November 23, 2023

The Bison

13 minutes

Kenneth Steven considers the introduction of wild animals into the Highlands of Scotland and the impact on rural life, reflecting in poetry at the end of each Essay.

Kenneth Steven recounts the story of American bison introduced in Victorian times to Scotland by William Stewart.

‘They were enclosed in a paddock with a circumference of five or six miles, but had become completely tame – they were however healthy and with an addition of two calves.’ Those buffalo were obviously still there when Queen Victoria and Albert famously came to visit Taymouth Castle in 1842 for she makes mention of them too: ‘We saw part of Loch Tay and drove along the banks of the Tay under fine trees and saw Lord Breadalbane’s American buffaloes’.

What we’re actually talking about here are American bison, very different from the buffalo that live in Africa and Asia. American bison live only in North America. It may be that early French fur trappers inadvertently coined the name buffalo when they used the French word ‘boeufs’ for these huge animals because they resembled giant oxen. Over time ‘boeufs’ became ‘buffalo’. Confusing, too, because the word that William Stewart and everyone else at that time would have used to describe them was buffalo.

Presenter Kenneth Steven

Producer Mark Rickards

A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 3

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By BBC Radio 3

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