In the vast expanse of the Great Plains, there once thundered a mighty presence, the buffalo.

When explorers first set foot on the untamed frontier, they were all struck by a majestic sea of 30 million bison roaming free.

Their thundering hooves shaking the ground beneath them.

By 1900, only 1000 remained in the entire country.

The 20th century marked a significant turning point for the buffalo.

Conservationists, ranchers, showmen and oilmen began to see the importance of the bison to the American West.

They were bred, protected and brought back from the brink of extinction.

Today, their descendants live on.

Thanks to the protection of native tribes, philanthropists and federal preserves.

Oklahoma is where the buffalo roam.

For uncounted ages, a dull roar swept across the plains like rolling thunder buffalo herds so vast they blackened the prairie and moved in herds that covered three states.

To the people living on the plains, they were both the source of sustenance and held a profound significance in their spiritual lives.

Native tribes depended upon this one majestic creature for food, clothing, weapons and shelter.

The bison reigned supreme over the vast American landscape from the Ohio River Valley to the rugged expanse of the Rocky Mountains from central Canada south to Mexico.

To the Indians, they numbered more than the stars, and they stood as the beating heart of the universe itself until one day... they were gone.

European expansion, settlers and railroads exterminated the buffalo.

Hunters, driven by greed, piled the remains of these noble creatures higher than the tallest trees or abandoned their hulking carcasses to wither in the unforgiving sun.

William Hornaday was a taxidermist turned conservationist.

In 1889, he conducted a census of living bison and found that only 1091 remained in the entire world, mostly in private herds.

He saw the plains littered with bones and carcasses and resolved to save the bison.

As the first director of the New York Zoological Gardens, now called the Bronx Zoo.

Hornaday began gathering as many bison as possible with the goal of repopulating them in the West.

The bison herd here at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge started in 1907.

They were the bison that were established here on the refuge, came from, of all places, the Bronx Zoo in New York City.

They put them on train cars and they trekked them across the country.

15 bison served as the seed stock for the foundation and herd here on the refuge.

When they arrived in 1907, all 300 residents of the neighboring town of Cache came out to greet them at the station, as did a few members of the Comanche Nation.

It was Teddy Roosevelt and some of those early conservationists that wanted to, you know, saw what was happening to not only bison but other wildlife species and wanted to try to preserve and conserve what was left of what used to be, you know, massive herds.

Dan McDonald is a wildlife biologist at the refuge.

He and a small group of biologists keep a constant eye on the herd.

We currently have about 600 bison.

That does not include the number of calves that will be produced this year.

Most of the calves have already been born.

We'll typically have between 120 and 150 calves born each year.

The refuge is 59,020 acres and they have free range across the entire refuge.

We have a big game, high fence around the entire boundary of the refuge.

And so they're free to roam wherever they like to go.

You know, there's a lot of mountains and rugged places that they typically don't get into very much.

But they're free to roam anywhere they want.

We don't have to supplementally feed or provide anything for the bison here on the refuge.

The refuge is large.

We have a lot of grass out here, but we only have enough grass to support a certain number of animals.

Some of the genetics research that been done recommend 1000 to 2000 animals within a herd to not lose your genetic diversity.

We have about 600 bison here on the refuge, not including whatever calves are born today.

So our herd is not large enough to genetically, you know, not lose diversity over time.

Periodically, animals from the refuge are traded to herds in other states to increase the genetic diversity.

The more common genetics or animals that are more highly related to everyone else in the herd, maybe a surplus.

Those animals that are surplus get donated to tribes as part of our management of these animals here on the refuge The bison are a popular draw to tourists.

It's estimated that over 2 million people visit the refuge every year.

They're just interested in seeing them, you know, that not very many opportunities, especially in this part of Oklahoma or the country, to be able to see, you know, bison walking across the grasslands and and to be able to have them as close sometimes as a lot of these animals sometimes are right out into the public view and get great opportunities to get some good photography and some pretty pictures, especially with the landscape that looks like this.

Prairie dogs, longhorn, white-tailed deer.

Really good diversity of birds, reptiles, the, eastern collared lizard.

Folks will see those brilliantly colored this time of year.

Plant diversity that is phenomenal and just a wide array of plant and animal life out here.

And so lots of visitors, lots of traffic.

Sometimes there's conflicts with, you know, bison and the traffic.

