Buffalo Lessons: How Bison Returned to Banff National Park

The breathtaking true story of the return of wild bison to the Rockies, as told by the wildlife biologist who helped lead them there.

Featuring behind-the-scenes photographs from one of North America’s most ambitious conservation projects.

For thousands of years, wild bison numbering in the millions roamed across a range spanning half of North America. Then, in the 1800s, they were nearly exterminated by European settlers. Buffalo Lessons shares the story of their triumphant return to a mountainous corner of their historic range, nearly a century and a half after they last walked the land.

Karsten Heuer, the conservationist tasked with leading the project, chronicles the groundbreaking reintroduction of plains bison to Banff National Park, beginning in 2017, when ten pregnant females and six males were airlifted into an enclosed pasture. It was a complex and ambitious project, designed to restore North America’s largest land mammal to its important ecological role in the landscape and its cultural role for Indigenous peoples. Despite meticulous planning, Heuer and his team found themselves repeatedly “buffaloed” by the animals, who had a knack for doing the unexpected, and teaching the humans lessons along the way.

Heuer packs his narrative with thrilling moments: a horseback chase to tranquilize a bison, a helicopter-assisted translocation into the rugged backcountry, and the tense tracking of wayward bulls that scale steep, treacherous terrain. Throughout, his encounters with these massive creatures—both awe-inspiring and humbling—force him to confront his assumptions about control, nature, and conservation.

In 2024, Heuer was diagnosed with a terminal brain condition, and he completed the manuscript for Buffalo Lessons in the weeks and days before his death. His narrative ends seven years after the initial introduction, with a thriving population of around one hundred bison and the organization of the first Indigenous hunt in the region in over 150 years. Buffalo Lessons stands as a testament to the resilience of bison, and as the culmination of a life’s work in conservation.

Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute

Karsten Heuer was a conservationist, biologist, author, and filmmaker. An early advocate of large landscape conservation, Heuer worked in the field for decades, including in Inuvik in Canada’s far north, in the Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa, and in Banff National Park in the Rockies, where he led the successful bison reintroduction project. Heuer is the author of Walking the Big Wild and Being Caribou, and a recipient of the Wilburforce Foundation Conservation Leadership Award. He passed away in November 2024, shortly after completing the manuscript for Buffalo Lessons.

Leroy Little Bear is a Blackfoot leader, scholar, and advocate. He is a coauthor of the Buffalo Treaty, a recipient of the Alberta Order of Excellence, and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Harvey Locke is a globally renowned expert on national parks and large landscape conservation. He lives in Banff National Park.