Wednesday, November 2, 2022

Buffalo return to USA: Nat'l Bison Day (11/5)

National Bison Day 2022 (awarenessdays.com); Xochitl, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Many nations (tribes) depended on the buffalo
National Bison Day in the United States is celebrated on the first Saturday of November every year. It is dedicated to the historical, cultural, ecological, and economic contribution of the American bison to the United States (not to be confused with the Buddhist bison of the Tibetan plateau). The American bison, also known as the American buffalo, is a North American species of bison. Once widely spread throughout North America, they became nearly extinct by the white man's arrival and a combination of wholesale industrial slaughter in an attempt to destroy the Native Americans as a part of the slow genocide that continues to this day, commercial destruction, and sporting pastime of hunting in the 19th century.
Bison were never domesticated by Native Americans, but today they are viewed as both a type of cattle and wild animals in the United States and neighboring Canada and Mexico. National Bison Day was introduced in 2012. It is actively supported by Native Americans, conservationists, bison producers, educators, and other people who care about the fate of these large mammals and ungulates and ruminant animals that shaped the landscape of most of the country. In 2016, the celebration of National Bison Day entered a new stage, as President B.S. Obama signed the "National Bison Legacy Act" into law, officially making the American buffalo the national mammal of the USA. National Bison Day is marked with various events celebrating the bison. The main goal is to emphasize the importance of the American bison as one of the symbols of the United States, as well as the contribution of the species to maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem sustainability. National Bison Day 2022
New film about restoration of buffalo
Guest Ramona Emerson, Host Sam Briger, Fresh Air (NPR.org/WHQR), Nov. 2, 2022
Tibet: We have a big bison/cowboy culture, too.
SAM BRIGER: We were supposed to talk last week, but you had to postpone...because of a delay dealing with filming buffalo. Is that right?

RAMONA EMERSON: Yes, I just returned Friday from working for The Nature Conservancy and...InterTribal Buffalo Council...working together to rematriate buffalo into Native communities.

Soon we'll have our buffalo back (Sean Sherman)
So they called me and hired me to come and film the buffalo kind of being herded up and getting ready for distribution and sent also out to South Dakota to film the buffalo arriving in a Native community.

So I was actually standing out in a pasture in the prairie reserve in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, filming buffalo, like, 10 feet from me for, like, two days. And then, they flew me into South Dakota -- Sioux Falls -- and I drove down to the Yankton Sioux Reservation to see their buffalo arrive on their buffalo pastures where they have -- they already have thousands of buffalo that they've rematriated onto their lands. And, yeah, so I was out there filming buffalo for four days and driving around and flying around. And I just barely flapped my wings back to Albuquerque on Friday and tried to rest a little bit...and we had to do interviews on Sunday in Taos Pueblo for his project called "Three Generations."

So, you know, the work never ends. I might be tired from the buffalo, but we have interviews to do in Taos Pueblo, so we went and did those (laughter). MoreShutter author Ramona Emerson was inspired... (WHQR)

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