As if they've taken a reverse cue from the ducks and geese flying south for the winter, a couple of hundred bison on Antelope Island in Utah's Great Salt Lake seem to have instinctively grazed their way north, toward corrals they are destined to be herded to anyway for annual checkups.
It's a brisk but blue autumn day, and the isle's 600 to 700 animals are being flushed out of the hills and arroyos by horseriders (the gender-based term "cowboys" is not employed here), then encouraged up-island by four pesky helicopters, which are joined by 10 chase vehicles that sweep downhill, on radio command, to funnel the dark, shaggy beasts along fences and through gates into the holding areas."Looks like `Dances with Suburbans,' " one observer quips.
Antelope Island State Park may employ modern technology, but the rangers and veterinarians are actually trying to maintain a bison population and restore a habitat that emulates the natural world in which the animals once thrived, says Tim Smith, park manager.
The goal, "as the Native Americans say, is to keep the buffalo `buffalo,' " he adds.
In 1997 an American bison, or buffalo, born on Antelope Island has an excellent chance of growing to adulthood, first sipping on mother's milk then dining on plentiful grasses. The mortality rate as a result of disease or weather is extremely low - less than 1 percent per year.
Yet only a century ago, a bison born anywhere in America was part of a species on the brink of extinction - although between 50 million and 60 million are estimated to have roamed the Plains and adjacent regions when Europeans arrived.
"No animal, the Indians said, ever gave so much of itself to people," Alvin S. Josephy Jr. wrote in "500 Nations." "There was almost no part of the buffalo that Plains Indians did not use:
"The tongue and flesh for food; the rawhide for shields, buckets, moccasins, rattles, drums, bullboats, ropes, splints, thongs and containers; the hair for headdresses, ornaments and ropes; the tail for brushes; the horns for cups, fire carriers and ladles; the hooves for glue and rattles; the skull for ceremonies and rituals; the beard for ornamentation; the bladder for sinews, pouches and bags; the muscles for thread, glue and sinews," other portions for tools, utensils and fuel, the hide "for clothing, robes, cradles bags, lodge covers, dolls and a hundred other products."
Bison numbering in the millions were eradicated in less than a half century, "and not by chance but by design of man," Dayton Duncan wrote in "Out West."
Buffalo Bill Cody made a good living providing buffalo meat to railroad crews and wealthy tourists on excursion. Buffalo robes gained popularity. Then, in the 1870s, new tanning technology made buffalo-hide leather useful for everything from machinery belts to home furniture. Hunters, armed with repeating rifles and other modern weaponry, could wipe out whole herds in a day - and Indian-fighters and the government, in the end, considered this good policy.
The buffalo hunters, Gen. Phil Sheridan told the Texas Legislature when proposals were made to preserve the dwindling species, "have done in the last two years, and will do in the next year, more to settle the vexed Indian question than the entire regular army has done in the last thirty years." The hunters were, he said, denying the Indians their commissary. "For the sake of a lasting peace, let them kill, skin and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated. Then your prairies can be covered with speckled cattle and the festive cowboy, who follows the hunter as the second forerunner of an advanced civilization."
By the late 19th century they had just about succeeded. Then conservationists, including Ogden publisher William Glasmann, acted to preserve the Plains buffalo.
In his booklet "History of Antelope Island," Clayton J. Holt tracks down the origins of the Utah herd, sparked by a visit by Glasmann with friends in Texas:
"One day while riding around he saw a herd of buffalo. Thrilled by the sight of these large ugly animals, he inquired and heard this was one of the last herds privately owned by a man named `Buffalo' Jones. On his ranch in Texas, Jones had preserved over a thousand head of buffalo. Obsessed with the thought of buffalo in Utah, Glasmann purchased a carload of 12 and had them billed to Ogden."
The animals - said to be four bulls, four cows and four calves - grazed for two years on the Great Salt Lake's south shore, near Garfield. Glasmann subsequently sold them to White & Sons "upon condition the herd of now 17 be placed on Antelope Island."
The bison were herded along the rivers and shoreline to Farmington, then taken by cattle boat to Antelope Island on Feb. 15, 1893. The craft carrying the buffalo nearly capsized on the way, island histories say. "Two old bulls, Alexander and Napolean, kept fighting and on several occasions nearly upended the boat," Holt writes.
An early state park information sheet adds, "The herd reportedly grew to some 500 head, and in 1922 they had a role in the movie `Covered Wagon.' " By the 1970s, the numbers had diminished, though, to only about 60 animals.
Today's Antelope Island herd ranges in number from 550 to 700.
"What's little known," says Smith, "is that this is the third-largest publicly owned herd in the United States," following only those found in Yellowstone National Park and South Dakota's Custer State Park. Far more animals - some 235,000 - are in private ownership, mostly on ranches.
