Chase a Wild Buffalo Stampede With These Heroic Cowboys | Short Film Showcase

[Music] big day rubber white for buffalo waiting all of us are excited a little nervous but guess we're ready readies were going to be my name is Duke Phillips I managed the madness Potter ranch world over 100,000 acres located in the San Luis Valley southern central Colorado we managed it in partnership with the Nature Conservancy which is a world's largest conservation organization back some years ago the Nature Conservancy established in the mid no support as a conservation area but we realized after trying to manage ourselves that this landscape requires a skills that the Nature Conservancy doesn't have Minnesota ranch is one of the riches wildlife habitats anywhere and it's a home to one of the largest herds of bison United States we're trying to manage the third as closely as we can to how they used to live in the wild but the landscape is different now in the old days bison herds had the freedom to move wherever they wanted but in our situation we have limited space and so if the Bison herd grows beyond what the land can sustain they're going to over graze it so in order to protect the land and to maintain the amount of grass that's available for the Bison to have enough food we need to keep the number of animals to a sustainable level and so our skills with ranchers come into play it's once a year we go out six days or so and we gather about 1,500 head of bison actually about two thousand if you count the calves when we gather them we pull out the animals we need to sell that money is what we live on what we run the ranch on for the rest of the year so everything is at stake they've learned that the best way to move those animals is on horseback and unfortunately that is running next to the Bison over ravines and all that kind of stuff it's very dangerous I try not to think about it basically what we're going to be doing is trying to guide them and so we'll come down and we'll ease up to them really slow at some point as we get closer and closer they're going to get up and take off and then everybody's just going to rush them and get them into a full full-fledged flight our goal is to get the bison herd into a pan with Kraus we spend months preparing for a week of rain and bison in we have a limited number of chances so each one that we make we got to make sure that fewest number get away because once they're gone they will not be brought in that year there's about 80 or 100 just I guess it's West to test this house just north of the road you ready buggy [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] probably the easiest thing to do out there screw up make one little mistake and everything's over we were trying to get them through this gate but I was out of place and so is everybody else meaning out it was going good for a bit pretty well outran us I think we got maybe 20 head in out of that group and there's maybe 120 in there these Buffalo Wild they're not used to being handled you can't forget that they live out there this is their world and you're going up into it to try to manipulate their movement I'm very fond full you're going to get beat every time I was born in Venezuela on a branch that my father ran for Nelson Rockefeller ranching has been a way of life for my family for several generations I never imagined that I would be working with a conservation organization managing a bison ranch and especially a wild herd bison but as I have worked more more closely with the Nature Conservancy I realize how important our relationship is our responsibility as ranchers has changed a great deal from raising beef to becoming stewards of the land we will never have a majority of the landscape under some sort of formal protection it's really ranchers that have a substantial portion of land under their stewardship and really ranching that can be the right hand to conservation we hope the way that we're managing an Espada ranch would be a model for other ranches of private ranching and the conservation community balancing conservation and economics which has to happen [Music] you [Music] you [Music] when we gather them we run them through the chute we vaccinate heifer calves we pull out the animal we need to sell [Music] a lot of people don't realize bison ants of wild animal is extremely endangered there are only 20,000 in North America now and to give you some idea of the tremendous decrease in animals it's estimated there were 50 to 80 million bison originally [Music] the rest of the Bison that don't get shipped off get turned back out onto the ranch ranchers have the potential playing the biggest role and caring for lamp because our roots go very deep there and if we're going to survive into the future if our kids are going to have the same options that we have same liberties we're going to have to figure out how we're going to manage the natural world without the parameters of nature the way it was before we arrived to me ranching is about living with the land I feel a sense of honour of being entrusted with its care because I live on it and I'm part of it it's part of me today's Thursday our last chance to get something in we lost twice as many as we normally have but every year is different and we have to understand that okay thanks backs hunters head TV boys ready [Music] [Music] you [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that's what busy can overdo it right there [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 1,418,831

Keywords: bison, buffalo, cowboys, conservation, plains, horseback, drone, ranchers, vaccination, livestock, colorado, horses, Short film showcase, national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, Showcase, short films, filmmakers, wildlife films, films, PLivjPDlt6ApTjurXykShuUqp7LQcj9s8s, PLivjPDlt6ApRiBHpsyXWG22G8RPNZ6jlb, PLivjPDlt6ApTDlm7OufY6HAzNmFAqxWSo

Id: 85_nJwYqE_c

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 03 2017