Excerpt from The Myth of Human Supremacy

Buffalo Field Campaign (p. 279)

From chapter "The Sociopocene"

I recently did a benefit for the Buffalo Field Campaign, a great organization trying to protect the last free-ranging herd of genetically pure bison in the United States, in Yellowstone National Park. In order to serve the financial interests of a few cattle ranchers, the Montana Department of Livestock and the United States Park Service shoot hundreds of these bison each year, and otherwise manage them to death. Buffalo Field Campaign is the first, and often last, line of defense against this management murder. Mike Mease is BFC’s co-founder, and has been doing this work for seventeen years. He’s a force of nature.

We were chatting after the benefit, and he said something that ties directly into this book. The Park Service had orphaned a bison calf, and removed it from the herd. Mike asked the Ranger, now that the calf had been separated from his family, who was going to teach the calf how to become a bison. The Ranger said, “I will.”

This is everything I’m talking about in this book in two small words. He knows how to teach this child to become an adult bison. Of course. Good luck teaching him how to deal with other males during rut.