Buffalo

US: University of Alberta Press, 1992. Paperback. Good. Buffalo conjure up the West the way no other symbol can. They hold a specia l place in our culture and imagination. In this prize-winning collection, w riters reveal the buffalo in plains ecology and culture from prehistoric ti mes to its present and uncertain future. The heated controversy over proposals to exterminate the herds in Wood Buff alo National Park is a reminder of the significance the buffalo has acquire d, standing symbolically at the point of interaction between aboriginal and white cultures and the plains environment. In Buffalo, specialists in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and fine arts examine the invol vement of the buffalo in plains ecology and culture from its prehistoric ev olution and migration to its present and uncertain future. The importance of the buffalo in plains Indian culture is explored in essays on the development of the Cultural World Heritage Site at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and in an historical study of the last decade before the extinction of the wild herds. Its imaginative appropriation by white culture is traced through a survey of verbal and pictorial images of the buffalo from the sixteenth century to the present, culminating in a display of full-colour prints of paintings by Clarence Tillenius, the dean of Canadian wildlife painters. Five essays are devoted to issues fueling the current controversy: the history of exploitation and restoration of the wood buffalo, the factor of wolf predation in the Peace-Athabasca Delta, the scientific case for extermination of diseased herds, the importance of aboriginal involvement in decisions affecting the buffalo, and the fin.