Photo by Albert Mason
The Buffalo is the largest mammal in North America, and plays a crucial role in maintaining the delicate balance of plains and prairie ecosystems. To truly understand the Buffalo’s importance to the Wind River region and high plains, it’s essential to explore what they eat and how their feeding habits shape the world around them.
What’s in the Buffalo Diet?
As herbivores, Buffalo primarily consume low-growing grasses and shrubs — spending roughly 10 hours each day grazing. What makes Buffalo particularly efficient grazers is their ability to walk while they eat, allowing them to cover vast distances while continuously feeding. This mobility ensures they don’t overgraze any single area, giving plants time to recover and regenerate.
Buffalo are remarkably adaptable in their food choices, consuming over 200 different plant species depending on the season and availability. During spring and summer, they feast on tender grasses like the aptly named Buffalo grass, blue grama, and western wheatgrass. As seasons change, they turn to sedges, forbs, and even browse on woody shrubs when necessary. This diverse diet not only sustains the Buffalo, but also influences which plant species thrive across the landscape.
The Buffalo’s Four-Stomach System
Like their elk cousins, Buffalo possess a four-chambered stomach system that allows them to process tough prairie grasses. This ruminant digestive system enables them to extract maximum nutrition from fibrous materials that are indigestible to many other animals. They regurgitate and re-chew their food (also called “chewing cud”), which breaks down cellulose and releases nutrients that would otherwise remain locked inside plant cell walls.
This system is crucial for survival on the plains, where food quality varies dramatically between seasons. In the harsh winters, when grasses are buried under snow, Buffalo are able to thrive on lower-quality vegetation thanks to their special stomachs.
Digestion Makes Buffalo Ecosystem Engineers
The relationship between Buffalo and their environment extends beyond simply eating. As massive grazers, they fundamentally shape the landscapes they walk on. Many plant and animal species on the Wind River Indian Reservation and high plains depend on Buffalo for survival — they’re a keystone species that holds ecosystems together.
Learn about the many traditional uses of Buffalo here.
As Buffalo ramble across the plains, their heavy hooves aerate the soil, preventing compaction and allowing water and air to penetrate deeper into the ground. This aeration benefits plant root systems, and improves overall soil health. Buffalo also distribute fertilizer. Every day, the average Buffalo produces an impressive 10 to 12 quarts of dung. These nutrient-rich patties become vital sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, sulfur, and magnesium for plants and other animals.
Seed Dispersal and Habitat Creation
Buffalo also behave as inadvertent gardeners, carrying seeds in their thick fur and digestive systems as they migrate across vast landscapes. This natural seed dispersal helps maintain genetic diversity in plant populations and allows native species to colonize new areas.
When Buffalo create wallows (bare patches in the dirt where they roll to remove insects and interact socially) they create temporary wetlands that become habitat for amphibians, insects, and birds.
The grazing patterns of Buffalo create a mosaic of vegetation — some areas are closely cropped, while others grow tall and dense. This diversity in plant structure provides habitat niches for small mammals, birds, and insects, each adapted to certain vegetation.
More Than Just Grazers
Understanding the Buffalo’s diet reveals a web of relationships that extends far beyond simple nutrition. They don’t just consume grasses – they actively create and maintain the landscape’s health around them.
Through their daily feeding habits, Buffalo are shaping the Wind River region just as they have for thousands of years, supporting countless other species and maintaining the health of critical ecosystems.