International students get acquainted with the national mammal

Thursday, November 14, 2019
Responding to the rattle of range cubes in plastic buckets, Darrell Meister's bison herd lopes through tall native grasses and up gullies near Red Willow Lake to mingle near McCook Community College international students gathered near a massive gate and six-strand electric fence. Meister's one-ton bull, named "MacIntosh," a second bull named "Jonathan" and their heifers, cows and calves posed for pictures that students surely sent home — to Montenegro, Puerto Rico, Australia, Spain, Italy, Bolivia, England, Turkey and Germany.
Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Gazette

McCOOK, Neb. — Members of McCook Community College's international club experienced a truly "American experience" Sunday afternoon when they visited Darrell Meister's herd of American bison pasturing north of McCook.

No one in the club had ever seen an American bison "up-close and personal" until Sunday when Meister and his herd of 31 animals hosted "show-n-tell" in tall grass pastures near Red Willow Lake.

All of the students are student-athletes recruited to play their respective sports. Meister told them that the bison are truly athletic as well, being able to jump horizontally up to 12 feet and vertically — from a flat-footed stance — up to six feet. They're agile and quick, he said. Even the huge bulls are clocked at 35 miles-an-hour. "On foot, you're never going to outrun a bison who's been ticked off," Meister assured the students standing outside the fence, listening to the pig-grunts of contented bison eating.

Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Gazette

Meister told students to watch an animal's tail. If it's standing straight up, he/she may be ready to charge. If the whole herds' tails are standing at attention, everyone had better head for cover, now, Meister said.

While the students were fascinated by the big beasts already wearing their shaggy winter coats, the fact that pioneers used their dung for fuel perplexed many of them. "Was ist 'dung'?" one of them asked, stepping around a pile of it on the pasture.

Meister said that by the late 1880's, 30-60 million bison had been reduced to just thousands by over-hunting (by non-Native Americans), by misguided government and military policies on the settlement of mid-western lands and by recreational and commercial hunting. Many of those bison remaining, he said, were exploited by wild west showmen interested in the animals' entertainment and "shock" value, not in preserving or restoring bison populations.

Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Gazette

At the turn of the 20th century and just after it, some historians estimate there were only 2,108 bison in North America (in both Canada and the United States). There were only 151 animals in U. S. public herds.

The American Bison Society and National Bison Society started spearheading efforts to relocate and redistribute animals and herds to free-range on American reserves and in national parks.

Yellowstone Park is the only place in the U.S. where bison have lived continuously since prehistoric times, making them pure descendants (free of cattle genes) of early bison. As of July 2015, the Yellowstone herd numbered 4,900, the largest bison population on public lands. Individual ranchers started taking up the challenge and began to build their own herds. By the end of the 1990's, there were at least 250,000 bison in private herds.

Connie Jo Discoe/McCook Gazette

American television mogul Ted Turner has 51,000 bison on 15 ranches, making his the largest private herd in the world.

Meister started his herd in 2016 with seven animals — one bull and six cows and heifers. His herd now numbers 31, with two bulls.

U.S. fish and wildlife officials feel that, while bison numbers today are nowhere near their peak population in the millions, today's 500,000 bison are enough to ensure the continued well-being of the American bison for generations to come.

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Conservationists and naturalists in the 20th Century realized the value of protecting America's native wild lands and restoring bison numbers.

As a 24-year-old man, hunter and outdoorsman Teddy Roosevelt developed a fascination with the American bison and is reported to have danced enthusiastically around his first bison kill in 1883.

By the time of his second bison hunt, in 1889, conservationist Teddy Roosevelt experienced the dwindling of his enthusiasm over killing bison. In his journal he wrote that, in watching a herd of bison, he experienced a "half-melancholy feeling." He wrote, "Few indeed are the men who now have or evermore shall have, the chance of seeing the mightiest of American beasts, in all his wild vigor, surrounded by the tremendous desolation of his far-off mountain home."

By 1905, Roosevelt was named honorary president of the new American Bison Society. As U.S. President, he prioritized conservation in general and the protection and restoration of bison in particular.

Starting in 1907, Pres. Roosevelt supported the ABS's relocation of bison from the Bronx (breeding) Zoo to the west in an effort to repopulate bison on the American plains. The first three "relocations" were at Wichita Mountains Reserve, Wind Cave National Park and the National Bison Range.

Over the years since then, the number of wild American bison on 6,000-or-so federal, Tribal, state and private lands has grown to about 500,000. Historians and bison ranchers believe the restoration of the American bison from near-complete extinction is one of the greatest conservation success stories of all time.

In May of 2016, the American bison was named the "National Mammal." The first Saturday in November (near Teddy Roosevelt's birthday of Oct. 27, in 1858) is recognized as "National Bison Day."

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MCC's international club missed National Bison Day, Nov. 2, by mere days, visiting Meister's herd on Nov. 11.

Club members who visited the herd are:

Alice Midiri of Italy, she plays softball; club co-president Nikki Cross,women’s basketball, from Australia; club co-president Achock Gumwel, women’s basketball, from Australia; Paula Rosello, women’s basketball, from Spain; Carla Torrubia, women’s basketball, from Spain.

Boris Mugosa, men’s basketball, from Montenegro; Kerem Karabacak, men’s basketball, from Turkey; Melanie Fye, softball, from Colorado; Jayden Bastow, baseball, from Australia.

Jaiden Holly, baseball, from Australia; club president Kedric Tufton, paramedic student, from Colorado; Fernanda Canedo, volleyball, from Bolivia.

Niamh Kelshaw, women’s basketball, from England; Efrain Ruiz, baseball from Puerto Rico; and Deniz Sari, golf, from Germany

Club advisors are Shannon Corder and Lisa Beans.

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