For Some Native Americans, Bison Herds May Hold the Keys to a Brighter Future

National Wildlife, Oct-Nov, 2000 by Mark Wexler

Working as a nutrition assistant at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, Maretta Champagne has learned all about the dietary deficiencies of her fellow Oglala Sioux tribe members. "We didn't have so many health problems generations ago when our diet centered on the buffalo," she says. "I had heard that bison meat is nutritionally better and I wanted to find out more about it."

Benny Rosales was also curious about the role bison once played in the history of his tribe. "It's not generally taught in the schools here," says the Pine Ridge resident. "I'm proud to be an Oglala Sioux, but I don't know a lot about my cultural heritage."

Two years ago, both Native Americans signed up for a course called Tatanka Management, which was being offered for the first time at the reservation's Oglala Lakota College. (Tatanka is a Lakota Sioux word for buffalo). "As it turned out, I not only learned a lot about tribal history, but also about bison behavior," says Rosales, who now hopes to make a living by raising his own herd.

Similar courses are now offered at ten tribal colleges by the Northern Plains Bison Education Network, a group of American Indian educators from upper Great Plains states where the burly animals once flourished. The schools represent a third of the nation's 31 accredited tribal colleges, which together serve nearly 30,000 students. "We believe we can give these students the cultural and academic tools they need to make bison restoration successful on reservations," says network director Louis LaRose, a member of the Winnebago tribe in Nebraska. "In the process, we can also help restore the animals to parts of their former range."

Though bison once numbered 50 million or more on the Great Plains, today fewer than 300,000 of the animals survive in this country. Most live on private ranches-including about 10,000 on Indian-owned lands- where they are raised to supply a $500-million-a-year industry in buffalo meat. "If we can teach tribal members how to manage and take care of bison, we can help create jobs," says Trudy Ecoffey, who teaches the Tatanka course at Pine Ridge. "We must find new ways to reduce poverty and unemployment on the reservations." According to the American Indian College Fund, about 85 percent of the students who attend tribal colleges live at or below the poverty level.

In their classes, Ecoffey and the other instructors show students how to raise bison using a free-range approach, in which the animals roam in pastures rather than live in cramped feedlots.

The teachers also demonstrate techniques that combine traditional tribal philosophies with modern breeding practices. "There are no textbooks on this, so we're developing our own materials and adding to them each semester," says Elroy DuBray, an instructor at Sitting Bull College on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota where about 4,000 bison range.

The educators work closely with the InterTribal Bison Cooperative, an organization founded by Native Americans in 1992 to assist in efforts to return bison to millions of acres of Indian lands. In doing so, the 50 tribes in the cooperative also hope to improve some of the health problems that plague their members.

Native Americans reportedly have the highest incidence of diabetes of any people in the world. An estimated 35 percent of the residents on U.S. reservations are afflicted with the disease. "The Winnebago tribe originally got into bison restoration because of this diabetes epidemic," says LaRose. "We figured out that traditional native foods, particularly bison meat, would be better for diabetics." Nutritionists point out that such meat has less fat and cholresterol than beef.

For Indian educators like LaRose, however, the bison courses offer more than just potential solutions to health and poverty issues. They also provide opportunities for tribal members to regain their lost cultural identities. "Traditionally," he observes, "the bison always took care of us. Now it's our turn to help take care of them. They are a symbol of our strength and unity. In restoring their numbers, we can also restore a healthy culture for ourselves."

Mark Wexler is editor of this magazine.