{"id":539108,"date":"2026-03-22T19:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T19:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/539108\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T19:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T19:20:20","slug":"buffalo-vs-bison-what-should-we-call-americas-national-mammal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/539108\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Vs. Bison: What Should We Call America’s National Mammal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are Wyoming’s iconic shaggy, humped-backed behemouths buffalo or bison? Or are they interchangable?<\/p>\n

With America\u2019s 250th here, the question has historian Paul Hutton, interim director of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, drawing a personal line in the sand when it comes to the word \u201cbison.\u201d It’s as line that for him runs right smack through the menus of modern restaurants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I go into a restaurant, I will not use that term,\u201d he told Cowboy State Daily with a chuckle. \u201cI will demand a buffalo burger.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Hutton, who is an expert on all things West and author of New York Times bestseller \u201cThe Undiscovered Country: Triumph and Tragedy in the Shaping of the American West,\u201d the issue isn\u2019t that biologists are wrong when they insist that buffalo are really bison.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s happy to concede the scientific point that the iconic, hump-shouldered beasts that once crowded the Great Plains are bison \u2014 Bison, bison, bison, if you want to be exact. That\u2019s genus, species, and subspecies, but say it aloud and it sounds like a wizard trying to cast a spell to forever transform the buffalo\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

What Hutton objects to more broadly is the idea that an elite academic, with the stroke of a pen or a famous style guide, like the Associated Press Stylebook, is all the tyranny it takes to erase three centuries of lived-in American language.<\/p>\n

For \u201cUndiscovered Country,\u201d Hutton deliberately chose to wade right into the buffalo versus bison debate early on in the book, and landed squarely on buffalo for the rest of the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such an icon \u2014 a national icon \u2014 that I thought it was important to use the language of the time, especially as a writer,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cIt\u2019s a tough sell to me for the government to make us all conform to what they think is the correct term. <\/p>\n

“But we\u2019re not changing Buffalo Wild Wings to Bison Wild Wings, right? We\u2019re not going to change the name of the Buffalo Bills NFL team to Bison Bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

And no one is going to dare change Buffalo Bill Cody to Bison William.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just not going to do it,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cAt least, I\u2019m not going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA herd of bison moves across a road in Yellowstone National Park. Visitors come from around the globe to see the unique American animals. (Nature Picture Library via Alamy)Mistaken Identity?<\/p>\n

The story of how bison were first named buffalo has been largely cast as a case of mistaken identity.<\/p>\n

A Frenchman named Samuel de Champlain, exploring America in 1619, saw huge creatures in New York that reminded him of the French \u201cbuffle,\u201d a French term for the African water buffalo.<\/p>\n

There were also some French fur trappers who referred to the shaggy bovines as \u201cboeuf,\u201d a French term for beef that\u2019s pronounced \u201cbuhf\u201d \u2014 not so very far off from the first syllable of \u201cbuffalo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo (buffalo) is what really entered the colonial American language,\u201d Hutton said, adding with a laugh, \u201cI don\u2019t usually agree with the French on anything, but on this one, I\u2019m going with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other explorers had their own ideas. The Spanish, for example, called them vacas jorobadas, which literally translates to hump-backed cow.<\/p>\n

Native Americans, meanwhile, with more than 300 different languages, had at least one different word for buffalo, and some had many more. The Cheyenne, for example, had 27 different words, depending on the age, sex , and condition of a given animal.<\/p>\n

Buffalo won out in everyday speech for a century and a half. Though the first known use of the word in print is Mark Catesby\u2019s 1754 mention, America has hundreds of place names that feature buffalo \u2014 Buffalo Creek, Buffalo Swamp, Great Buffalo Lick, Buffalo Trace, the list goes on.<\/p>\n

Today there are 14 states with a city or town named Buffalo, five of them in the West, and one of them in Wyoming.<\/p>\n

\u201cBison,\u201d however, became the favored word of educated naturalists, who adopted it from the Latin word for \u201cwild ox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scattered instances of the word \u201cbison\u201d appear starting in the late 1690s, leading up to 1758, when Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus officially classified the species as bison in his foundational, \u201cSystema Naturae.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may have made things official, but it took a while for \u201cbison\u201d to start filtering into common usage.<\/p>\n

William T. Hornaday helped popularize the term with his 1889 book, \u201cThe Extermination of the Bison.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Theodore Roosevelt, meanwhile, used the scientific term when he created the American Bison Association, an organization that sought to save the buffalo from extinction.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been tension between scientific precision and the stubborn weight of tradition ever since.<\/p>\n

Many people today still refer to them as buffalo, even as it grates on the sensibilities of purists and trade groups alike.<\/p>\n

\"Buffalo(Getty Images)When Precision Matters<\/p>\n

There are times when precision is warranted, past president and lifelong member of the National Bison Association, Ken Klemm, told Cowboy State Daily.<\/p>\n

