Evolution Earth

[Shane] If you want to make a big difference, you need bigger animals.

[drumming, man singing in indigenous language] [group singing] Here on the Fort Peck Reservation, the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes have a bold initiative.

[singing continuing] [bison grunting] [woman] The buffalo is our keystone animal here on the prairie, and not only that, but they are also a central figure within our American Indian spirituality and our culture.

[Shane] Bison, or buffalo as they're known in many Native American communities, have vanished from these plains.

[woman] Our last buffalo that we slaughtered for food was around 1885.

That was the last buffalo.

[singing continuing] [bison grunting] [Shane] Now this is the culmination of years of tireless campaigning by the likes of Jonny Bearcub Stiffarm.

She wants to see the bison back on the prairie.

[Jonny] It is a very emotional time.

The "Buffalo Song" is a thank you song.

It's like a prayer song.

We sing it to welcome them back home.

We sing it to let them know how important they are to us and what it means to us to have them here.

It's a sacred song to us, and it's a joyful song.

[Shane] And there's good reason to be joyful.

It's taken all of Jonny's skills as an attorney and the full force of a whole lot of people to arrange this ambitious program.

[Jonny] We had to convince both the state legislature and also Yellowstone Park to be willing to allow Fort Peck to take bison for their last phase of quarantine.

So it's really a lot of work, a lot of patience, but once you have dreams, you can slowly set goals, and they can be accomplished.

[singing ends] [Shane] Over the last few days, they've been taking delivery of bison from Yellowstone.

This will be the largest herd ever to be released here.

It's a momentous occasion for everyone.

[Jonny] We've had about 4 or 5, 6 generations who had never seen a buffalo.

This is the homeland of their ancestors that walked and roamed the prairie, and they're one of the most import things to our future.

[indistinct chatter] [Shane] The time has finally come.

I can see them right now walking out.

Oh, lookit.

Now they're all over there.

You can barely see them.

They're going into the fog.

[hoofbeats pounding] [Jonny] In the last couple of hundred years, we have forgotten that we are one part of this huge web of life.

Everything is tied one to the other, and we as humans play our part in it.

[Shane] The community hopes to revive this ghost habitat, restoring it to its full potential.

[Jonny] And today in a modern world, our young people need to realize that the buffalo are everything to us once again.

To be able to leave a place like that for our people and our tribe and for the future, is one of the legacies that I want to leave, to know that I was a part of this, of bringing them home.

[bison grunting] We as a tribal people, we, too, almost went extinct just like the buffalo.

I wonder if they thought: "We're home, we're home, we're back home again!"

[Shane] Finally, we are all recognizing what this community has known all along.