FREMONT, Ind. — The American bison is an animal to be felt, more than observed or described.
Not touched, but to emanate with.
There’s a lot of good living in life that needs you to be close to experience it.
The electric air at the center of a docile buffalo herd conceals its thunder in hundreds of fuzzy, 2,500-pound bells that you can feel vibrate without ringing.
“They could get out, of course,” said Dan King, general manager of Wild Winds Buffalo Preserve about 90 minutes west of Toledo in Fremont, Ind. “They choose not to.”
On an education-first preserve with more than 400 acres of rolling prairie, the soupiest and most exquisite mud a bovine could pine for, natural spring water, and seven separate pastures in which the animals are rotated in pristinely curated freedom, the inherent intelligence of this worshipped, sacred animal is ever on display.
IF YOU GO Website: facebook.com/wildwindsbuffalopreserve.net Address: 6975 N. Ray Rd., Fremont, Ind. 46737
Phone: (260) 495-0137
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., tours every two hours
Cost: $14 adults, $9 kids
Gift Shop: It’s got it all, from trinkets to buffalo heads to steaks and bison burgers on the spot. Often cooked by Dan King, they are served with condiments but need no dressing.
DINNER SIDE QUEST: It’s no surprise to our fine, most northern and western Ohioans, but there are a number of interesting, worthy restaurants in the area. We recommend a few below, but feel free to swing through the Main Street of any of the small towns around the Ohio-Indiana-Michigan border and take a chance.
Father John’s: Incredible architecture sets the table in this impeccably converted church turned microbrewery that serves elevated classics.
Sam’s Place: 102-year-old gem owned entirely by one lineage. No written menu, three sizes of T-Bones, relish tray for the ages, and some rotating specials. For the adults not driving, get the “Mose Hopper.”
Chubby’s Fish & Steak: It’s only been around 20 years, and it has a crazy neon sign, but something about it feels like its from Steinbeck’s America, along with with the portions and prices.
NAMING THE NAMES
First of all, we asked, they do get calls for Buffalo Wild Wings.
“We tell them we haven’t clipped their wings yet,” quipped King. But in a how-bout-that kind of intersection, the restaurant chain has bought the taxidermied buffalo heads to display that the preserve ethically produces as part of its herd culling.
Next, and most importantly, bison and buffalo are different animals, geographically and biologically.
But in common use of language, especially at Wild Winds, and so in this article, the terms are used interchangeably.
Wild Winds has a herd — actually called a gang — of approximately 200 North American Bison.
True buffalo are in Asia and Europe. Water buffalo specifically being the source of mozzarella cheese.
The American Bison are related to wild oxen, according to King. They have four stomachs, need water to digest; bison have bigger trachea, livers and hearts.
HOW DID THE WINDS BLOW?
The herd has been as big as 400, but it creates infighting and resource issues, according to owner Dr. John Trippy.
The former maxillofacial surgeon from nearby Bryan, Ohio, has been retired now for about 12 years, after practicing for more than 25.
As a child, a trip to Yellowstone National Park yielded a cherished photograph of a wild buffalo emerging from the canopy into the frame of his Kodak Brownie — think of it as a really boxy cell phone that can only take pictures.
But even before the excursion, said Trippy, he long “wanted” to see the buffalo. The family was actually leaving the trip, somewhat crestfallen, when the beast revealed itself for the photo.
He bought his first bull calf and five heifers in 1989, starting in Edgerton, Ohio.
“I knew what the bison meant to the people,” he said, audibly choked up by just the consideration of the presence of the animal to which he has found himself with charge.
Wild Winds is the site of an old campground. On Trippy’s fourth visit when he was considering buying the land, he said he was trying to listen, trying to hear the medicine man and the natives who want “the magic” brought back by the bison.
He said, “A beaver splashed four times. A hawk flew overhead. And a big gust of wind blew my hat off.”
Fate and free will weave an inseparable dovetail, so in addition to the Wild Winds revealing themselves, the bank was also quite kind and worked with him as the educational preserve developed its sustainability.
Dr. Trippy is in touch with aspects of his dutiful shepherding, from the magic to the black ink and all in between where it might be red.
So how does a herd that was once 400 get to 200? And how exactly does it stay that way when there is a calving season every May?
“I have to be the wolf,” said Trippy. “I don’t like that but I’ve learned.”
He revealed a valuable lesson in perception and waste when a rather significant bull met a tragic, self-inflicted end in the middle of the field one day.
“I got out and start it to dress it right there,” he said. “I was warned, rather sternly to not do that.”
“That’s your brother,” Trippy was instructed by a native guide. “That’s not for you.”
Yes, the animal as a resource would be produced and processed. But even though Trippy is a naturalist and not shy to the reflection of survival, his role is to “honor and preserve the land, the buffalo, and the people.”
Veterinarians are brought out to the field when culling is necessary of older or wounded animals, who would be meeting fate in the wild anyway, as explained by both King and Trippy.
“Sicker” was not a term Trippy used. He boasted the vets tell him his herd is regularly the healthiest they see.
When the animal has died, it is taken from the field. The full animal is rendered: meat, tallow, leather, yarn, medicine, and art.
So Trippy relies on professionals when necessary, and “Mother Earth and Father Moon” for the rest.
BACK TO BROWN THUNDER
“There used to be herds of a hundred thousand rolling over the prairie,” said Bill Three Paws Elias, a Wild Winds guide and educator. “You could feel the ground shake. Brown thunder, they called it.”
The bison survived any climate imaginable except government policy.
“[It’s a] prehistoric animal … that we almost brought to extinction,” said King.
It is common historic knowledge that the United States government of the 19th century decreed every dead buffalo was two dead Indians.
We should pause here for reflection on the gravity of that … “working.”
…
According to the National Park Service, “The decimation of the American bison from over 30-40 million down to nearly 1,000 by the late 19th century is a monumental story motivated by unrestrained resource exploitation for commercial purposes, the philosophy of manifest destiny and misguided U.S. Indian policy.”
At the head of healing the plight of the bison emerged President Teddy Roosevelt, who helped form the American Bison Society (ABS) in New York in 1905 at the Bronx Zoo.
Roosevelt routinely used his position to help ABS secure land and buffalo, and promote bison reintroduction projects. “Roosevelt even mentioned his concern for bison in his annual message to Congress in 1905,” according to the NPS.
Today, there are around 800,000.
Wild Winds treats their 200 as precious crystal, as much as something that can get up to 6-and-a-half feet tall, push 3,000 lbs., run 35 mph, and smell like the ripest of petunias can be “precious.”
But King, though he cherishes and loves the animals, knows his biggest job is actually just keeping them together.
“DNR has already told us if they all got out, they’d have to be put down.”
The costs and dangers of tranquilizing and airlifting 200 animals would outweigh preserving them, he explained.
He has help though. Not just the support of the community, the educational return on investment, and the guides and instructors on the payroll, on the land, and those volunteering.
“The buffalo know they are here for us.”
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