Another successful Roundup

The general public received another look at what it takes to round up 1,400 buffalo at last Friday’s annual Governor’s Buffalo Roundup in Custer State Park.
Last week, South Dakota’s Game, Fish and Parks (GFP) organized the 20,000 person event, the 57th of its kind.
Earlier in the week, Lydia Austin, GFP’s visitor’s services coordinator, noted she was watching the weather radar for rain, but this year’s roundup was rain-free and the Custer State Park venue showed an autumn underway, surrounded by yellow and orange-leafed trees.
The thousands of people who attended the roundup began their day at first light, as the park’s visitors waited in miles-long lines well before the parking lot gates opened at 6:15 a.m.
Seating on the prairie hilltop was on a first-come basis and the average roundup visitor waited for about three hours for the event to commence.
The scene resembled tailgaters before a game with most everyone sitting on a fold-up camp chair, having a snack or warm drink and talking about the route the buffalo take.
Sitting down studying a map of South Dakota in her lap, Patti Wesner said she and a friend were traveling from Michigan when they “heard about the roundup on the way here, and thought, ‘Why not?’”
Along the same lines, out of state visitor Brad Kidd said he’d been to this area of the Black Hills before and “knew this is a good time to come to Custer.”
While the mega-crowd of onlookers waited for glimpses of the buffalo, miles away, horseback riders and GFP employees in pickups began the push to move the herd.
Jason Gooder, natural resources program manager for Custer State Park, said the roundup project itself takes a combination of about 60 people to herd the 1,400 buffalo safely in a push-rest-push fashion.
The moderate pace minimizes the stress on the animals. GFP divided the wranglers into three groups (red team, white team, blue team) and they considered the herd in three chunks of about 450 buffalo each.
As the crowd of people started to buzz with questions about when the buffalo were going to crest the hill, Gov. Kristi Noem appeared on the south side of one of the groups. She  walked through and accepted dozens of picture requests and then went to a vantage point to watch the roundup undertaking.
A few moments later the crowd snapped to attention when the first group of buffalo could be seen jogging on the top of a far-off hill. The riders on horseback worked the buffalo down the steep hill. And as they made it down the hill, another group of about 450 running buffalo joined them.
As the hundreds of buffalo rested on the grassland, another large group joined them, and wranglers began to push/herd the whole group of buffalo to run the path toward the corrals.
Some calves tried to break away from the group, as kids do, but the wranglers used their vehicles and horses to methodically coerce all the buffalo to keep running.
As the buffalo ran toward the corral gate, the crowds of thousands of people who watched the whole thing unfold were equally pressed together and on their feet. Then when the wranglers and buffalo made it to the corral area, the crowd clapped and cheered.
Nick Matich, a roundup cowboy on the back of his horse, Elvis, described the whole experience as “phenomenal.”
Matich said he was especially grateful for GPF training with the roundup; he said their orientation ride was “well organized” as they went “over the terrain.”
This pre-ride was a first introduction to buffalo for some of the horses and riders.  
Matich said Elvis had also rarely heard a bullwhip before the orientation, but became accustomed to the loud cracks he’d hear on roundup morning.
“Horses adapt. It’s all about getting them exposed to something they’ve never seen before,” Matich said.
Matich also noted there’s probably “no such thing as managing buffalo” but that their red, white and blue wrangler teams did just that.
Both Matich and Arizonan cowboy JT Purvis said their horses seemed to love how fast the buffalo could run as the cows they were accustomed to would never run that fast.
Purvis is interested in cutting horses in the future and said the roundup was great training for his horse, Patty Doc.
In fact, Patty Doc reportedly remained calm even with a bull eyeing them during a rest period.
Adrianne Schaunaman, Miss Rodeo South Dakota, rode her horse, Yellow Man, in the roundup and said even though many of the roundup horses come from a rodeo background, the horses aren’t all used to the smells and sounds of buffalo.
She said Yellow Man had never heard the protective snorts and grunts of a female buffalo before this weekend but “he did well.”
Schaunaman described the roundup overall as an awesome “controlled chaos and an adrenaline rush” and she echoes other riders’ comments of appreciation to GFP for their wise plans and safe layout.
The whole goal of the roundup was to send the buffalo into corrals to be health screened and branded for auction, and this pen process was a three-day undertaking that required the help of several large-animal-specialty veterinarians, dozens of GFP employees and many volunteers manning gates.
The auction is next month and a buffalo’s average price tag is between $499 and $2,600.   
And the roundup tradition is set to continue next year with GFP at its helm again in 2023.
Austin describes the roundup as a “heritage in South Dakota.” Surely they could round up the buffalo with dozens of UTVs and pickups, but she notes it’s important that the tradition retains its horseback component.
Although the buffalo herd roundup is a gigantic undertaking, it’s only part of what GFP crews manage.
All year long they protect South Dakota’s resources, enhance parks, educate hunters/anglers, give the public opportunities to recreate, and yes, annually accommodate thousands of people to watch them corral 1,400 buffalo.
Jim Straight, Custer’s district park supervisor who rode in this roundup for the 15th time, said the event is fun and that he “looks forward to every year, to get to see friends and chase buffalo.”
Michigan visitor Deborah Lafonde summed it up best when she said the event was even “better than expected” and “a lot of people had to work hard today.”