Plains song: bison and life on the "American serengeti"

Natural History, Oct, 2002 by Dale F. Lott

After decades of field observation, zoologist Dale F. Lott turned to literary portraiture to capture what he had seen. What follows are sketches from Lott's American Bison, a book that captures far more of the natural and cultural history of the bison and of the Great Plains than one would find in a purely scientific monograph. Ranging over the animal's life and death, as well as its neighbors and its protectors, these sketches address the overarching question that Lott says has always driven his work: How do bison get on in the world?--THE EDITORS

Bison Athletics

I'm watching a mature, one-ton bull standing alone on a dirt road on the National Bison Range. He's the only buffalo around, and I have set up my movie camera, so I'm watching him through the viewfinder--finger on the shutter button--wishing, as a man with a movie camera will, that the subject would do something footage-worthy. He stands broadside to the road's line of travel, his front feet at the bottom of the cutbank where the road is in a trough sliced through a low hill to ease the grade. His right horn slips into the earth and cuts a horizontal groove. He glances up to the top of the slope six feet above the road, makes a second groove with his left horn, glances up again and--without seeming to gather himself--leaps to the top of the cutbank, lands upright on all four feet, and calmly surveys his new view. My finger is still on the shutter button, and I still haven't pressed it.

Social Relations

Bulls test the urine of cows, seeking the ones about to enter estrus. When they find one, they are likely to try to spend the next few hours with her. That's not easy to do. Pre-estrous cows become restless--breaking away from a tending bull and running through the herd. A running cow attracts bulls, and a string of them are soon following her, just as a tail follows its comet. When she stops, they gather and quickly sort out who among the present company gets to stand by his cow.

Most fights involve hooking uppercuts or a cautious locking of horns or shoving head to head, ending when one animal signals submission and the winner lets him go. But not always. This time the bulls hurl themselves at each other, elongating their bulky bodies into animated battering rams as they launch themselves for the first blow. Their heads come together with a terrific shock. It ripples through their bodies in a visible wave. I once saw a bull somersaulted backward by such a charge: 2,000 pounds of bull flipped upside down like a lawn chair in a gust of wind.

The bulls lock horns and push hard, their hooves plowing soil as each tries to drive his opponent back. The old bull is pushed backward and a little sideways, dust spurting from beneath his skidding feet. Suddenly a foot catches on a rock and he trips and falls onto his side. The younger bull strikes down and forward with his horns, slamming them into the old bull's flank and hooking right and left. The curves of his horns make most of the contact and deliver bruising, possibly rib-breaking, but not fatal, blows. Then the tip of one horn plunges through skin and muscle and into his opponent's abdomen. Only one horn penetrates, and it penetrates only once, but the wound will be mortal.

The younger bull ends his attack and returns to his cow. In a few minutes the old bull will rise to walk away. He will graze again, drink again, sleep again. But an infection will send matter oozing down his ribs in a few days, and in a few weeks it will kill him.

Youth

On the National Bison Range, calves are born in April and May. The snow has melted and the earth is warming. The vibrant green of new grass growth is eclipsing the browns of the grasses dried over the winter. The golden yellow of arrowleaf balsamroot and the purple of lupine contrast intensely with the new grass. I have watched dozens of calves emerge into this idyllic world. It's a setting to encourage relaxation, even lassitude--I feel it, but the calves don't seem to. Take the one I'm watching just now. Within a minute or two, as soon as his mother has freed him from the membrane that surrounded him in the womb, he begins a frantic struggle to get to his feet. He gets halfway up several times and falls forward, backward, and sideways. I think, "Take it easy, little one, rest a minute. There's no rush." But the brain that has guided calves to adulthood for thousands of generations knows better. The calf hasn't got a minute to spare. Wolves may arrive any second. A late winter storm could drop six inches of snow tonight, and winter returns in a few months.

An hour-old calf can scamper pretty well. This is a wonderful adaptation to being born in plain sight on a prairie with wolves about, but it makes the calf a challenge to keep in touch with--like a ball that never stops bouncing.

The bouncing baby bison doesn't bounce aimlessly. It bounces toward something big and close. Mom is big and close, and the ball usually bounces her way. But sometimes it fixes its eye on some other bison that passes by and rushes after it. Then mother chases both of them down and retrieves her young. A calf a few months old that loses its mother will attach itself to anything large and moving. An orphan calf followed Captain Meriwether Lewis one afternoon as he walked west beside the Missouri River.