LOCAL

Weekend events celebrate success of American Bison herd north of Fort Collins

Kelly Lyell
Fort Collins Coloradoan

The 10 American Bison that were reintroduced to Colorado at the Soapstone Prairie Natural Area and Red Mountain Open Space north of Fort Collins have grown to a herd of more than 100 in five years.

“All of us are incredibly happy with how well the herd has grown, how healthy and strong the animals are and how strong the partnership” with the city of Fort Collins and Larimer County, said Jennifer Barfield, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences at Colorado State University who headed up the project.

In honor of that success and in recognition of National Bison Day on Saturday, a variety of talks, tours and activities are taking place this weekend, beginning with a virtual ceremony on Facebook Live from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday on the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd page.

The ceremony, hosted jointly by the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd, city of Fort Collins Natural Areas and Downtown Fort Collins Creative District, will include video footage of the bison herd, songs by Iron Family and a performance from blues musician Cary Morin.

FROM THE COLORADOAN ARCHIVES: Bison release at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area

People who want to view the herd in a fenced pasture from a distance can do so throughout the weekend from adjacent Rawhide Flats Road or the Cheyenne Rim Trail. The pasture is 2,700 acres, so the bison might not always be visible. Visitors must stay on the roadway or trail and out of the pasture for the safety of themselves and the bison, the city notes on its Soapstone Prairie Natural Area website.

An open house will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Sunday at Soapstone Prairie, and educational panel discussions via Zoom will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Entrance to Soapstone Prairie and Red Mountain Open Space, which is run by Larimer County, is free. Both are only open to the public from March 1 to Dec. 1 because of winter weather changes and wildlife requirements, officials said.

Odell Brewing Co. has a special Golden Bison beer crafted for the occasion available in its taproom, with $1 from each pint sold donated toward support for the herd. Intersect Brewing will also donate a portion of proceeds from taproom sales over the weekend to support the herd. Wolverine Farm has designed special artwork to commemorate the anniversary and support the herd.

Pinot’s Palette will offer a “Bison Journey” live interactive bison painting class with take-home art kits purchased in advance from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday.

CSU’s Native American Cultural Center will host a Zoom session from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Monday with presentations from Native and Indigenous scholars on topics relating to land relationships, governance and ethics, and water and land justice. November is Native American Heritage Month.

Barfield headed up the reintroduction project with a goal of establishing a seed herd that could be used to bring bison back to other areas where they had been eradicated. She and others at CSU used assisted reproductive technologies to produce bison with genetics from the Yellowstone herd that showed no evidence of crossbreeding with cattle and were free of brucellosis, a bacterial disease commonly found in bison from the Yellowstone area.

Bulls from the herd have been sent to help start new herds at Rio Mora National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico, the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Illinois, a zoo in Minnesota that sent a bull on for additional breeding in a state park and, most recently, to the Oakland (California) Zoo in a partnership to bring a new herd to Blackfeet Nation tribal lands in Montana, Barfield said.

The conservation herd is serving its role well, she said.

“What we wanted with this event is to make sure people knew that the herd is there,” Barfield said Friday. “It still really surprises me out and around town how many people don’t know they’re there. I just want as many people as possible to know about it, so they can go see the herd in their native habitat and appreciate them for the many reasons that they should be appreciated and valued.”

An American Bison calf and its mother from the Laramie Foothills Conservation Herd make their way to handlers at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area north of Fort Collins two years ago. The herd, which began five years ago with 10 bison, has grown to more than 100.

Contact Coloradoan reporter Kelly Lyell at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, follow him on Twitter @KellyLyell and find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. Support his work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.