| Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
|
| News
Article 1/29/04 |
 |
| |
|
|
| Where
the buffalo roam
By Michael Futch, Staff writer
Fayettville Observer, North Carolina
1/29/04
|
HIGH
FALLS - Ace rules the herd in the 15-acre world
of Jerry Seawell's rural Moore County pasture.
Jerry
Seawell’s buffalo enjoy the hay he put out for them
at his farm on N.C. 22 near High Falls. On stick legs,
this brownish-black behemoth runs and roams.
With the female brood near, in submissive roles, he breathes
heavily and grunts as he chews his food.
And to Seawell, the bearded landowner, Ace seems to really
enjoy putting on a mighty show of strength.
''C'mon, big'en,'' Seawell yelled out to his prized American
bison bull, ''hit that again, buddy.''
On a late Monday morning in January, Seawell and his old
friend, Roger Wilson, had just pushed a huge roll of hay
onto the pasture. At the time the buffalo were out of
sight, feeding on hay and cow feed by a wooden corn crib.
It wasn't long before most of the herd had trotted around
the corner to Seawell's side of the field. Galloping out
front, an excited, 2,000-plus-pound Ace, his huge plumed
head down like a halfback on a football field, setting
his sights on the standing roll of hay.
After setting up, the bull reared back and busted a good
chunk of the roll with his head, creating a cloud of grass
and dust.
Then he snorted. Loudly.
Trails of wispy breath blew from his wet nostrils in the
cold, damp air as he ate from the scattered hay.
Seawell stood in the pasture near his animals, gripping
the insulated end of a hot electric fence just in case
he needed some protection.
''Big'en. What's happening?''
Ace the bull, his six-cow harem and two calves are, for
the most part, pets.
These buffalo are mostly docile, he said, although from
years of experience he has found that they can turn mean
when calving or excited. ''They're wild animals, and you
got to give 'em that respect,'' he said.
The 53-year-old Seawell, a Vietnam veteran and a back-to-nature
sportsman who may be living in the wrong time, said he
loves to watch them. Ten or 12 years ago, he and his partner,
David ''Tootie'' Purvis, bought Ace and a couple of females.
After selling one of those cows, they bought three more
bison.
They usually kill a couple a year from the herd for their
meat and hides. A thick, coarse buffalo hide is draped
over a sofa inside Seawell's log cabin. The house stands
next to a lake across N.C. 22 from his farmland, which
lies in the northern part of the county between High Falls
and Parkwood.
As the buffaloes fed just yards away, Wilson said with
admiration, ''They are so unique. How many people you
know got buffalo?''
At least a couple of other folks in Moore County raise
bison on their farms.
Bill and Deborah Pickard, who live seven miles from Carthage,
have five of them. The Pickards bought their first buffalo
in Oklahoma three years ago, and the couple uses the animals
to work their competitive quarter horses.
Seawell, with friend Roger Wilson, started the herd 10
or 12 years ago. He mainly used the buffalo as an attraction,
hoping folks would stop by his leather business. At one
time buffaloes - a longstanding symbol of the old American
West - roamed freely from the Atlantic to the Pacific
and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and Alaska. The
Indians depended upon them for food and clothing.
In 1850, about 20 million buffaloes still thundered over
the western plains. In the earlier part of that century,
North America was thought to have between 70 million and
130 million of the animals.
But by the late 1800s, they were nearly wiped out when
white hunters slaughtered the animals by the millions.
In 1889, only 551 bison could be found alive in the United
States.
Jerry Seawell, whose log cabin is adorned with paintings
depicting American Indians and artifacts, doesn't have
anything good to say about buffalo hunters, one of the
most famous of which is William ''Buffalo Bill'' Cody.
''He killed a lot of buffalo. I didn't like that,'' he
said. ''We tried to starve all the Indians by killing
them all. That wasn't right. Settlers probably wouldn't
have gotten to the mountains (of North Carolina) if it
wasn't for the buffalo trails.''
The animals aren't often associated with this part of
the country. But history tells us that was not always
the case.
Native to colonial North Carolina, buffaloes were reported
in ''abundance'' and in ''great herds'' in the Piedmont
and mountain areas, according to historical accounts.
John Lawson, chronicling his 1701 journey through the
area, wrote that the Indians of Mississippi and the hilly
part of the Cape Fear River ''spunned the (buffaloes')
hair into garters, girdles and sashes, it being long and
curled and often of chestnut red color.''
Dr. John Brickell, in a 1737 account describing the bison
of North Carolina, wrote: ''It has a bunch upon its back.
It has big short horns bending forward. This monster of
the woods seldom appears among the European habitats.''
Killed for food and clothing, the state's wild buffalo
disappeared in the 1760s, Yellowstone National Park biologist
Mary Meagher said in a 1986 series for the American Society
of Mammalogists.
Dave Carter, the executive director of the National Bison
Association in Denver, estimates the nation's current
population at 285,000. Most buffaloes are raised in domestic
commercial herds for meat production.
''We have them in every state,'' Carter said. The largest
concentration of the animals can be found through the
northern plains and in Colorado and Wyoming.
According to published reports, North Carolina is home
to a couple of large domestic herds of buffalo. Herds
in Asheville and Rocky Mount each number 300.
Dr. Fred Kirkland, who is the director of Animal Health
Programs and Livestock with the North Carolina Department
of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said people started
raising bison in this state as a novelty about 10 to 15
years ago.
''I can't answer how many are raising them just for meat
production, if there are many,'' Kirkland said. ''Most
are for breeding stock and curiosity. We only have a very
few in North Carolina. It's not like some of the Western
and Midwestern states.''
Buffaloes, which can easily weigh 2,500 pounds each, have
temperaments on par with people, he said. Some are gentle.
It all depends on how the animals are handled. ''It's
no different from any other livestock animal,'' said Kirkland.
''A lot of it depends on how much human exposure they
have. Those who come off the planes from the Midwest,
they ain't going to be very gentle.''
During the 1990s, most animals were being brought up to
expand breeding herds.
Today, bison are primarily raised for meat.
''Now we're starting to see the meat market come along,''
Carter said. ''About 10 years ago, the demand that started
to emerge there was primarily (from) gourmet restaurants.''
For years, Jerry Seawell used his buffaloes as an attraction.
The rustic animals lured folks to his leather business
off N.C. 22.
People would stop and gawk. Sometimes, they would shop.
Visitors still show up on Sundays, he said. On occasion,
classes of schoolchildren drop by to see ''big'en'' and
the others.
''Cheaper for them to do that than go to the zoo,'' he
figured.
For 26 years, Seawell crafted leather goods. But after
his 18-year-old daughter, Hannah, was killed in a traffic
accident in 1999, he got out of that line of work. Jerry
Seawell wanted to do something different. These days he
lays tile and marble.
The name of his business?
Buffalo Tile Co.
It makes perfect sense for this 21st-century cowboy, who
makes his home where the buffaloes roam.
''I get more of a kick out of other people watching them
than I do,'' he said. ''I'm getting ready to sell a couple
to a guy who works for Richard Petty. He just wants to
look at 'em. He likes to look at 'em. That's what I got
'em for. Plus, we eat 'em.''
Staff writer Michael Futch can be reached at futchm@fayettevillenc.com
Top
of Page |
|
|
|
|
|
|
