Bison are ecological engineers: reconnecting land, culture, and people 

Bison are being reconnected to the landscape and Indigenous peoples through a transboundary cultural corridor initiative.

“Bison are ecological engineers,” says Dr. Leroy Little Bear, elder of the Kainai First Nation and professor emeritus of Native American Studies at the University of Lethbridge. “They have existed for 450 million years; we need to look to them for their wisdom.”

Once numbering between 30 and 60 million across North America, from the Arctic tundra to the grasslands of Mexico, bison shaped entire ecosystems with their movements.

They fertilized soil, opened grasslands, held forests in check, and created habitat for hundreds of other species through their grazing, wallowing, and migration patterns. Their presence sustained biodiversity and maintained ecological balance across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.

But in the 19th century, European colonization nearly wiped them out. Bison were intentionally slaughtered as a means of disrupting Indigenous life, severing the vital link between people, land, and wildlife. This loss devastated the health of grassland ecosystems and deeply wounded Indigenous communities for whom bison were central to sustenance, spirituality, and sovereignty.

Today, fewer than 500,000 bison remain, most of which are domesticated behind fences, bred for meat. Fewer still roam freely, able to interact with predators or reshape landscapes.

But a movement that started in 2009 is changing that.

The Iinnii Initiative is the named effort that will reconnect all Blackfoot Confederacy Nations with their buffalo culture. It was launched by leaders of the four tribes that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy (Blackfeet Nation, Kainai Nation, Piikani Nation, and Siksika Nation) to conserve traditional lands, protect Blackfeet culture, and create a home for the buffalo to return to.

From the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana to the Piikani and Kainai Nations in Alberta, Indigenous-led bison “rematriation” is reviving not only the species and also the cultural and ecological relationships they represent.

Rematriation, or “returning to the sacred land or Mother to restore relationships between Indigenous people and the land” goes beyond reintroduction. It re-centers Indigenous knowledge, values, and leadership in conservation.

“Bison are ecological engineers. They have existed for 450 million years; we need to look to them for their wisdom.”
—Dr. Leroy Little Bear

One powerful example is the effort to establish a free-ranging herd along the eastern slopes of Glacier National Park in the United States.

These bison, originally from Elk Island National Park in Alberta, Canada, now live on tribal land and are stewarded by the Blackfeet Nation Buffalo Program. The vision is to create a transboundary corridor across the U.S.-Canada border at Chief Mountain, linking tribal and public lands in Glacier and Waterton Lakes National Parks, and reconnecting the Blackfoot Confederacy across colonial boundaries.

This cultural corridor is more than a migration route, it’s a revitalization of traditional trade paths, relationships, and ecological systems.

As described in the Vermejo Statement, true recovery of bison will mean “multiple large herds moving freely across extensive landscapes…interacting in ecologically significant ways with the fullest possible set of other native species, and inspiring, sustaining and connecting human cultures.”

The return of bison benefits entire ecosystems. They maintain grasslands, manage overgrowth, reduce wildfire hazards, and support food webs from insects to predators. Their return also supports food sovereignty, cultural education, and economic opportunity.

At Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), we believe the answer lies in bold, inclusive, and long-term collaboration. By connecting landscapes and cultures, bison restoration supports Y2Y’s vision of a connected and thriving mountain region stretching from Yellowstone to Yukon, the largest intact mountain landscape in the world.

Bison are not just wildlife, they are teachers, a keystone species and engineers of life. Their return is a story of healing within conservation.