Guardians of the Buffalo: The Essential Guide to Bison Care

As long as there have been buffalo, there has been a relationship between buffalo and people. For Indigenous people, Buffalo are understood and respected as relatives.

As we work to bring buffalo back to the land, we are also called to rebuild that relationship, drawing from both ancient wisdom and modern understanding to help buffalo thrive in today's world. Buffalo need caretakers-people who are deeply committed to the stewardship of land, animals, and community, and who are willing to dedicate their lives to their care.

Guardians of the Buffalo is the foundational book for the next generation of these stewards.

With more than fifty years of combined experience living with and taking care of buffalo, Wes Olson and Cody Spencer bring a wealth of knowledge on all aspects of establishing and managing a buffalo herd-from population establishment and nutrition, to infrastructure, safety, soil health, and the role of technology in modern buffalo caretaking. The conservation photography of Johane Janelle highlights the beauty of buffalo and will inspire those who want to become guardians of the buffalo.

Published in partnership with the International Buffalo Relations Institute, this book supports the vision and mission of the Buffalo Treaty: to honor, recognize, and revitalize the time immemorial relationship between people and Buffalo.

Wes Olson has worked in wildlife and landscape conservation for five decades. His career began in the Yukon in 1975, followed by wildlife surveys in northwestern Alberta, before he became a national park warden in 1981 - serving at Banff, Waterton Lakes, and Elk Island National Park, where he specialized in bison conservation for twenty-four years, and later Grasslands National Park. Since retiring from Parks Canada in 2012, he has worked with First Nations in western Canada to help return plains and wood bison to their ancestral lands. Wes is the co-author of Portraits of the Bison: An Illustrated Guide to Bison Society (University of Alberta Press, 2005), A Field Guide to Plains Bison (Timbergulch Press, 2012), and The Ecological Buffalo: On the Trail of a Keystone Species (University of Regina Press, 2022).

Cody Spencer is a buffalo rancher and regenerative land steward who has worked with bison since 2013. He is of Métis descent, a direct descendant of the buffalo-hunting peoples of what is now Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Cody discovered bison as a young man after reading Wes Olson and Johane Janelle's Portraits of the Bison - a discovery that led him to manage six distinct bison herds across southern Alberta and Texas. In 2016 he embraced regenerative agriculture, focusing on the restoration of land, animals, people, and finance through intentional bison management. Alongside Wes, he consults with First Nations, private ranchers, and conservation herds on bison restoration. Cody lives in Alberta's Rocky Mountain Foothills with his wife, their two sons, and a herd of plains bison.

Johane Janelle was born and raised in Cap-Santé, Québec, and moved west for a life of travel and adventure. Her career has spanned the Calgary Zoo, where she worked with birds of prey, and Canada's national parks, where her work ranged from bison handling to radio-telemetry tracking of trumpeter swans. Today her focus is conservation photography, providing photo documentation for biologists, conservationists, and researchers - including bison relocations in Russia, Alaska, and Banff. She has also collaborated with a First Nations group to produce their first-ever wildflower brochure in their own language. Johane is co-author, with Wes Olson, of Portraits of the Bison: An Illustrated Guide to Bison Society (2005), A Field Guide to Plains Bison (2012), and The Ecological Buffalo (2022). Her photography can be seen at www.johanejanelle.com.