As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, we’ll see a familiar emblem everywhere — the bald eagle, wings outstretched, symbol of freedom and strength.
But today on National Bison Day, it’s worth asking how many Americans know the story of our other national symbol: the American bison, or as many of us call it, buffalo. The buffalo is our national mammal, and its recovery from the edge of extinction is one of the most remarkable stories in our country’s history.
In numbers estimated at close to 30 million, bison acted as engineers of the American prairie. Their hooves aerated soil, their grazing nurtured diverse plant life, and their presence supported countless species of birds and pollinators. Their habit of wallowing in dust to deter insects created shallow basins that collected rain and sheltered amphibians.
Culturally and spiritually, the buffalo occupied a central place in Native American tribal customs and livelihoods, with their meat and hides providing an enduring source of food, clothing, shelter.
But by the late 1800s, they were nearly gone. Westward expansion, hunting, and government policies aimed at undermining Indigenous communities reduced tens of millions of animals to fewer than a thousand. The destruction seemed complete and, with it, a way of life tied to the land.
Then came one of America’s earliest conservation movements. In 1905, Bronx Zoo Director William Hornaday and President Theodore Roosevelt founded the American Bison Society to bring the species back from the brink.
Within two years, the Bronx Zoo sent 15 bison west by train to the newly created Wichita Reserve in Oklahoma — a symbolic homecoming and a logistical feat for its time. Trains provided by American Express and Wells Fargo carried more than these majestic animals; they carried an idea that the nation had an obligation to repair what it had nearly destroyed.
A century later, the herds had stabilized, but most surviving bison had been crossbred with cattle, diluting the wild genes adapted over millennia for survival on the North American prairie.
In 2005, working with the Intertribal Buffalo Council (ITBC), the National Bison Association (NBA), and other partners, the Wildlife Conservation Society revived the American Bison Society with a broad mission: to restore some of the original genetically hardy bison stock and the species’ ecological and cultural role along with it.
Since then, working with partners like the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes, WCS has helped return genetically pure bison bred at the Bronx Zoo to tribal lands. When six Bronx Zoo-born bison were delivered to the Osage Nation in Oklahoma in 2022, Osage ranchers affectionately called them “the Bronxies.” For the Osage people, their arrival represented an act of healing that linked ecological renewal with cultural survival.
It was that same spirit of unity that came together to make the bison the national mammal of the United States. In 2011, scientists, tribal leaders, and ranchers united to push for federal recognition of the species. What began as a modest idea grew into a bipartisan campaign — “Vote Bison” — that bridged divides from the Bronx to the Great Plains.
I had the privilege of leading the effort to pull together members of Congress of both parties, whose support reflected a recognition that this animal’s story belonged to every American.
The bill’s House champions at the time ranged from the South Bronx Congressman Jose Serrano to South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, who celebrates her state’s annual Buffalo Roundup, and Missouri’s Lacy Clay, who shared with me that one of his ancestors had been a Buffalo Soldier. Senators included North Dakota Republican John Hoeven and New Mexico Democrat Martin Heinrich. A true political mosaic. President Barack Obama signed the National Bison Legacy Act into law in 2016.
That cooperation continues today, as public lands, tribal territories, and private ranches pursue ways to let bison shape the land again while supporting local economies and communities.
As America nears its 250th birthday, the bison offers a fitting lesson. National strength is not only about the challenges we surmount or the progress we build upon; it’s about what we restore. While the eagle, deft in flight and unbounded in its reach, remains an enduring symbol of our loftiest ideals, the bison embodies our grounded ones — resilience, patience, and the possibility of second chances.
This National Bison Day, look to the Bronx to remember the animal that sustained countless peoples, survived destruction, and still shapes the land we share. In its quiet power lies the best of who we have been and who we might yet become.
Calvelli is executive vice president for public affairs at the Wildlife Conservation Society and served as the campaign director for the American Bison Coalition.
