A new two-part PBS series by the acclaimed documentary maker tells the story of the animal in American history
Ken Burns says he has been thinking about the American buffalo all of his life: “It may be the most important mammal in the history of the United States.” He explains that this “magnificent” yet beleaguered animal, which roamed the Great Plains in the tens of millions less than 200 years ago, has often stalked the background of his films—figuratively and literally—during his career as a documentarian of Americana.
On one hand there were indigenous peoples who spent hundreds of generations both revering the animal and relying on its meat, bones and hides for sustenance, making them inextricably connected. “We are brothers. We are related,” the contemporary Kiowa poet N. Scott Momaday says in the film.Then there were the continent’s European newcomers who believed in their dominion over lesser animals.
When it became clear that the country might lose an iconic native species, some Americans rushed to protect dwindling survivors in zoos and private herds. Breeding operations and efforts to preserve hunting also helped, as did belated legislation, and the numbers of bison began to climb back up.There are now nearly 450,000 bison in conservation and commercial herds in the country, and in 2016 a federal law named the American bison the national mammal of the U.S.
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