visitors to Yellowstone National Park are seen looking for wildlife using binoculars in the Lamar Valley area of ​​Yellowstone National Park, Thursday, June 13, 2024, near Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo. The park has around 5,000 buffalo or bison. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

A rare white buffalo, believed to have been born in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, is shown in Wyo. on June 4, 2024. The birth fulfills a Lakota prophecy that portends better times, according to members of the Native American tribe who warned that it is also a warning that more must be done to protect the earth and its animals. (Erin Braaten/Dancing Aspens Photography via AP)

TJ Ammond is seen looking for buffalo, also known as bison, in Yellowstone National Park, Thursday, June 13, 2024, near Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo. Ammond said he hoped to show his children a rare white buffalo calf recently photographed in the park. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Andrew Scott of Salt Lake City, Utah, takes photographs of bison, also known as buffalo, in Yellowstone National Park, Thursday, June 13, 2024, near Cooke City, Montana. A rare sighting of a small white buffalo in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley has visitors trying to catch a glimpse of the animal. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

A rare white buffalo, believed to have been born in Lamar Valley in Yellowstone National Park, is shown in Wyo. on June 4, 2024. The birth fulfills a Lakota prophecy that portends better times, according to members of the Native American tribe who warned that it is also a warning that more must be done to protect the earth and its animals. (Erin Braaten/Dancing Aspens Photography via AP)

Two buffalo are seen on the side of a road in Yellowstone National Park, Thursday, June 13, 2024, near Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo. A rare white buffalo was seen in the park earlier this month. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

A herd of buffalo, also known as bison, is seen near the Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park, June 14, 2024, near Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo. A rare little white buffalo was seen in the park earlier this month. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

Bison cross a road in Yellowstone National Park, Thursday, June 13, 2024, near Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo. Visitors attempted to spot a rare white buffalo that was seen in the park earlier this month. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)