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Original with M. Graham 14/9/25

Canada’s Repatriation of the Buffalo

Prepared by Maxwell Graham, Chief,

Wild Life Division, North West

Territories and Yukon Branch, Dept.

of the Interior.

The American bison, or buffalo, is a close relative of the larger bison that once inhabited Europe, survivors of which up to the time of the Bolsheviks were still to be found in sanctuaries set aside in Poland and the Caucasus.

The American bison once roamed in an area extending from Great Slave Lake in the N.W.T. of Canada south to Southern New Mexico and from Pennsylvania and Eastern Georgia to Arizona and Northern Nevada. It is thus evident that they thrived in such forested country as that formerly found east of the Mississippi River, as well as on the treeless plains of the West. When this continent was first discovered it has been estimated that as many as 60,000,000 buffalo roamed over it.

Following settlement of Eastern America, the buffalo gradually retreated across the Mississippi, but continued to exist in great but rapidly diminishing numbers on the Great Plains up to within the last 55 years.

The crossing of their range, the major part of which was in the United States, by the first trans-continental railroad, the Union Pacific, quickly brought about depletion of the herds. In 1870 there were still about 5,500,000 head on the plains, but these were so wastefully slaughtered for their hides that by 1889 only about 1091 remained. This number included 200 protected by the United States government in the Yellowstone Park, 256 in fenced enclosures and 635 running wild, 550 of which latter numbers were then estimated to be in the Athabasca District near Fort Smith, Canadian, N.W.T.

Slaughter on such a scale finally awakened both sportsmen and nature lovers to the danger of immediate extermination of these magnificent animals and the organization of the American Bison Society shortly followed. To the untiring efforts of this Society must be attributed the later steps taken to protect the remnant of buffalo in the United States. In 1903, this Society reported that the buffalo had increased to a total of 1753, a considerable percentage of which were, in the United States, privately owned. The largest private owner was Michel Pablo, of Montana, and by 1906 this herd comprised 700 buffalo.

In 1907 I learned that the Pablo herd was for sale, and steps were taken to secure an option on the entire herd. Since through the purchase of the Pablo buffalo Canada now possesses the largest herd of buffalo in the world, it is of interest to note the genesis of this herd. Back in 1873 a Pend O’Reille Indian captured four little buffalo calves, two bulls and two heifers, on the Flathead reservation in Montana. These calves came into the possession of the Mission of St. Ignatius, and in its fostering care the buffalo – increased until in 1884 Michel Pablo of Ronan, Montana, bought ten from the Mission for $250.00 each. Until 1906-07 Pablo was able to provide free grazing for his constantly increasing herd, but about this time the necessity for either disposing of his buffalo or fencing them in became increasingly apparent. He chose the former alternative and between 1909 and 1914 a total of 631 buffalo were transplanted in the Buffalo Park at Wainwright, Alberta. During this period the park at Wainwright also received 87 buffalo from the park at Banff originating from those owned by the late Lord Strathcona, and 30 from the Conrad herd at Kalisfiel, Montana.

From this total of 748 buffalo the number now estimated as being in the Wainwright park is 8000, and this in spite of the fact that some 2000, mostly bulls, surplus to herd requirements, were slaughtered for commercial purposes during 1923, and also in spite of some 1634 yearlings and two-year-olds having been shipped from the park this past season.

In the above connection I have already alluded to the fact that buffalo formerly thrived in forested areas east of the Mississippi river, but we in Canada have herds of wild buffalo that we know from documentary evidence have lived and thrived for over a hundred years in a forested district. I refer to the so called wood buffalo in the Fort Smith district. These buffalo have two ranges, one north of parallel 60 and one south of it in Alberta. It is in the southern range comprising some 4000 square miles that the 1634 buffalo from Wainwright were placed last summer. We have had to face a good deal of, may I say, uninformed criticism in placing the buffalo from Wainwright in this southern range of the wood-buffalo. It was contended that all the wood-buffalo would be merged with and lose their identity in the introduced plains buffalo and also that through these latter disease would be transmitted to the wild buffalo. It was uniformed criticism because the critics were not aware of the following facts. –

1. – That the wood buffalo in the southern range never cross into the northern range or those in the northern range into the southern one. This information has been positively vouched for as being correct by Dr. Charles Camsell who was born in the North West Territories and is now Deputy Minister of Mines, and who visited the habitat of the wood buffalo in 1916. It has since been formed by Mr. M. V. Seibert, D.L.S., who made a special trip from the southern range into the northern one overland in 1922, encountering buffalo in both ranges. Mr. Seibert considers that lack of pasture or anything to tempt the buffalo on the stretch of ground, 20 miles, between the two ranges is probably the reason why the southern and northern herd never mingle.

