Ecological Buffalo, The

The Ecological Buffalo: On the Trail of a Keystone Species
by Wes Olson and Johane Janelle

Published by University of Regina Press

Review by Madonna Hamel
$39.95 ISBN 9780889778719

As a child Wes Olson knew he would dedicate his life to learning everything he could about the buffalo and as an adult there is no bison-related question you can throw at him to stump him. I’ve tried. He carries his childhood glee for his subject into every project he approaches, and never is that more evident than in The Ecological Buffalo: On The Trail of a Keystone Species. As he writes in the introduction: “For more than thirty years, Johane and I have been captivated by all things buffalo.”

The Ecological Buffalo is a look at the animals and species with whom the bison share their space and time. The term “keystone” refers to the integral role bison play in keeping others species alive. Take for example, bison poop. Once bison digest grass they deposit buffalo chips that contain insects and those insects feed a variety of birds like woodpeckers who in turn create cavities in trees for creatures like squirrels who create dung for beetles and so on. This book not only celebrates the diversity of critters dependent on the chain of being with the bison at the heart of it, but it also illustrates it – and how close we come to breaking that chain.

Olson covers the history of wood and plains bison beginning with their great slaughter in the late 1800s, highlighting the variety of geographies the bison once occupied and their subsequent efficient seed dispersals, then touches on their relationships with birds, bugs, mammals and predators and ends with a chapter dedicated to the “re-wilding” efforts to return the buffalo to its ancestral lands. Along the way no stone is left unturned in describing the intricate and magical interactions between the smallest of bugs or blades of grass and this magnificent beast.

But what makes this buffalo biography the ultimate bible on the subject is its pictorial beauty. The stunning photographs by Johane Janelle bring us face to face with all the players in this species drama and the intimate, highly detailed illustrations by Olson make this book more than an historical or scientific tome; it’s a love story. Their rendering through camera and pencil show their own deep relationship with all their subjects, whether its poop or beast.

Sensitivity to their subject and its enigmatic hold on them shows in every picture: on one page, Olson’s drawing of a cross-section of a bison patty allows us to see nature at work on several levels, and on another Janelle gives us a close-up view of a bison “adorned with a garland of creeping juniper” after asserting his dominance over a rival. And the last image, a drawing of a bison next to a lichen-covered sleeping buffalo stone, says it all: let us commemorate and protect the return of the buffalo to the land.

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