Bison are wild animals, and we do not advise people to get as close as they can to get a selfie or to, you know, get really close pictures.

They are definitely not cows.

They are very fast, a lot faster than most people are going to be able to run.

And so if they decide to turn on you, it's not going to end well for you.

Of all the things that I do every day, waking up every day knowing in the morning that I get to go feed the bison and the longhorn, it's and I've been doing it for over 40 years.

Everybody knows that's my favorite thing to do.

Ronnie Brown runs the Pawnee Bill House and Museum in Pawnee, Oklahoma.

It's also a working bison ranch.

They started the herd 113 years ago, when May Lillie, Pawnee Bill's sharpshooting wife in the Wild West Show, announced that she had had enough of Buffalo Bill Cody's drinking and womanizing.

When Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill joined forces and created the two Bill'’’s show, she refused to go on tour with him.

She refused.

And so she did not.

She stayed here in Pawnee and became the first woman to run a bison ranch.

And so they built their ranch.

And at the time, it was over 2000 acres.

And so she came back and managed this ranch.

And at the time, they had one of the largest privately owned bison herds in the world.

She becomes known as the Queen of the Bison ranch.

She's one of the only woman in the world known to have run a bison ranch by herself.

And they had about 300 head of bison that lived here on the property during her lifetime.

A lot of people don't know this, but Pawnee Bill, along with a US congressman at the time that lived here in Pawnee, Oklahoma, They got together, and the two of them petitioned and wrote letters to the US government to take action to finally protect this animal from extinction.

And it finally worked.

And they established the first US game preserve which was built in Lawton, Oklahoma.

Man or woman then and now.

Caring for the herd is a unique challenge.

Today they were pretty feisty.

I don't know.

Spring is in the air.

And so, yeah, they were really extra hungry today.

They're the largest land mammal of North America.

Their bulls can get anywhere from 2500 to over 3,000 pounds.

The females can get up to 18, 19, some over 2,000 pounds.

And so for for being the largest land mammal of North America, they can run and jump like deer.

If they're full of green grass and full of feed and hay they're happy as can be.

You know, they will respect a fence, but they do require, you know, at least a six foot tall fence.

I had a cow just clear jump, no running start, just ten feet.

Okay, I'm out of here.

Jumps, lands on that top rail of the pen and rocks back and forth.

And lucky for me, she fell back in the pen.

Ah, that would have been a bad day because I would have had to catch her again.

People do enjoy seeing that when we do feed them and they can see them right on the road.

But yeah, the longhorn will get out of the way of the buffalo.

But, but there's plenty, there's plenty for all.

Today, people from all over the world come to see the buffalo just as they have from the very beginning.

Lots of people would visit the buffalo ranch and come out even Buffalo Bill, you know Will Rogers, Frank Phillips, several people would come to the ranch.

At his country retreat outside Bartlesville, Oklahoma, called Woolaroc, Frank Phillips, the founder of Phillips Petroleum, collected a bison herd of his own.

It was around 1926 that Frank had decided that he wanted to bring bison to Woolaroc as he was building out this property to entertain his vast network as he built his oil empire.

Frank hosted celebrities, US presidents like Hoover and politicians and bankers and even outlaws out here.

You know, Frank made sure that he had friends in high and low places.

Guests at Wollaroc would hunt and fish, sit on the porch and enjoy the view or play high stakes poker in the lodge.

A majority of the heads that are on the wall here in the lodge actually did roam the property at one point and they died of natural causes out here.

Frank was also very good friends with John Ringling North and John Ringling North provided some of them as well from his circus.

Elliott Roosevelt, the son of FDR, he came out to Woolaroc.

And he wanted to shoot a bison.

So Frank arranged just that.

So they got Elliott in range.

It was an easy shot.

He missed the first.

He missed the second.

He gets back to dinner at the lodge in the evening.

He's mortified.

He's embarrassed.

Frank burst out laughing.

He's nearly crying and lets Elliott know, indeed, that he did load that gun with blanks.

He wasn't just a poor shot.

So that's one of the many stories.

Frank was quite a prankster.

Today, visitors are greeted to the all inspiring sight of majestic buffalo and a diverse array of 30 native and exotic wildlife species grazing the scenic two mile stretch of winding road that leads to the house and museum.

