Where buffalo roam

Southern Living, Jul 1999 by Ford, Gary

In the 1870s, Charles Goodnight helped save the bison. Now Texas cares for his herd.

It is the time of the roaring.

On the Southern Plains of Texas, where the tableland of the Llano Estacado crumbles into broken hills, the bull bison vie for the favors of the females, who always come into season when the grass is good. It is a sound that almost died in that long-ago era when millions of buffalo roamed the plains.

Oldtimers call it the time of the roaring; an echo of those earlier days that have returned thanks to past and present owners of the JA Ranch near Clarendon and the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Back in 1878, celebrated plainsman Charles Goodnight owned the JA. His wife, Mary Ann, saddened at the astonishing disappearance of buffalo, urged her husband to capture a few bison from the remnants of the last herds and protect them on the ranch. For more than a century, while bison in the rest of America nearly died out, the Goodnight herd has grazed the pastures of the JA.

In 1997 the current JA Ranch owners, Monte Ritchie and Ninia Bivins, donated the herd to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Over a four-month period while drifting over some 120,000 acres of ranch land, the bison were rounded up and taken to their new home at Caprock Canyons State Park near Quitaque. Today 37 buffalo roam more than 330 acres, comprising the Texas State Bison Herd.

If you go to see them, bring a set of binoculars and know beforehand that sometimes you can spot the bison, and sometimes you can't. It all depends on where they're grazing behind the 10foot-high fences built of steel pipe posts and strung with a high-tensile steel cable-enclosures that some say resemble Jurassic Park.

Today Danny Swepston, a wildlife biologist with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, unlocks a gate of that fence and drives a feeder truck into the pasture, bouncing through the mesquite. As he honks his horn, several cows and their calves amble over. Danny drives along releasing clusters of cattle cubes a few feet apart.

The cows seem only a little larger than beef cows.

"These are not a distinct subspecies," Danny says. "They're American Plains bison and the last of the big southern herd. Our bison are smaller than the northern ones. They're unique in one way. Goodnight formed one of five foundation herds in America. It was these groups that saved the bison from extinction."

Across the pasture, separated by another fence, several bulls graze green grass. Danny drives into their enclosure where the bulls, much bigger than the cows, run faster than you would think toward the feeder truck. Danny wouldn't even think about getting out. These are unpredictable wild animals, regardless of the fact that they have roamed a ranch for decades.

"Five head of ours contain minute traces of cattle. The rest are considered pure bison," he notes. "These animals, since they were isolated, may contain some of the last wild pure genetics of the true Plains bison."

Far from being left to themselves to graze and look good for pictures, these buffalo are studied in depth. Dr. James Derr of the Veterinary Science Department at Texas A&M University heads up the genetic mapping of the herd.

"Preliminary work shows they're not as closely related as we were afraid of, but it could be better," Danny says. "Through selective breeding, we're hoping to expand the genetics out to get as diverse a genetic mix as we can."

The bison will continue to be studied. A 2-acre working area features a circular run where blood and hair samples will be taken each fall. The animals will be weighed, vaccinated, and fitted with ear tags and a pit tag, a tiny chip inserted into the skin.

Future plans at the park call for a new visitors center that will contain viewing platforms and interpretive exhibits about the bison, financed through state funds and private donations. The rest is up to the buffalo, whose only enemy now is disease. The Comanches no longer hunt them across the Texas Panhandle, and the white man's buffalo guns are just museum pieces. Now the job of these bison, with a big helping hand from Texas, is simply to survive and roar out their presence when the grass is green and plentiful.

Caprock Canyons State Park: P.O. Box 204, Quitaque, TX 79255; (806) 455-1492. Hours: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. daily. Admission: $2 per person. Help the buffalo: Donate to the Texas State Bison Herd by sending contributions to Parks & Wildlife Foundation of Texas, Permanent Bison Fund, PO. Box 15097, Dallas, TX 75201.