Great Ranches Tell Great Stories: The Brownotter Buffalo Ranch

By Darla Dwyer, DVM

Great ranches can tell great stories; you just have to ask someone that knows them well. In the early 1900s, Ron Brownotter’s grandmother received an allotment of 320 acres from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The land was on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation near Bullhead, South Dakota. Unlike much of the surrounding land it was never sold but passed down through the family. This land is the origin of the Brownotter Buffalo Ranch, home to the largest Native-American owned buffalo herd in the United States. The journey for the Brownotter family from raising cattle on the original 320 acres of land to a herd of buffalo that utilizes over 20,000 acres is this chapter of the ranch’s story.

Ron Brownotter always knew he would become a rancher. At the age of twelve, he was enrolled in the Johnson O’Malley Program and educated at a boarding school. Even then, he began using everything he had to work toward his dream, buying axes, shovels, fencing pliers, and other tools whenever he could. After graduation, Ron joined the military. His family had a legacy of military service, serving in both World Wars, Vietnam, and Korea. He even had ancestors that fought for their sovereignty at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Ron wanted the type of life they had, and military service was something they all had in common. Originally, he aspired to be an Army Ranger, but the Marine Corps would take him more quickly and his struggle with direction and alcoholism was becoming urgent. “The Marines saved my life with God’s help,” he said. Shortly after joining, he was placed in inpatient alcohol rehabilitation, and after went on to serve 10 years.

Ron Brownotter

After finishing his military service in July of 1992, Ron enrolled in Cal Poly, and started studying Animal Science and Agronomy in August of that year. He chose the area because he could stay with his wife’s family, about 45 minutes away. Ron and his wife, Carol, had already started a family, and owned cattle in South Dakota. Ron commuted from California to the family ranch in South Dakota as often as he could before graduating in 1998. The winter of 1996-1997 proved to be especially challenging, bringing the type of blizzards that are only seen every 100 years or so. That year, Ron spent some extra time on the ranch in addition to his winter break to attempt to save their cow herd. At the time, he only had a two-wheel drive truck and a tractor not well suited for the snow. He fed bags of range cubes by hand in the draws, attempting to pull the herd through the weather before he had to return to Cal Poly for the spring semester. That year his family lost half of his cows to the cold, and they knew they knew something had to change. h

While in college, Ron took part in a business class that worked on livestock industry business planning. His group made their plan on how to raise buffalo in South Dakota, but it wasn’t until a few years after the blizzard in the late 90s that his family started to add buffalo to their operation. They started with six buffalo and have gradually phased the cattle out over the last 21 years. In Brownotter’s experience, buffalo are hardier and more suited to the environment in South Dakota because they evolved to fit the environment. Compared to the cattle he previously raised, Ron said they are smarter, travel a lot farther, and are more efficient with native grass. They even have more hair follicles than cattle with a coat that is more like wool, one of their main adaptations. While that hard winter was the obvious driver of the transition, culture and heritage also played a huge role. As a Native American, Ron knew the importance of buffalo to his people, and this was further demonstrated by research published at that time. Research by Richard Steckel and Joseph M. Prince[1] analyzed data collected in the late 1800s by Franz Boaz. This data indicated that bison dependent tribes were among the tallest humans on earth at the time, an indicator of both physical and societal health. According to Ron, the buffalo are not only a huge part of maintaining Native American culture but are also a crucial part of restoring their health. Buffalo are a central part of tribal ceremonies, but some Native American families have started to add it back into their regular diet in efforts to eat and live healthier. Despite efforts by Indian Health Services, Native Americans still have a greater risk for diabetes than any other ethnic group in the United States.[2] Ron lamented the toll he has seen that take on Native American people through complications, including amputations and kidney disease.

You may have guessed that Ron has a great deal of care for and involvement in his community. He has been involved in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Government and the Sitting Bull College Board of Trustees, among other roles. As we discussed challenges in his community, many of them mirrored our challenges in rural America: access to fresh and healthy foods, healthcare, education, and jobs. Ron said that jobs in agriculture, casinos, Indian Health Services, and Bureau of Indian Affairs are available on the reservation, but most other opportunities and education for them is something you must leave the reservation for. Although this is a significant barrier, the most pressing challenge and urgent need in his opinion is the need for an inpatient drug and alcohol treatment center. These treatment centers throughout the country are notoriously difficult to be admitted to, and even more difficult to pay for. The location of these centers in combination with restrictions from the state and Medicaid resources that often provide healthcare to people on the reservation have made them almost completely inaccessible to people there. Unfortunately, the need there is still very real. As we discussed this further, Ron described drug and alcohol addiction by comparing it to the parable of the blind men and the elephant in the room. As each person silently identifies the piece they’re touching, the one touching the trunk will suspect a snake while another touching the tusks imagines a spear. He believes the elephant in the room emanated from trauma dating back to relations between settlers and Native Americans, trauma that has been passed down via habits and coping mechanisms for generations. In his experience, when the seed is planted that the elephant is a family problem, only then can people finally start to understand it and work together to heal. He is actively looking for anyone willing to help with or fund local resources for this and hopes for a day when this resource that helped him early in life is available to other Native Americans.

The legacy of the Brownotter Buffalo Ranch is rich with history, dating back before the time of Sitting Bull, who lived less than a mile from the eastern part of the ranch. It tells of conflict between people and how they adapted and overcame through time. The Brownotter family's chapter of the ranch’s history tells of many challenges and lean seasons, but also of triumph, innovation, and growth. It’s part of a larger story in the area of grassroots movements back toward foundational culture and health; one the Brownotters like to share with people who visit for a guided buffalo hunt. Like a true rancher, Ron spoke with great gratitude of the most rewarding things from his part in the tale: God, family, friends, clean and sober living, the importance of integrity, and the many wonderful people in his life. “Do what you love, and never quit,” he said.

Resources

1. Steckel, Richard, H., and Joseph M. Prince. 2001. "Tallest in the World: Native Americans of the Great Plains in the Nineteenth Century." American Economic Review, 91 (1): 287-294.

2. https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/aian-diabetes/index.html

Dr. Darla Dwyer grew up on a farm in rural northeast Kansas. She graduated with her DVM from Kansas State University in 2013. Darla has spent her career in mixed animal practice in rural Kansas and Nebraska. She enjoys the variety that mixed practice brings, but especially enjoys herd work with cattle and swine. She and her husband currently practice in the panhandle of Nebraska at Pioneer Animal Clinic in Scottsbluff.