The mission of our organization is to preserve the history of the West, to educate and to entertain.

And the bison roaming wild on our property is a great way that we achieve that.

Not far from Woolaroc is the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and the largest buffalo herd in the state.

In the autumn of 1993, 300 bison were brought to 5000 acres of pristine landscape by the Oklahoma chapter of the Nature Conservancy, igniting a harmonious dance between nature's beauty and the power of the wild.

In 2008, the herd grew to 2700 head reigning over 23,000 acres.

About 20,000 visitors tour the tallgrass prairie each year.

Several tribes in Oklahoma preserve herds of their own.

In Concho, the Cheyenne and Arapaho are two of the 57 tribes that are bringing the bison back.

We started out with a small herd about ten years ago, and over the years, we've had donations from other groups.

And so throughout the years where our herds become bigger and bigger until we've got a really nice herd here.

Up to about two months ago, I believe it was almost over 800.

As far as the management part of it is totally different than cattle, basically, you know, the handling of the animals is going to be totally different.

We use a very low stress, low, low key handling of the animals.

We try to keep them as calm and as pliable as we can.

It takes a full time staff to manage the herd, and when it gets too big, they can trade or sell a few to other tribes.

Had about eight, like I said, 800 of them last year here.

And then that's where we're trying to separate them.

We've got about 270 out here now on this side, and we've got about 200 yearlings on the other side.

We worked them, they got their medicine, uh, they got less, less animals to compete with.

And there's more food.

And it's just a good time for them all around.

Right now we got a little good a little break with everything being green, we don't have to feed so much.

But in the wintertime we'd load up a semi-truck and get square bales get to feed them, take about a good 2 hours to get all the herd fed, and then we'll drop them the cake with the pellets, with the all the good nutrients inside there.

I'’’ve seen them in negative ten degrees, just, you know, grazing away.

A foot of snow on the ground, and you know, they're still grazing.

In the wintertime, we're checking them daily.

In the summer, they're checking the health of the animals at least every other day.

Somebody in the herd at least every other day.

So yeah, more or less every day.

Um, right now is a pretty, pretty lenient time.

We're right in the middle of calving.

Um, so we try to give them their space, and that way you're not stressing them.

In the summer it's rutting season and the bulls fight for dominance.

They're very, very protective, very elusive to predators, to people.

They know how to take care of the babies.

A lot of them have a personality.

Some of them are social.

Some of them you'll find out here by themselves.

Some of them are a little bit broncy, you might say.

A lot of them become quite tame.

Out of the entire herd, one calf caught the attention of many in the tribe with his playful spirit.

His name is Kiefer.

He's our orphan.

A couple of years ago, Mama, I guess maybe didn't want him or she kind of just kind of got pushed away or might have been too cold because that's when the Arctic blast came through a couple of years ago, and it kind of separated.

Maybe that's what we're thinking.

Separated them.

And there was a calf on his own for a few days and kept getting calls.

So we went out and picked them up and start bottle feeding them.

And he's just been with us ever since.

Everybody knows him within the tribe And there's a few ladies or tribal members that just kind of, you know, "This is my buffalo" kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, we can hand feed him now and he'll come up and he just like I say, he knows when it's feeding time or tour time he'll come up and he knows he's got his bucket and he'll sit around and just enjoy I guess.

The great bison herds of old were exterminated before any scientific study could be conducted in the wild.

We utilize Texas A&M, Oklahoma State and any resource we can to reach out to, to gain knowledge on how to take care of these animals the best we can because there's not a lot of research being done.

It's a very small amount of research being done commercially for vaccines, for any, any type of, you know, pharmaceutical products.

There's no FDA labeling that is geared toward bison.

Even though the tribes don't depend on the buffalo like their ancestors did, there is still a strong spiritual connection to them.

When we came onto the plains, we were given a covenant and the creator gave us a covenant.

Our people, the Cheyenne's to the buffalo.

Buffalo allowed us to survive on the plains.

They were our primary source of food, shelter, clothing, weapons, tools.

We got all of that off of the buffalo.

And when a buffalo was butchered, nothing was wasted.

Working with the buffalo every day, wranglers notice behaviors that speak to the inner soul of the creatures.

When one of the members of the herd dies, whether it be a bull, cow or calf.

We've seen where the herd would gather around the dead and begin to make these vocalizations for long periods of time.

