Where the bison roam in Oklahoma
Where the bison roam
BY ED GODFREY
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Published: November 8, 2009
PAWHUSKA — On the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, the bison still roam.
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The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is a private, nonprofit conservation organization, which is active in every state and 30 countries. Its mission is to preserve plants, animals and the lands and waters that they need to survive. In Oklahoma, The Nature Conservancy has more than 7,000 members and owns five major preserves:
→Tallgrass Prairie Preserve (Pawhuska): 39,000 acres
→Nickel Preserve (Tahlequah): 17,000 acres
→Four Canyon Preserve (western Oklahoma’s Ellis County): 4,000 acres
→Cucumber Creek Preserve (southeastern Oklahoma’s Ouachita Mountains): 3,500 acres
→Pontotoc Ridge Preserve (south-central Oklahoma): 3,500 acres
ED GODFREY, OUTDOORS EDITOR
It was 20 years ago today that The
Nature Conservancy — which has a mission of saving the last great places on Earth, keeping them undisturbed and as natural as possible — raised $15 million to purchase the Barnard portion of the famous Chapman-Barnard Ranch in
Osage County.
It was the place where a man named
Ben Johnson Sr. once was ranch foreman and his son, Ben Jr., was a real working cowboy before going to
Hollywood and playing one on film.
For two years, The Nature Conservancy let the land rest, doing nothing to it. Native grasses and plants flourished. Two years later, 300 bison were reintroduced on 5,000 acres of the Osage prairie.
"We are trying to recreate a functioning tallgrass prairie ecosystem and that’s by creating the ecological forces that shaped the prairie,” said
Harvey Payne of The Nature Conservancy, who has been involved with the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve project since the beginning.
"We do controlled burns to try and mimic the seasonality of fires that shaped the prairie. We have the bison here for the grazing influence they provided. They evolved here and they shaped this landscape and this landscape shaped them. They are so well-suited for life here.”
Today, more than 2,600 bison free-range on 24,000 acres of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and mostly are on their own. The animals are given salt and minerals but are not fed or watered by their owners.
"We want to keep them as wild as possible,” said
Bob Hamilton, director of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.
But once a year, during the annual roundup that is now under way, the bison are treated more like a domestic cattle herd.
But Payne says they don’t act that way.
"I’ve been around cattle all my life,” he said. "Bison are captivating animals. They are just enchanting animals. But they just have much more of a wild spirit to them.”
The purpose of the roundup is to vaccinate the animals and cull the herd. Employees from other preserves are brought in for roundup. Local cattle ranchers are also hired to help.
Over five or six days, the bison are stampeded in groups of 50 or 60 into corrals by trucks, some which show the "buffalo bruises” from previous roundups.
"This is the most hazardous thing we do for the animals,” Payne said. "If you are not careful, some of the animals can severely injure or kill the others. They get trampled. It just takes one hook from a big bull’s horns to disembowel another animal.”
The bison handlers have learned through the years not to get on the ground with them. No one has been seriously injured in a bison roundup, but there have been close calls.
One man was tossed from a four-wheeler.
Another had a bull’s horn go through the belt loop on his jeans.
"That was pretty dang close,” Hamilton said.
"They are extremely fast animals, very nimble, even the big guys — the 1,600-pound bulls. They are just extremely powerful.”
Once in the pens, the ranch hands stay on elevated catwalks and push the bison through chutes, forcing them into smaller groups until one will rush into the "squeeze chute.”
If the animal is staying on the preserve, it is inoculated to prevent disease.
If being sold, it is placed in a separate pen.
The bison herd has grown to the point that the Nature Conservancy doesn’t want it getting any bigger.
Between 500 to 600 calves are born each year on the preserve.
So all of the bulls are sold when they reach 6 ½ years of age and the cows at 10 ½ years old.
A few 2 ½-year-olds are also sold.
Typically, they are bought by bison ranchers for breeding or for the meat market.
Some are bought for commercial hunting.
When the roundup has ended, the bison are once again left to live on their own. They are released to roam freely on the prairie like they did more than a century ago.
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