Klemm has managed some of the largest bison ranches in the world, and there are times he finds that precision is critical when meat will be crossing borders, or when the conversation is with global producers, who will more naturally think of other species when they hear the word \u201cbuffalo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are only two true buffalo in the world, and that\u2019s the Cape buffalo of Africa and the water buffalo of Southeast Asia,\u201d he told Cowboy State Daily. \u201cSo, we do like to use the word bison, just so there\u2019s no confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone plays fair, Klemm said. There have been instances when unscrupulous pet manufacturers have slapped pictures of bison on pet food that\u2019s actually been made with cheaper alternatives like water buffalo meat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to get that fixed, but there are also some unscrupulous people selling water buffalo to humans, because a lot of people don\u2019t realize that true mozzarella cheese comes from water buffalo,\u201d he said. \u201cSo when you have a water buffalo dairy, you have meat as a byproduct. And that\u2019s one reason why our trade associations are specific about using the term bison.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mozzarella di Bufala Campana that Klemm referred to has been made since the 12th century in the Campania region of Italy. Water buffalo were introduced to that area after an Arab invasion, and have become a much sought-after, expensive delicacy.<\/p>\n

\"IsIs it bison or buffalo or both? Bison is the scientific name, but buffalo has a 300-year history in America. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"IsIs it bison or buffalo or both? Bison is the scientific name, but buffalo has a 300-year history in America. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)\"IsIs it bison or buffalo or both? Bison is the scientific name, but buffalo has a 300-year history in America. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)Arrow leftArrow rightSometimes Precision Is Required<\/p>\n

Even Klemm admits, however, that in common everyday speech, he\u2019s just as apt as Hutton to use the word \u201cbuffalo\u201d now and then.<\/p>\n

In fact, back when he was packaging bison meat for market, he and his crew were often referred to as the \u201cbuffalo guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ditto for wildlife expert George Wuerthner, who said he will sometimes switch out bison for buffalo in an article, just to avoid repeating the same word over and over again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re here in the United States, if you say buffalo or you say bison, everybody has this visualization of the same animal,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I would say in any formal setting \u2014 a scientific paper, or a book about natural history \u2014 it\u2019s important to use the scientific name.\u201d<\/p>\n

For articles in a newspaper or magazine, though, Wuerthner believes buffalo is fair enough. And he does have a soft spot in his heart for the word, \u201cbuffalo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was born in Buffalo Crossroads, Pennsylvania,\u201d he said. \u201cWhich was the last place a bison was killed in the 1800s. That\u2019s my claim to fame. I don\u2019t know if the town even exists anymore. It was very small when I was born there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BuffaloBuffalo Bill Cody demonstrating the dangerous way he hunted buffalo. (Courtesy Photo)Killing All The Buffalo<\/p>\n

One thing that\u2019s not up for debate is the weight the iconic, shaggy beasts of the Plains had, whether they are called buffalo or bison.<\/p>\n

Bison are the largest land mammal in North America and have become closely tied to America\u2019s national identity. So much so that it was named the U.S. national mammal in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe buffalo is just endemic in the American experience,\u201d Klemm said. \u201cIt is as recognizable as the American cowboy. When you go around the world, people equate it with America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, despite that, bison almost went extinct in the late 1800s.<\/p>\n

Hutton estimates buffalo numbered 20 to 50 million across the Great Plains prior to widespread settlement. But by the 1880s, the herd was down to just hundreds.<\/p>\n

Buffalo Bill Cody is perhaps the most famous of all the buffalo hunters in history. He killed 4,280 buffalo for the Goddard brothers from October 1867 to May 1868 on a fleet horse named Brigham using a .50-caliber Springfield rifle named Lucretia Borgia.<\/p>\n

Because of that, Cody was a familiar and welcome face at any Hell on Wheels tent city, the name given to the tough towns that sprang up along the transcontinental railroad that Union Pacific was racing to build through Wyoming.<\/p>\n

People of those rough-and-tumble towns took to calling Cody \u201cBuffalo Bill,\u201d a nickname that held ever after, even though he stopped hunting buffalo after eight months, and wanted no part in their extinction.<\/p>\n

Cody\u2019s hunting method was similar to the American Indian.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy great forte in killing buffaloes from horseback was to get them circling by riding my horse at the head of the herd, shooting the leaders, thus crowding the followers to the left, till they would finally circle round and round,\u201d Cody once said in describing his method.<\/p>\n

\"PartPart of the Durahm Ranch’s large bison herd grazes near Highway 59 in Campbell County, Wyoming. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily)Not Dumb Beasts<\/p>\n

Most hunters, however, didn\u2019t hunt bison like Cody. Buffalo hunting that way was a dangerous, dirty job, one that most hunters tried to avoid. They preferred stands, where they could pluck off bison one at a time. This wouldn\u2019t typically cause a stampede. The bison, confused, would meander to their fallen brethren, trying to understand why they\u2019d suddenly fallen to earth.<\/p>\n

