Winter on the Great Plains can be pretty harsh. The cold and snow create conditions inhospitable for us bipedal creatures. The American bison though has lived and thrived here for thousands of years and are certainly built to handle it.
After a snowstorm last month, this cow at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was covered in snow and while she can handle it, I don’t expect she enjoyed it much.
It used to be we called these buffalo but that actually was incorrect. While they are part of the same family that includes the European and African buffalo, the bison is its own, distinct species.
It is believed they were called buffalo by early North American explorers due to their resemblance to the Old-World species. Native Americans call them Tatanka, a Lakota word that translated means “bull buffalo.”