Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

[CRICKETS CHIRPING] TOM CRANN: This is a busy week at Blue Mounds State Park in Southwestern Minnesota near Luverne. The 97 bison in the park have their annual physical. They're pronounced fit.

RACHEL THOMPSON: They're very healthy. We actually have been quite impressed. With the disease surveillance we've done, we've found very few concerns.

TOM CRANN: Veterinarian Rachel Thompson works with the Minnesota Zoo. The zoo and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are partners in an effort to manage the state's bison herd.

Next up is tomorrow's auction. Two dozen Blue Mounds bison go up for sale. It's all part of a plan to expand the herd and preserve the bison gene pool. Here's Dan Olson, with the new episode of Minnesota Sounds and Voices.

DAN OLSON: Blue Mounds gets its name from the rocky spine of Sioux quartzite that slices through this corner of the state. The blue is what people see in the distance as they approach the 100-foot-high mound. Park Manager Chris Ingebretsen says, unlike nearby fields thick with corn and soybeans, the Blue Mounds soil is rocky and thin.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: You really couldn't run a plow through this land. There's rocks just about everywhere in the park, and Rock County, where we are, is named for that.

DAN OLSON: Not great land for farming, but good enough for 6-foot-high stands of bluestem and other prairie grasses that make up most of the diet of the Blue Mounds bison herd. The first three animals came to the park in 1961 from Nebraska. These days, nearly a hundred roam their fenced-in portion of the park. Naturalist Alex Watson works with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He says the ideal number is about 70, since bison need a lot of room to roam.

ALEX WATSON: It's anywhere between 5 and 15 acres per animal.

DAN OLSON: The Blue Mounds bison do well. The calves born each spring weigh in at about 45 pounds. By fall, they're 400 pounds. Park Office Manager Kathy Deuschle says as they grow, the calves are hilarious to watch.

KATHY DEUSCHLE: And it's like "ring around the rosie" and under mom, and you can see them out there just running like crazy and jumping. They don't walk. They sort of jump.

DAN OLSON: Adult bison can jump 5 feet in the air. That's why Blue Mounds fences are nearly 6 feet tall. Park manager Chris Ingebretsen says their top speed is 35 miles an hour. He says they graze as a herd and create a black patch of heads, humps, and tails as they munch their way through the day. Ingebretsen says don't let their placid appearance fool you.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: They're certainly wild bison.

DAN OLSON: You wouldn't go out there strolling amongst them.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: I would not, no. The sign doesn't exist anymore, but I've seen pictures of a sign that was here back in the '50s, and it said something to the effect of, Can you cross a pasture in 10 seconds? Because a bull can do it in 9.

[BISON SNORTING]

DAN OLSON: The wildness of the Blue Mounds bison herd became clear a few years ago. Genetic testing revealed most of the critters carried no cattle genes, and that's unusual. The bid to save bison from extinction began around 1900, and it included crossbreeding wild bison with beef cattle. Geneticists now say that was a mistake. The crossbred animals were smaller and didn't convert prairie grass to energy as efficiently as wild bison. The move underway these days is to preserve and expand North America's wild bison, and it appears to be working.

In 1885, fewer than 500 wild bison remained from the tens of millions that roamed the continent. There are about 500,000 now. Most are in private herds, destined for the dinner table. About 7% are in publicly managed wild herds like the 97 bison at Blue Mounds.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: I'd like everybody to make sure they've got this much arm room.

DAN OLSON: Chris Ingebretsen leads preparations for the roundup, and that includes exercises.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: Chances are you are going to use some muscles that you may not have used in a while, and so we do want to take the opportunity to stretch those out. Start with your hands. Splay your fingers.

DAN OLSON: About three dozen Department of Natural Resources staff and a handful of others stand in a circle to stretch and bend. Then it's off to the corral for the bisons' annual checkup.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: --getting her out to pasture. So you guys ready? Gate's open. Go ahead, Bill.

DAN OLSON: The green metal L-shaped structure is a series of 12 gates. Each leads to chutes. The theory, and it works most of the time, is that the last chute collars the bison and holds it in place. The DNR's Alex Watson says the veterinarians and others then begin a carefully choreographed set of moves.

ALEX WATSON: They're getting blood samples, being branded, having a radio transponder inserted, and being treated for worms or pinkeye.

[BISON SNORTING]

DAN OLSON: The first bison into the chutes is a young male, and he's not amused. He kicks the metal contraption with his sharp hooves and butts the gates with his head and horns. It's a noisy but fairly typical example of how the day goes.

Some bison make less of a ruckus, others more. The entire exam is over in a few minutes. A bit more of workers need to brand a bison.

The goal is to keep the animal's stress low. Exam over, the bison gallop out to a waiting pile of prairie hay. A few pass up the peace offering and head out onto the range.

There's a much larger herd of bison across the road from Blue Mounds State Park. They belong to John Bowron. Park staff regard Bowron as an important source of bison advice. The retired veterinarian has been raising bison for the dinner table for years. He says the animals can be skittish because everyone who approaches is a threat.

JOHN BOWRON: Every one of those strangers is a wolf, a predator.

DAN OLSON: And then there's the bison disposition when encouraged to move.

JOHN BOWRON: They become aggressive. They challenge your authority. The old saying is that you can drive a buffalo anyplace they want to go.

DAN OLSON: For all that, Bowron says bison bear their young with ease and are much less difficult to manage than the cattle used to raise. Bison meat from the Bowron Herd is for sale at the Bluestem Restaurant in Luverne. Owner and Chef Skyler Hoiland buys bison brisket from Bowron to make sliders.

SKYLER HOILAND: We've got the braised brisket that's been in the oven for 10 hours. It's been pulled and also laced with our stout beer, locally brewed in Luverne. It's got ginger-pickled red onions and fresh cilantro on it, kind of just to brighten flavor because that bison is going to be deep and rich and just plain wonderful.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: Once your cow comes here, you're going to want to open them up.

DAN OLSON: The pace of the roundup is slowed by rain. Workers are rotated in and out to gain experience. The DNR's Kathy Dummer is pressed into duty on one of the chute gates. During a break, she says bison have always been part of Minnesota's ecological tapestry.

KATHY DUMMER: You know, big bluestem and prairie fringed orchids and meadowlarks and bison.

DAN OLSON: Dummer says the plan is to someday expand the state's bison herd to 500. That will help restore prairie remnants and let the herd become a teaching tool.

KATHY DUMMER: Creating lifelong stewards and appreciation for ecosystems and landscapes that you might only view on the National Geographic Channel or in the magazine, and that still is part of the great understanding of our world.

CHRIS INGEBRETSEN: Let it go.

[BISON SNORTING]

TOM CRANN: That was Kathy Dummer from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Photos from the bison roundup are online at mprnews.org. And by the way, the two dozen or so bison sold at the Blue Mounds auction tomorrow are expected to bring in as much as $1,500 a head. And Dan Olson is our Minnesota Sounds and Voices reporter.