And we've even seen them circle the dead like they were paying some kind of homage or doing a ceremony to the dead.

And my people, we emulate that when we bury one of ours, when we bury one of our relatives or our loved ones, we gather around the grave and we sing songs.

And we were there for a long time.

And just like the buffaloes hate to leave their dead, we hate to leave ours.

And so in a lot of ways, our connection is the same.

We have the same love and compassion for each other as the herd has for each other.

We see this animal as sacred.

They, just like us, have went through a struggle of survival, and they were right alongside of us during that struggle.

So it's pretty cool that we can have these animals and help them survive the way that they took care of us on the plains when we were going through the same thing.

Diabetes and heart disease are an enormous problem for Native Americans.

21 years ago, the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes started a diabetes wellness program, and at the center of the program is a return to bison.

It's one of our most popular aspects of the diabetes wellness program, mainly because it's a food item, obviously, and it's one of our healthy choices for the not just the diabetic, but for our elders.

You bring in your tribal I.D.

and your proof of residency.

As long as you live within the service area, you can just come in and fill out the application that's pretty much it.

Every three months you can come up and receive your buffalo.

We have 360 diabetic clients and not all of them come up for buffalo.

And we also have our at risk clients that come in which are our elderly.

So each one of our clients every three months can receive 6 pounds of meat.

So there's 3 to 4 pound roast we have.

We also have 1 pound of ground.

So what I would do is this is about 6 pounds.

So they would receive this.

We also have dietary information with cooking tips.

Buffalo is always important to cook it low and slow.

We also send a recipe and we've got a recipe book also.

We've got another program with fruits and vegetables.

And each client every other month gets 2 pounds of buffalo meat.

So we would add it to a box with our fruits and vegetables.

It's part of one of our, not just the traditional diet, but it still holds true now like it did then.

They like the fact that it's something that we used to eat, definitely.

And, one, they don't have to pay for it too, they like that.

It's more healthy for them, it's more lean, it's not so fatty and they like being able to cook it over a long period of time at a lower heat.

Now the buffalo is a powerful incentive to take part in an overall health program.

The exercise program, there's our fitness center here we have Marcus, who's our fitness instructor.

We have Kyle and we have Esther, who can give them a workout, sitting down workouts.

We have a shoe program which are for the diabetics.

They come in twice a year for that every six months, and they have to see the doctor, so they have to go in and get their foot exam.

They bring up a script and they get Nike walking shoes.

The shoe program, the glasses, the fitness center, the buffalo meat program, our good health and wellness program.

It's one of the models for several diabetes programs here in the state of Oklahoma.

When members of the tribe stop at the new food pantry, a large portion of buffalo meat is included in every box.

Food pantry, basically, just to help people in need.

You know, it's hard for them to really make ends to get the groceries that they need to have, provide for their household.

So this is where we step in.

We service about 500 clients a month.

We have a site in Watonga, a site in Clinton.

And then we also do outreach events throughout the state.

Our clients are able to come in and actually choose if they would like some ground bison meat or ground bison stew meat with other options as well.

It really helps our native people, and I'm glad we have it.

The food is healthy and provides, you know, nutrition for all the families.

You know, there's a lot of people in the world that are starving that, I think they should help with programs like this.

My family, they love it.

Yeah, it's good.

Make Indian tacos.

Meat pies.

I think the future would be about expanding our services to open a new facility in Oklahoma City and to be able to include more talent within our outreach program.

Right now, we just do once every three months for tribal members.

But if there's a time of need that comes in between there, we're always open to help them out.

More tribes and organizations are looking to expand their own herds, ensuring that the great American bison will grace the plains for generations to come.

It's survived through all the years, that's how our ancestors, that's what they survived on.

They're majestic, they're powerful, and they represent a previous era in our country that I think is nostalgic for so many.

It's the national mammal of the United States.

It's the state mammal of Oklahoma.

I can't tell you how many people have come from Europe or Asia.

And how sad would it be if they couldn't come to America and see an icon as the great American bison?

Like the story of the phoenix rising from the ashes of its former self.

The American bison has come back from the brink of annihilation, protected by the tender hands of passionate stewards, the buffalo have triumphantly begun to reclaim their ancestral ranges once more, casting their formidable shadow upon the Great Plains, where the buffalo roam.