That has led some to believe that bison were \u201cdumb\u201d animals, but that interpretation doesn\u2019t fully account for natural adaptations the animals needed to survive creatures like wolves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWolves, if they get a broken jaw or leg bone , are not going to live very long,\u201d Wuerthner explained. \u201cSo, they\u2019ve got to be very careful what they engage with.\u201d<\/p>\n

That leads them to pounce into a herd, trying to cause a stampede, which will quickly expose which animals are weakest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bullets are coming out of nowhere,\u201d Wuerthner added. \u201cAnd in many millions of years of evolution, they never had to contend with rifles. This was just a new way of dying they were unfamiliar with. It was not part of their evolutionary history.\u201d<\/p>\n

American Indians exhibited similar confusion when they first encountered rifles, Wuerthner added.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll they knew is that they were standing there and suddenly one of their fellow souls is dead and there was a loud boom,\u201d Wuerthner said. \u201cBut they didn\u2019t know what happened at first. And you can read these early accounts of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bison William? No Thank You<\/p>\n

Cody, Hutton said, would never in a \u201cgazillion years\u201d call buffalo bison instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe in fact is probably spinning in that grave up there on Lookout Mountain above Denver,\u201d he said. \u201cWhere we need to dig him up and get him back here to Cody, where he belongs.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, during his lifetime the name \u201cBison William\u201d was used as an insult by European papers to make fun of him, Hutton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe British press would do that to make fun of how popular he was, you know, the way the press is always making fun of us out here in the West,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cAnd how we\u2019re a bunch of goat ropers and rednecks. Well, they would do that with Cody, so they\u2019d refer to him as Bison William, you know, met the Queen. So that probably explains part of my prejudice as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though Hutton is against the word \u201cbison,\u201d it\u2019s still used liberally in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West\u2019s planned exhibition, Buffalo Nation, which celebrates America\u2019s 250th.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt there wasn\u2019t anything better than the buffalo to use for this celebration of America,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cBut we do use bison throughout the exhibit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibit opens Aug. 22 and includes a lot of fantastic artifacts, including Cody\u2019s favorite rifle, Lucretia Borgia, as well as fantastic paintings of buffalo and many other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have exhibits on conservation and the lifeways of the buffalo,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cThe buffalo were absolutely critical to Plains Indian survival, and so important that many of the native tribes worked them into their creation stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA herd of bison moves across a road in Yellowstone National Park. Visitors come from around the globe to see the unique American animals. (Getty Images)Saving The Buffalo<\/p>\n

Buffalo Bill Cody\u2019s own buffalo, which were part of Buffalo Bill\u2019s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World, are part of what helped save the buffalo herd from extinction. That and Charlie Goodnight, a famous cattleman in Texas, who kept a small buffalo herd after his wife told him the creatures were all being killed off. Buffalo calves weren\u2019t killed because their robes weren\u2019t worth anything, but with their mothers gone, the babies would starve to death.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, she had her husband\u2019s cowboys go out and collect these calves and bring them in,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cThey had a nice little herd.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was also a small herd preserved on the Blackfoot reservation in Montana.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these animals have been used to bring the buffalo back,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cAnd there was a small herd in Yellowstone that survived because they were protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

The return of buffalo, Hutton said, is a great American story, because today there are now 400,000 buffalo in the country, up from a few hundred at the lowest point.<\/p>\n

\u201cWind River Reservation has a herd they\u2019re bringing back,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cThere\u2019s a huge herd in the Black Hills the Lakota are bringing back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Not Yes To Both?<\/p>\n

In the ongoing battle of whether it\u2019s a bison burger or a buffalo burger, the real answer is probably that it\u2019s \u201cyes\u201d to both.<\/p>\n

Bison is scientific and precise, but even scientists and wildlife experts like Klemm and Wuerthner sometimes adopt common names like buffalo when it\u2019s expedient.<\/p>\n

Common names do have a long history for all sorts of plants and animals.<\/p>\n

Just take prairie dogs as an example.<\/p>\n

The current scientific name is \u201cCynomys,\u201d with individual species dropping in with words like ludovicianus, gunnisoni, or parvidens.<\/p>\n

Somehow, prairie dog just has a nicer ring to it when compared with any of those, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

And who is even going to argue that prairie dog must always be Cynomys with any vigor, so why should buffalo be any different?<\/p>\n

It just makes sense to use the common name whenever it would sound better. So Buffalo Wild Wings, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Buffalo Swamp live on because buffalo is a perfectly good, lived-in word that has centuries of history behind it.<\/p>\n

So, when you order a \u201cbison\u201d burger, just remember that you\u2019re speaking the language of scientists and regulators, imposed by an academic with a pen and bureaucrats with style books.<\/p>\n

Perhaps you too will then choose to be like Hutton and insist on the buffalo burger instead.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the language of history and cowboys talking there \u2014 and doesn\u2019t it just taste better with lettuce, tomato, cheese and all the fixings?<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9e Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are Wyoming’s iconic shaggy, humped-backed behemouths buffalo or bison? Or are they interchangable? With America\u2019s 250th here, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-539108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}