Book Talk: The Ecological Buffalo

The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies is pleased to partner with the Bow Valley Naturalists for their special Bob and Mary Smith presentation with support from the Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation.

About the Book:
Once numbering in the tens of millions, these magnificent creatures played a significant role in the varied ecosystems they occupied, and North American Indigenous Peoples depended upon them.

With the arrival of Europeans, the buffalo were all exterminated, along with their millennia-old intricate food webs and inter-species relationships. Despite this brush with extinction, the buffalo survived, and are slowly recovering. Alongside their recovery, the relationships once shared with thousands of species are being re-established in a remarkable process of ecological healing.

Based on Wes Olson’s 35 years of working intimately with bison – and featuring Johane Janelle’s stunning photography – The Ecological Buffalo takes a journey through the myriad connections this keystone species has with the Great Plains.