![A herd of buffalo on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming [Photo credit: Rocío Lower / Bezos Earth Fund].](https://windriverbuffalo.org/wp-content/uploads/WRTBI-Blog-Featured-Image.jpg "A herd of buffalo on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming [Photo credit: Rocío Lower / Bezos Earth Fund].")
Caption for Photo: A herd of buffalo on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
[Photo credit: Rocío Lower / Bezos Earth Fund].
MARCH 13, 2025
Excerpt from Article by Bezos Earth Fund
By Cecilia Martinez
For thousands of years, buffalo dominated the grasslands of North America. But by the 19th century these large grazing mammals were nearly extinct – and today occupy less than one percent of their pre-European range.
Buffalo (also known as bison) are a keystone species, integral to the prairie’s ecological balance and resilience. Without them, biodiversity suffers, and ecosystems can change dramatically, allowing invasive species to move in.
A major scientific study on the effects of reintroduction, published in 2022, underscored the important role buffalo play in plant diversity in particular. “When bison were allowed to graze through patches of tallgrass prairie,” wrote Jason Bittel in a National Geographic article covering the study, “they boosted native plant species richness by a whopping 86 percent over the past three decades.” Comparatively, cattle produce less than half of that increase. Reintroducing buffalo, the study suggests, could help restore grassland biodiversity.
But buffalo as ecological progenitor is not the whole story.