WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM
Two baby buffalo, born last week at the South Park Game Preserve, walk with their moms Monday after they are introduced to visitors. Buffalo have lived at the preserve for more than 100 years. Story,
Two buffalo calves born days apart to different mothers in South Park were nursing and appeared to be in good health Monday.
Riis, born on Friday, was named after the founder of the Allegheny County parks system. Park staff named the second baby buffalo Roddey, after Jim Roddey, Allegheny County’s first executive, who died March 7.
Able to stand immediately, the calves are expected to start eating grass in one month and continue nursing for nine months.
The South Park bison are among a herd that has been sheltered at the Allegheny County park’s game preserve since 1927. The original herd, imported from a farm in Allentown, Pa., lived at two 100-acre fenced preserves in North Park and South Park. In 1947 the herd was reintegrated at its permanent home at South Park.
With bulls standing 6 feet tall and weighing up to 2,000 pounds, the buffalo is the largest mammal in North America. Like the bald eagle, the return of the cloven hoofed, cud-chewing bison is considered a world-class conservation story.
Until about 200 years ago, millions of buffalos thrived from the Great Plains to the Appalachian Mountains. By the late 1800s, habitat depletion and over-hunting reduced their numbers to a few hundred living mainly at protected game preserves.
The herd in South Park generally hovers around 10 full-grown bison, per the game preserve website.
The American buffalo was tapped as the national mammal of the United States in 2016.
In the tradition of more than 60 Native American tribes, the sacred “tatonka” is a symbol of self-sacrifice. The American buffalo gave its hide, flesh, bones — every part of itself — so its people could survive.
In 2009, tribal representatives from across the United States converged on the Woodland Zoo in Fayette County following the birth of a rare white buffalo. When the zoo closed, the animal and a darkfurred bison were purchased by Nemacolin Woodlands Resort near Farmington and relocated to a 50-acre wooded sanctuary.
A little-known feature of South Park, the game preserve holds peacocks and other domesticated birds as well as buffalo on a site that includes wooded ground, grasslands and a pond. Visitation is free and open to the public, and at 9:30 a.m. Tuesdays and Fridays a buffalo caretaker hosts a public feeding and shares information on the herd, but it’s up to the calves whether or not they partake.