“Take care of the buffalo, and the buffalo will take care of you”

We recently celebrated the five-year anniversary of the Wolakota Buffalo Range. Throughout the event, speaker after speaker shared the wisdom: Take care of the buffalo, and the buffalo will take care of you.

That belief is the foundation of Wolakota. We view the buffalo as a relative in need of a homeland. When we launched Wolakota, we knew that if we could create a safe place to let the buffalo be buffalo, it would open doors and create impacts for our people  beyond anything we could have imagined.

At the very moment we were receiving that reminder, the Sicangu Co team was preparing for a different kind of responsibility: helping our community through the sudden loss of SNAP benefits caused by the government shutdown.

And so, it became Tatanka’s turn to take care of us.

With prayer, our team harvested 20 buffalo and immediately set up a distribution schedule. These are the moments we never could have imagined five years ago when the first buffalo hit the ground at Wolakota. Two weeks into our bison distributions, many of our staff have had the opportunity to be out in the community and several have shared that it’s one of the most powerful experiences they’ve been part of in their time at Sicangu Co.

One of our staff shared the following message of gratitude from a community member. It’s times and messages like this that remind us why we do this work.

Now that the government shutdown is over, what next?
For us, it doesn’t change our direction. Our bison meat distributions will continue at least once per month through next fall.

Getting bison meat to community members wasn’t just a short-term fix for us. It is part of an intergenerational vision for a food system designed by and for Lakota people.

When we deliver a package of meat to a family, it is not only nourishment. Our buffalo meat is harvested and processed by Native workers. These harvests are also a key part of responsible herd management, ensuring each buffalo has enough grass to graze and that no buffalo will ever go hungry.

When we do that, the grasslands grow stronger. Bison regenerate the land: improving biodiversity, restoring wildlife habitat, strengthening the prairie ecosystem — even capturing more carbon.

At the Wolakota anniversary, one of our staff described a spot on the ranch that shows this perfectly. On one side of the fence, where our buffalo graze, the grasses are tall, rich, and abundant. On the other side, where neighboring cattle graze, the ground is nearly bare. That contrast shows the power of Tatanka to restore.

We were so inspired we went out to get a picture of the spot and the difference is striking. See for yourself: