{"id":145529,"date":"2023-10-27T06:10:17","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T12:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=145529"},"modified":"2023-10-27T07:36:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T13:36:43","slug":"the-american-buffalo-a-review-of-sorts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/27\/the-american-buffalo-a-review-of-sorts\/","title":{"rendered":"“The American Buffalo” – A Review Of Sorts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been a fan, a serious student really, of the history of the American West for my entire adult life and I’m an animal lover and environmentalist to the core. So when I heard that Ken Burns had a new documentary being released on October 16th on PBS called The American Buffalo,<\/em> I made a mental note to myself to watch it. I’ve watched the vast majority of Burns’ documentaries and I absolutely wasn’t going to miss this one.<\/p>\n

But then life got in the way, October 16th came and went, and I hadn’t watched it. I just spaced it out until four days ago when…<\/p>\n

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this gnarly old bison bull walked right in front of me while I was trying (unsuccessfully) to photograph a Western Meadowlark on Antelope Island. While he was in my viewfinder my brain went ‘click’, so that night I began to watch the two part, 4 hour documetary and finished it up last night.<\/p>\n

I thought I was well versed in the details of the natural history of the bison and the disastrous effects of its near extinction on Native Americans, but I was wrong. The American Buffalo<\/em> provides a depth and breadth that I barely knew existed and Part II, which focuses on the recovery of the bison, was largely new to me.<\/p>\n

Today there are more than 350,000 buffalo in the United States, most of them descendants of 77 animals from five founding herds at the start of the 20th<\/sup> century. Their recovery is a riveting story in and of itself.<\/p>\n

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Our own Antelope Island State Park, which maintains a free-roaming herd of approximately 500 buffalo, continues to play a significant role in the ongoing recovery of the American bison. This photo, taken several years ago near the south end of the island, shows a small portion of the island’s bison cows, with their calves (also called “reds”).<\/p>\n

I’ve been a recent critic of some of the management decisions of Utah State Parks in regard to Antelope Island but, with rare exceptions, I believe they’ve done a magnificent job managing their bison. Kudos where kudos are due.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve visited the island so many times for so many years and seen so many buffalo, one might think that by now they’d have become old hat for me, But that’s never happened. How could anyone ever become blas\u00e9 about bison?<\/p>\n

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Later, on the same morning when I took photo #1 above, I came across this magnificent old bull with the Great Salt Lake in the upper background (I cropped the photo to feature the lake almost as much as the bison). For me the obvious allegory of the photo is to inspire a fervent hope that we can save the lake, like we saved the bison after almost destroying it.<\/p>\n

The American Buffalo<\/em>, as told by Ken Burns and a disparate collection of fascinating and sometimes flawed characters, is poignant to the point that I sometimes became emotional while watching it – especially at the end. If you watch it (I suspect some of you already have), be prepared for a similar reaction.<\/p>\n

Very highly recommended.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

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Notes:<\/em><\/p>\n