One purpose of the annual roundup is to keep the population down to a sustainable level for grazing on the island's grasslands, for the benefit of the buffalo and other wildlife. Since 1987, the bison have also been vaccinated for tuberculosis and brucellosis, the latter a disease that ranchers are concerned can be communicated to cattle.
"We don't have that here," Smith says. "We have a brucellosis-free herd in a brucellosis-free state."
The vaccination lasts a lifetime, so a principal roundup target is the calves, from 4 to 14 months old, born primarily between March and May each year. Last year, Smith said, some 60 percent of the 200 eligible cows had calves.
Since the herd can grow quickly, the park tries to approach and maintain an ideal 1-bull-to-2-cows ratio. In addition to natural mortality on the range, the managers do random culling. Some 150 to 200 animals are sold each year, mostly to ranches, balancing the year's calving. In December a limited hunt will be held, with a total of six permits.
"Buffalo can live between 20 and 40 years in the wild," Smith says, but the sell-down and culling means there are few old animals on Antelope Island. "The average is 9 years old here."
To maintain the genetic health of the herd, five bulls are bought and brought in from outside. That century of unmanaged isolation and the low numbers were "just a recipe for poor genetics," Smith says, though no problems have been detected.
In addition, the park is reseeding to restore native grasses, most of which were snuffed out by wildfires and a century of ranching on the island.
Cheatgrass, an import from Eurasia, has taken over the island's lowlands, as is the case throughout the Great Basin, Smith says. Native species like blue bunch grass and sand drop seed grass survived on the mountain slopes, "primarily because cows and sheep did not like to graze those high, steep areas," Smith says.
The native grasses are preferable for several reasons, he says: They are nutritionally better for the bison and other animals; they don't dry out as severely as cheatgrass, "which is a tinder-dry hazard in the July and August thunderstorm season"; and, of course, they reflect the island's natural history.
The range managers can reseed after wildfires, use prescribed burns or mow the existing grasses before they seed. But the best option seems to be to methodically plow the areas to be improved every three months during a two-year span, killing the plants and the seeds as they germinate, then replanting with the native species early in the subsequent growing season - February seems to work best, Smith says.
The rangeland is vital to the island's herd, for the managers do not augment the feed for the bison with hay or other food.
"They're on their own," he says - part of effort to keep the buffalo "buffalo."
`Chopper 1 to command. What's the ETA on that other chopper?"
"10-4, that chopper is on the way."
The annual roundup is under way. An unusual number of the bison are already nearby. The weather is cool.
"This is perfect for us," says Dave Morrow, assistant director, Utah Division of Parks and Recreation, who is driving one of the chase vehicles. The ground is dry; snow lays like icing on the nearby Oquirrh Mountains but did not fall on Antelope Island, so horse riders and vehicles will be able to maneuver with relative ease. And the bison, in a carefully paced stampede of sorts, will not overheat on a cool day.
Except for scattered incidents, this day's roundup will prove a piece of cake.
"The first couple of years it was really wild," Morrow says. "We were learning what to do, and the buffalo were adjusting to it."
Suburbans and Broncos line up - echoing a thousand movie images of Indians on a ridge. The whirlybirds encourage herds of bison along, first from the east side of the island, later from the west. Occasionally, noses red, mouths open and tongues lolling, the creatures are given a chance to rest up. When the chase vehicles kick into gear, they become the wranglers, moving left and right and stopping and accelerating as needed, creating a mobile fence to discourage those buffalo trying to turn around. Nevertheless, a few get through the porous line and have to be chased back by trucks and choppers.
Usually all of this works; sometimes it doesn't. During an afternoon roundup, all of the animals but one move through the fences properly. This maverick holds back - way back. Suburbans pen the weary but stubborn bison against a fence and 'copters hover. A couple of vehicles have police lights flashing.
It all looks rather odd: A standoff from "Kojak on the Range" or "NYPD Moo."
The island's upland habitat is home to a variety of other large mammals. Morrow says this includes deer, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep introduced earlier this year and a single elk (the state brought in 17, "but only one stayed"). The island also has the largest concentration of shore birds - white pelicans, avocets, grebes and others - in the United States.
The bison, however, are - as Tim Smith says - "the star of the show" on Antelope Island.
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Additional Information
Antelope Island Factoids
Antelope Island herd: 550 to 700 animals
Average cow weight: 700 to 900 pounds
Average bull weight: 1,000 to 1,200 pounds
Bull to cow ratio: 1 bull:2 cows
Gestation period: 9 months
Breeding season: July through August
Calving season: April through June, approximately 90 to 120 calves per year on Antelope Island
Birth weight: 25 to 40 pounds. Weaned from mother at 250 pounds, 5 to 6 months