Rangers at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie off Route 66 near Chicago now will lead hikes to a pasture that contains recently introduced bison.
The Rangers will be available from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends through October, reported the Kankakee Daily Journal. If you go this month, chances are good you’ll see baby buffalo. The two dozen or so cows are expected to begin calving in April.
The bison pasture area is accessible from trails via the Iron Bridge Trailhead, off Illinois Route 53 (aka Route 66) north of the facility’s welcome center. Visitors should bring binoculars or telephoto cameras, as the bison might be a good distance from the trails.
Also, for Route 66ers participating in the annual Illinois Route 66 Red Carpet Corridor Festival on May 7, the facility’s staff plan a Midewin Bison Expedition that day. The bison will be in the event pasture, allowing for closer-than-normal viewing.
Shuttle buses will pick visitors up near the city hall in Elwood and from North Water Street at Van Buren Street in Wilmington. The shuttles will start at 9 a.m. on May 7 and will depart every 15 to 20 minutes until 4 p.m.; they will make return trips until 5 p.m. Public parking will not be available at Midewin’s Iron Bridge Trailhead during the event.
Midewin hopes to eventually have 40 to 70 bison at the facility. The bison aren’t there just for looks. Bison eat mostly grass, and that will allow a variety of other prairie plants to thrive. The greater diversity of plants there will attract a wider array of birds and insects.
Here a video of the bison herd just a few weeks ago:
Bison were reintroduced to the tallgrass reserve in October. It was the first time buffalo had roamed in that area in nearly two centuries.
Bison were exterminated by the 1830s in northern Illinois, and the animals were hunted to near-extinction in the United States by the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Other than the occasional bison raised by hobbyist farmers or at western-themed businesses, the closest place where one can see a herd of buffalo is at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska, Oklahoma — more than an hour’s drive north of Tulsa.