“Nititawahsi” is the Blackfeet name for our land—the land where the iinnii (buffalo) live. Our people are Niitawahsin-nanni: the people of the land where the iinnii live.

As colonizers moved west, millions of buffalo were killed and brought to the edge of extinction. Millions more Native peoples were murdered, displaced, and forced to assimilate. By the end of the 19th century, only 300 buffalo were left in the wild and Native populations dropped to less than 300,000.

Now, after more than 150 years, iinnii have finally returned to their homeland, the Amskapi Pikuni (Blackfeet Nation) tribal lands, to roam free.

On June 26, 49 iinnii were released into the wild at the base of our sacred Ninaistako (Chief Mountain), a strong miistaaki (mountain) that stands tall like the warbonnets of Blackfeet warriors. This miistaaki towers along the border of the Blackfeet Nation, Glacier National Park in Montana, and Waterton National Park in Canada.

Our people, the Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) always believed the land we came from was a gift of the Creator, Ihtsi-pai-tapi-yopa. Our stories tell us that iinnii was created as a gift for our people as our life source. The iinnii were and still are our staff of life.  

The Bison Returns to the Great American Plains - Richard Conniff, Smithsonian Magazine

“On a practical level, the relocation program of Bison from Yellowstone to the plains, is simply a way to keep the Yellowstone population in check. But it is also much more than that. The move begins to restore wild bison to the Great Plains and the Plains Indians, who depended on them for food, clothing and shelter. “It has a real spiritual meaning for us,” says Magnan. “The buffalo were taking care of Native Americans from the beginning of time, and now we need to help them.” The fates of indigenous people and bison have long been intertwined in the eyes of the government, too: Federal agents 150 years ago proposed exercising control over the Plains Indians by eradicating the bison, in what Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman called “one grand sweep of them all.”

Wild America

A new study shows the surprising places where animals would be living if we weren’t here

If we hadn’t been so busy hunting animals and destroying their habitats, where would they be living today? Biologists in Sweden and Denmark take aim at that question. Their innovative new database estimates the “present natural” ranges of all 5,831 mammals known to exist in the last 130,000 years. Most “current” ranges are smaller, but not all. Here, some notable changes in the Lower 48.

Color Key: Gray represents Current Range. Yellow represents Present Natural Range.

“The European Bison nearly didn't make it. In the first world war, German soldiers killed 600 bison leaving only 9 left in one of the 2 very small populations.

After being declared extinct in the wild by 1927, due to sustained pressures and persecution from man, eventually there were only 50 Bison left in zoos. It was only the work of breeding projects and the release of two Bison into the wild in 1952, that ensured they did not go completely extinct.” - Leave Curious

Rewilding UK | Back from the Brink

In the past, the UK was full of wilderness. It was home to brown bears, lynx and wolves, all of which are now extinct in the country. Instead, around 70% of the UK’s land area is currently used for agriculture, which has decimated large parts of the ecosystem. Is the UK’s land area being used effectively? And, on an island so overpopulated by humans, might it be possible for a huge rewilding movement to restore those lost ecosystems? We follow rewilding initiatives across the UK to learn how various approaches to rewilding the British Isles work, and find out whether there could soon be wolves in the Scottish Highlands again. - Terra Mater

Yellowstone National Park

“Yellowstone became a national park by act of Congress and signature of President U.S. Grant in 1872, setting the pattern for similar significant set-asides the world over. Exploiters still wanted to develop it for financial gain, so the U.S. Army was given the mission of protecting it, serving as model for today’s national park rangers.

This is one of the places where bison—now 4,000 here—were brought back after indiscriminate killing reduced them from an estimated 60 million, most numerous hoofed animal the world has known, to a scattered few.” - Worldwide Safari Guide

Wood Buffalo National Park

“Wood Buffalo, largest park in Canada and one of the largest in the world (17,295 square miles/44,807 km2), was created in 1922 to protect one of the world’s last free-roaming herds of wood bison which now numbers some 2,500. Its subarctic wilderness of boreal forest, sand dunes, shallow lakes, marshes, and meandering tree-lined streams contains the largest undisturbed grass and sedge meadows in North America.”

- Worldwide Safari Guide