The Euchee Butterfly Farm in Bixby held an intertribal conference Wednesday and Thursday to help bring bison back to Native land.
The conference, Bison and Blooms, aims to help Native communities learn the best food and land management techniques for the grass-munching mammals. Farm Director Jane Breckenridge said there’s a symbiotic relationship between the bison, tribes and land.
“When the buffalo are strong, the tribes are strong and the lands are healthy. It’s all connected,” Breckenridge said.
This symbiotic relationship can be good for prairie dogs protected by the buffalo from wolves. Many amphibians and reptiles also live in grass flattened by bison.
Scientist and member of the Standing Rock Tribe Joseph Gazing Wolf said the 2,000-pound mammals are even better for the prairie than cattle.
“The buffalo just have a natural instinct to move around in a way that’s not destructive to the prairie. Because obviously, if they had moved around let’s say like cattle do. Where they stay in one place, overgraze and completely destroy the soil if they’re not moved,” Gazing Wolf said. “If buffalo had lived that way, they would have just gone extinct.”
Bison populations were intentionally destroyed by white settlers looking to claim land, as buffalo were a main source of food for Native Americans.
The Euchee Butterfly Farm is trying to help build up native populations of many prairie species. Their previous work includes helping to increase the monarch butterfly population.
