BY BILL CURRY
A photographer explores the return of buffalo to Tribal land
What is life? It is a flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
—Crowfoot, Siksika, 1870
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
It begins with a strange, almost mystical thought drifting across the west mesa outside of Taos, New Mexico—a place where late November sharpens the air and turns the light into a honed, white clarity. The horizon stretches so far and wide it feels like a test of perception, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rise sacred above Taos Pueblo, close enough to feel present, though miles away. In such a landscape, the thought that one might be “walking in the sky” does not feel impossible. The mesa encourages that kind of relationship with the world.
From the rim of the Rio Grande Gorge, the earth opens into an 800-foot-deep cleft, a monumental wound carved over eons. One morning, as the gorge holds its silence, a glint of white moves swiftly above the river. At first, it looks like a duck catching the sun. Then its form sharpens—the bright tail of a bald eagle gliding south along the silver coil of the Rio Grande. The scene re-
arranges itself: sky layered above water, water flowing through earth, and the great bird riding the currents between worlds. It feels like “sacred-nicity”—a cosmic stacking of realms converging on the moment.
Beyond the gorge, Taos Mountain holds its familiar posture. Beneath it, the Pueblo of the Red Willow people rests in thick-walled adobe, their sacred Blue Lake hidden deep in the wilderness, protected and revered. Sage covers the mesa, and big horn sheep wander freely, unencumbered, untamed. Somewhere in the quiet space between land and sky, another realization surfaces: buffalo will again inhabit this mesa, and eventually all of Turtle Island. The insight carries the weight of a truth resurfacing.
The search to understand this vision leads to knowledge. A book by Steven Rinella, American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, offers history, reverence, and sorrow. It details the buffalo’s long relationship with First Nations, the brutal slaughter that nearly ended the species, and the endurance of both buffalo and the peoples who lived with them for millennia. More reading follows: Tribal traditions, ceremonies, names—tatanka in Lakota; kahn’ehn’na in Tiwa; iinniiwa in Blackfoot; ivanbito in Navajo; Crow, bišée; Apache bi.shish.jik; Comanche
tasiwóo; Nez Perce qoq’a’alx. Names that all sound like thunder from far away.
The historical record reveals the violence plainly. Once—in about 1830—an estimated 30 to 50 million buffalo roamed the western plains. Fifty years later, just a few hundred remained. The devastation was not natural but engineered. As Lieutenant Colonel Richard Dodge said in 1867, “Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone.” Secretary of the
Interior Columbus Delano argued that removing buffalo would force Tribes into confinement. General William Tecumseh Sherman believed destroying the buffalo would break the spirit of the Plains tribes more effectively than any war. These were not personal sentiments—they were U.S. policy.
Though history rarely grants reprieve once such destruction occurs, the buffalo’s continued survival is one of those rare instances.
Today, Yellowstone’s genetically pure bison are transferred to Tribes through an innovative conservation program that replaces slaughter with rematriation, going beyond the mere return of the animals to their traditional habitat to encompass a process of cultural continuity. The Bison Conservation and Transfer Program, in partnership with the National Park Service and Tribal Nations, relocates healthy bison—the scientific name for animals that North America’s Indigenous people typically call buffalo—to Native lands where they can shape ecosystems and restore ancestral relationships. Animals that wander beyond the park’s boundaries—once doomed to be killed—now have a path to a new home. Documentaries illuminate this revival: Homecoming: Buffalo Return to Indigenous Lands; Bring Them Home; Journey of the Bison; and the short film, Iniskim, where Heavy Runner, a young Blackfoot girl recovering from loss, says, “When the buffalo was wiped out, they didn’t just leave the land. They left us. When they disappeared, a storm came and fell on our spirits. A cold that has been here ever since.” These films reveal that restoring buffalo is not only for ecological purposes, but spiritual, cultural, and intergenerational healing.
Plains Tribes historically found more than 150 uses for buffalo—food, clothing, shelter, containers, utensils, tools, fuel. Nothing was wasted. A Blackfoot elder named Ervin explained it simply: “I always talk about how us, as a Tribe, many people being one is the same as buffalo.” Another elder, Helen Augere, said, “They taught us how to live. Now
the question is how we will take care of them.”
One figure appears often in these films: Jason Baldes, an Eastern Shoshone buffalo restoration leader whose life has been shaped by this work. As a young man traveling with his wildlife biologist father in Tanzania and Kenya, he witnessed the wildebeest migration. That vision changed his life. He returned home committed to buffalo restoration, earned degrees in environmental science, and later helped build the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative. His words carry clarity: “To restore buffalo to our communities means we can begin to heal.”
Buffalo culture, he reminds listeners, is matriarchal. Restoration is rematriation—the return of land, responsibility, and knowledge.
In New Mexico, buffalo restoration thrives. Though Puebloans did not follow the buffalo, the animals were part of their culture, as evidenced by the buffalo dance still performed by some pueblos. Currently, at least 12 pueblos participate in the InterTribal Buffalo Council. Taos Pueblo’s herd, rooted in animals gifted in 1929 from the Goodnight lineage, now numbers around 150 and grazes on expansive Pueblo lands. In April 2024, Taos Pueblo received ten young, pure Yellowstone bison—five cows and five bulls. Plans to build a 5,000-acre pasture near the gorge signal a commitment to restoring native grasses and renewing an ancient relationship.
Federal recognition is beginning to align with Tribal leadership. The Indian Buffalo Management Act aims to secure consistent funding for Tribal herds, reflecting a long-overdue understanding that Tribes have always been the rightful stewards of buffalo.
Photographing buffalo at both Wind River and Taos Pueblo reveals something beyond natural beauty. Their silhouettes dissolve against the horizon like beings crossing between eras. They are often called “ghost beings”—not because they are missing, but because they have returned, carrying memory from the edge of disappearance.
One image captures that sentiment perfectly: a solitary figure standing near the Taos Pueblo herd, transfigured by the golden light, appearing almost like a guardian. In that moment, the possibility of 5,000 future kahn’ehn’na roaming the mesa feels not just imaginable, but inevitable.
Across the continent, progress continues. Conservationist Ted Turner manages 50,000 bison across nearly a million acres. The Nature Conservancy oversees more than 6,600 buffalo on 130,000 acres, including the Joseph H. Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Roughly 5,400 wild bison still roam Yellowstone. Private, public, and Tribal herds together total around 400,000
animals—still far from the millions that once grazed the wild lands of North America, yet a testament to resilience.
The buffalo’s return is deeply cultural. It is the rebirth of ceremony, song, and story. Mohawk musician Robbie Robertson captured this in “Ghost Dance,” his 1994 creation honoring Indigenous resistance and the promise of renewal. The song speaks of sky, drums, ancestors, prayer, buffalo—and a future where the return of buffalo signals the return of his people.
Its closing refrain echoes the movement unfolding across the plains and mesas today: “We shall live again.”
From the Spring 2026 issue
