Thirty to sixty million buffalo once roamed North America. By 1902, all but 23 had been slaughtered at the hands of the United States government, in a deliberate attempt to exterminate Native Tribes.

The 23 remaining buffalo hunkered down in Yellowstone. Today, Yellowstone National Park is home to about 5,000 buffalo: the last continuously free-roaming herd of wild American bison.

However, the slaughter and persecution of their species has continued. Bison are regularly subjected to government-sponsored hazing operations, brutal quarantine procedures, slaughter, domestication, and political pressure by the cattle industry.

“The Last Wild Herd: Defending Yellowstone’s Buffalo” explores the story of The Buffalo Field Campaign, an organization that has fought on the front lines for the last 27 years against the harassment and slaughter of this keystone species.

CREDITS

Directed, filmed, produced, and edited collaboratively by Aayas Joshi and Anna Connors, students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.