Buffalo Tourism: Needing More Room to Roam

I can't stop thinking about how cool it would be to have an American Serengeti right here in the heartland of America for all to enjoy. I mean, that would be so cool! I just love watching animals in their natural habitat, and I am constantly thinking of amazing places in the world where I would like to behold our greatest wildlife spectacles on the planet. Top places on my bucket list include the Pantanal in Brazil, the real Serengeti in Tanzania, Patagonia, Botswana, Chitwan NP in Nepal, tiger reserves in India, Alaska, the Yukon, and Rwanda (for the gorillas!). I get so excited just thinking about these places, which is why I really want for us to restore our own natural heritage here in America. Being able to witness a top-notch wildlife show without needing to fly across the world be be so awesome.

So, I have gone ahead and done the work for you all for where in the U.S. you can visit a public bison herd. I've also included a map from the National Park Service's website to show where many of these places are. The NPS map obviously doesn't show where Canada's bison herds are or some of these other herds owned by nonprofits. I'm sure there's more out there, too, but I just don't know where they are yet.

This excel spreadsheet lists the public bison herds in North America, their bison population, bison roaming are where known, and a note of whether the bison are free range bison. All other herds are fenced in due to intolerance from local land owners.

Here is a map of where the NPS bison herds are. Other herds owned by the Native American tribes, State Parks, the TNC, APR, or other nonprofits are not included in this map

Visiting these sites could make for a seriously epic adventure! If the American Prairie Reserve (APR) can succeed in its goals to establish a 3.5-million-acre prairie reserve in north central Montana and other similar projects can happen in other parts of the U.S., then buffalo tourism could be a real thing! I mean, you could say that it already is, especially in Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas, but this is a situation where bigger really is better. Bison need room to roam. They need human tolerance, which, sadly, doesn't exist with our current social, political, and legal landscape.

Also worth noting is that Native American tribes are also very involved in buffalo restoration. When you include the number of bison living on Native American/First Nation's lands, then you have over 30,000 bison in conservation herds. That's a pretty cool thing. I know some tribes are also promoting tourism to their herds, such as the Fort Belknap Reservation herd in Montana, but I think you always need to go with a local guide.