Wednesday, August 4, 2010

American Buffalo


We went to Parc Safari African, in Quebec, to see the animals roam
free in the park.
As you drive through the park, you can have all your windows open and kids sit in the van trunks waiting for zebras, ostriches, cows etc.. come to the car to be fed.

One huge white cow came for some feed you buy at the entrance in boxes to give them.
My son held out his hand with the food but the cow saw the box and headed for my son's lap to grab it.
My son screamed and we had a good laugh as we saw the cow was no fool. It knew what it wanted. This particular cow was white and easily over 18 hands high.

We kept driving and came across this beautiful buffalo. He came over to my side of the car and stuck his head through the window. We rubbed his nose and saw how gorgeous he was. I had some nice music playing and he liked it. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He was the nicest of all the animals there and he was not after food either.

Being free, he was not too clean and stunk and flies flew around him. I tried pushing his head out of the car, but I would have better luck with a brick wall.
If it were not for the cars behind me. I would have stayed there without moving and let him rest as we all enjoyed his company

While he was dreaming, we had time to discuss the plight of the buffalo in North America.
Being an animal lover, I couldn't see how they could kill such noble beasts for fun. We have stories about how a passing train would have men shooting them out of the window for fun. This was not good for the Indian who depended on Buffalo sustinance in winter.

They are huge, powerful and yet can be so gentle.
The fur and skins was used in many ways but I understand that when this fur gets wet, it stinks.
I would love to raise these animals. There was a farm in Napierville that had many different zoo animals like buffalo and zebra and llamas as well as a few ostriches. But then we passed one day and they were gone. Maybe they were taken to Parc Safari African. This is a beautiful place and has areas to swim and picnic so you could spend a day easily without any animals if you wanted to but who can resist and elephant ride or going to the Wild Wild West show with stunt horses.

There is a great Legend about the White Buffalo that is worth reading and every white buffalo birth is recorded for they do not live long. Their DNA is checked to see if it is of the pure white albino variety.







5 comments:

Linda Bob Grifins Korbetis Hall said...

exciting experience.
buffaloes are fun to watch!

A Lady's Life said...

Mama Zen - so true

Trotter said...

Those buffalos are awesome!! And the story of the white ones is a great inspiration!!

Read you at Blogtrotter and have a great weekend!!

A Lady's Life said...

Trotter- Thanks :)

Jeannette StG said...

In Dutch we have a saying, "You've missed your calling" (meaning, that is what you should have been doing in life, because you like it so much). Not too late though, to work with animals:)