Kellogg Foundation Network Teaches Indians to Raise Buffalo

American Indian College Fund
Friday, 1 January 1999

The students were three men and two women, all members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D. Last spring, they enrolled in a new, pilot course at the tribe's college. The class was so unique, the professor said, it was the best taught in the prairie. Some of its textbooks, she said, were not written but oral--traditional stories told by tribal elders. The course was called "Tatanka Management"-- Bison Management.

"This was our first semester," said Trudy Ecoffey, the Oglala Lakota College professor. "A lot of Native people are trying to figure out a way to bring bison back into the landscape."

The Oglala college is part of the Northern Plains Bison Education Network--a group of nine member tribal colleges collaborating to develop bison courses on Indian reservations. These schools are located mostly on rural reservations on the upper Great Plains, a wide area once inhabited by millions of bison.

Northern Plains Bison Education Network

1. Cankdeska Cikana Community College
2. Cheyenne River Community College
3. Fort Berthold Community College
4. Little Priest Tribal College
5. Oglala Lakota College
6. Sinte Gleska University
7. Sisseton Wahpeton Community College
8. Sitting Bull College
9. United Tribes Technical College

Although once nearly extinct, America's bison population today is estimated at 200,000 or more. Educators say programs involving buffalo--which Indian people traditionally rely upon for food, shelter and religious beliefs-are ideal for tribal colleges serving the academic and cultural needs of Native students.

"More tribal colleges are offering courses," said Louis LaRose, the network director, a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. "We believe we can help give Indian people all the cultural and academic tools to make buffalo restoration successful on Indian reservations."

Each tribal college is developing curriculum--including courses in agriculture, range management, prairie restoration and nutrition--which the network's schools will share, LaRose said. And one day, the colleges hope to lead national buffalo research efforts. The project is funded by a four-year $650,000 grant by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation as part of the Foundation's Native American Higher Education Initiative.

For Native Americans, the bison network is a unique collaborative effort for how it shares resources among colleges in three different states, developers say. To date, the initiative has sponsored workshops for instructors and students and is working with a cooperative of 47 Indian tribes already raising buffalo herds around the country. (Indians control an estimated 10,000 buffalo nationally, according to the InterTribal Bison Cooperative).

At Oglala Lakota College, Professor Trudy Ecoffey says most of her first students were interested in buffalo for its economic benefits. The college's Pine Ridge reservation makes up the poorest county in the Unived States. Prices for buffalo are two and three times higher than those for cattle.

Bison meat has less fat and cholesterol than beef and even chicken. Not coincidentally, a tribal nutritionist, Maretta Champagne, enrolled in the Oglala class. Her focus is the high rate of diabetes and heart disease which afflict Native Americans.

"We didn't have these health problems generations ago," Champagne said, "when our diet centered around the buffalo."

At Oglala, Tatanka Management is an applied science course. Ecoffey, the instructor, holds a B.S. degree in animal science. Frequently, though, she calls on cultural experts from the college's Lakota Studies department. With knowledge of the buffalo's traditional spirituality, these instructors share songs and ceremonies with students. In this part of the course, bison aren't called "animals." The preferred cultural reference is "Buffalo Nation."

"There's a big gulf in people's views about bison," LaRose said. "There's a difference between producing biosn for spiritual and cultural needs of a tribe and producing bison for a commercial market. The commercial production of buffalo is a hard sell in Indian Country."

Given the poor economic conditions on Indian reservations, however, LaRose acknowledges that most tribes want some commercial production. The key, he says, is what kind. Most tribes, for example, favor free-range grazing over feedlots, which are considered restrictive. Developing trained bison managers could become a major responsibility of tribal colleges.

"The colleges hold many keys to the equation," he said. "First, they are culturally-based institutions. They bring together culture, academics and science. As Indian people, we believe the way to solve any challenge is a comprehensive approach."

Aside from cultural programs, tribal colleges achieved Federal land grant status in 1994, making Government research grants more accessible. As a result, most of the colleges are developing partnerships with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Buffalo programs often are a priority.

In 1997, a USDA grant enabled the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in Eagle Butte, S.D., to purchase a state-of-the-art mobile slaughter unit. Sitting on the open reservation prairie, the equipment is desinged to let tribal members slaughter bison in a more "traditional" manner--with more efficiency and less stress on the bison. Eventually, the unit should help create jobs, as students from Cheyenne River Community College learn operating skills.

In the future, tribal colleges hope to share courses, transmitting them via television satellites and the computer Internet. The schools also want to begin research in such areas as ecology and brucellosis, the controversial disease associated with buffalo at Yellowstone National park. For fear the disease will spread to livestock outside the park, state officials shoot straying buffalo. Tribes have requested, so far with no success, that bison who test positive for brucellosis be sent to quarantine or research facilities on Indian reservations.

"At tribal colleges, brucellosis research would be for the sake of the buffalo," LaRose said. "The current research is for the good of livestock. The authorities want to define buffalo as livestock, but that is like calling an Indian a 'white man.' It just doesn't compute."

For more information, or to contact American Indian College Fund, see their website at: www.collegefund.org