Where The Buffalo Roam

On my last Sunday in Kansas, I traveled to the Maxwell Game Preserve to catch a glimpse of a buffalo herd. You could actually drive onto the Preserve and that day part of the herd occupied the road. While I could not get out of my car, I could get within inches of these magestic animals.

Right away I learned that these animals can be a little territorial, or they just like tourists in red cars...

Some Buffalo families like to just hang out on a Sunday morning and take turns in the dirt wallow to get rid of the flies....

Others just graze. If you look closely at the face of the guy in the back, he seems to be sharing a little joke with the bigger guy...or maybe the jokes on me, "Hey, Bill, look at the little guy in the cage with wheels...heheheheheh."

There were others deep into the folliage grazing, and I seem to have caught the attention of one young bull who wasted no time clomping down the hill to see what I was about...

His big old face filled my car window...and I was in an SUV! Our conversation ended when some of those flies escorting him took a liking to the cars fake leather interior...

It was getting a little hot, and when it gets above 85 or so the Buffalo head to the shade or go into "no movement" mode. Some get a little testy.....one animal was just getting ready to take their turn for the dirt bath...

Another Buffalo thought they could impose...

Ooops...here I am a few feet away and not only did the bull whirl around, but an even bigger bull just to the left of the wallow gave out a big snort. I kinda thought I had chosen my position poorly...

And the intruder turned to run and wouldn't you know it...here I sat. Thank goodness Chrysler makes cars out of unibody construction. No harm, no foul...I got a good snort from the intruder and it bucked away avoding the car. In the side view mirror I saw the guy who gave the commanding snort seemingly saying, "Ok, you've seen it...now, 'Move along little doggie.'"

The Maxwell Game Preserve was established in the 1800's by Maxwell, the first white child born in that part of central Kansas, south of Salina.

When the Europeans first arrived in the US, Buffalo herds even occupied part of the south Florida everglades. The huge herds receeded about 100 miles for every ten years that the settlers moved west. When the frontiersmen first came to Kansas in the early 1800's, they gave accounts of Buffalo herds 12 miles thick. But, by the time Teddy Roosevelt was President only 23 or so wild Buffalo existed on the ranges of Wyoming.

Today there are some substantial herds. Maxwell's isn't a huge herd, but well cared for.