2. – It is estimated that about 1000 wood buffalo inhabit the southern range, and that it is capable of carrying at least 50,000 buffalo.

3. – That this southern range, as well as the northern range is, since 1923, a National park comprising with a portion of the Caribou mountains, the habitat of wood caribou, a total area of some 10,500 square miles. The southern range, in particular, is protected with an efficient warden service of 11 wardens, and is further protected by the fact that certain Treaty Indians who from immemorial times have hunted in this – area, are still allowed to hunt and trap there conditional on their obeying regulations as to close seasons and not molesting the buffalo. Since these Indians are fully away that this privilege thus accorded them will be withdrawn if they misbehave, they have since the creation of the Wood Buffalo Park co-operated with our wardens in protecting wildlife in the park.

4. – Since authorities agree that any migrational urge on the part of the introduced Wainwright buffalo would be in a southerly direction, there seems little danger of these buffalo leaving the southern range to enter the northern one.

5. – Only young stock were shipped from Wainwright, these were carefully selected after segregation, during the previous winter, from the main herd, and under these circumstances alone there would not seem to be much chance of these animals being affected with disease of any kind but granting even that some were so affected these would not be likely to transmit disease when grazing under natural conditions and in such a vast area, where contact between animals is reduced to a minimum.

6. – Finally, it is the preservation of the species that after all is most important not a possible subspecies as some persons claim the wood-buffalo is, but even if it is a subspecies, and even if the wood-buffalo in the southern range are merged with those from Wainwright of the plains, there are still a number of wood-buffalo in the northern range which according to authorative information will not mingle with any buffalo in the southern range.

I consider that it is most desirable to restock any natural ranges suitable, with buffalo. That such restocking can be done with least expense for protection by putting the Plains-buffalo, of which there are an excess at Wainwright, in the southern range of the wood-buffalo, where there is already an organized warden service. They could not be put elsewhere except by providing expensive protected ranges. They must be removed from their present location or a complete loss would ensue through destruction of the limited range at Wainwright and over-crowing.

We are now in touch by wireless with the Superintendent of the Wood Buffalo Park and he reports that the introduced buffalo have settled down, are mingling with the wood-buffalo and under leadership of adult wood-buffalo are now assured of ample feed, water, and natural shelter. In order to take no chances, however, of any of the introduced young buffalo lacking forage during the coming winter, hay is being put up for emergency use only at selected strategical points within the southern range.

I wish in closing to say a few words about the shipments of the buffalo from Wainwright this past summer. It was necessary to first round up and corral at Wainwright those buffalo selected during the past winter. They were branded and placed on cars at a siding, yearlings and two-year-olds being placed in separate cars, each car being subdivided by gates to facilitate loading and unloading. On arrival at the end of the steel, at Waterways, Northern Alberta, the animals were placed in corrals on the bank of the Clearwater River, and thence transported in barges propelled by a steamboat into Slave River, down which latter stream lies the objective at La Butte in the Wood Buffalo Park. The number of shipments made were 7, comprising 58 carloads, and out of 1634 buffalo shipped between June 15th and July 27th there were only 8 causalities.

In the above short space of time we have thus transplanted 1626 buffalo to a range some 800 miles north of the Wainwright wherein there are seasonal habitats suitable for an all the year sanctuary. In this connection, the Wood Buffalo Park fulfills entirely the requirements of what has been termed a “wilderness park”, which style of park is essential if true conservation is to be carried out. Protection of wildlife in parks is not all a question of restrictions, for there is the propagation and reproductive aspect. To ensure favourable conditions for reproduction, under natural conditions, of large game animals, such as buffalo, large areas and coverts remote from visitors are called for. These essential conditions are to be found in the Wood Buffalo Park.

It is with a feeling pf pride that I now am able to state that not only does Canada own the largest buffalo herd in captivity in the world, but that the natural increase from this herd will, we have every reason to expect, be the means of restocking and repatriating the vast areas to the north formerly the natural range of the finest of the buffalo on this continent.