The Island Buffaloes

From Soul Shaping Tails, here is a sneak peek at one of the animal stories, giving you insight into why this book is filled with just as many tails as it is tales.

 

I hope you enjoy.

 

As the story goes, a herd of wild buffaloes were once ferried across choppy ocean waters to be part of an island movie set back in the 1920s. They performed their duties as adornments to the landscape; and then afterward, they were all left behind by the film crew.

 

The buffalo is a creature of myth and abundance. They were the sacred life force of the Native American tribes and the symbols of survival and courage.

 

With shaggy, thick-horned manes, and towering up to 6 feet tall, the buffalo was built to travel wide and far. They thunder as they roam in mighty, mighty packs across the plains. And when the torrential summer thunderstorms descend across their valleys, they don’t seek shelter, or patiently wait it out. The buffalo know there is only one quick way to get through a downpour.

 

They turn their heads towards the dark, howling sky and they run straight through the storm.

 

This particular pack who were left behind have been thriving in the Pacific for nearly 100 years. A herd of about 600 now, they freely graze and roam the hills of Catalina Island. An island laced with palm trees and circled by marinas and dockside bars is the least likely place to find these beasts, meandering lazily amongst the dry hills.

 

They live in warm weather and have never experienced snow or the kind of bone-deep cold their thick coarse fur is meant to protect them from.

 

They breathe in the salty breeze and yellow sunshine through their noses, tourists snapping selfies from the road.

 

I don’t know if they feel an instinctual longing to stretch their muscular legs across a dusty grassland, without a scent of sea salt in the air. I don’t know if they feel at all grateful to live without the threat of wolves, or hunters. I don’t know if they miss the songs and dances that had praised them for centuries or the artwork of their likeness coloured upon cave walls.

 

I don’t know if they grow tired of the sameness of their small population and yearn for new buffalo faces at all. Or if perhaps they feel smugly privileged living exotically with their ocean views.

 

The story of the island buffalo living out their days in tropical sunshine sticks with me because while it’s not their natural habitat, they made it their home anyway. They were built to travel but found themselves vibing with the island life.

 

As any traveller knows, we can adapt to our surroundings with relative ease if we choose. Even if the new surroundings weren’t what was anticipated at all, or if the weather is strikingly unfamiliar.

 

Even if the surroundings are absurd.

 

Buffaloes roaming a small island in the Pacific? Whoever heard of such a ridiculous notion? If there exists such a thing as island buffaloes, then there might as well be such things as foxes hunting along pebbled beaches and zebras living wildly in Spain.

 

Sometimes when two perfect panoramas are combined, such as an island bobbing in the ocean, or a pack of musty migrating land mammals, the result is something extraordinary. Something unusual and unexpected, but also curious and pleasing.

 

Thinking about the island buffalo incites in me a joyful eagerness to know what else this world has hidden in its pockets.

 

From their story comes the pleasure of discovering something unexpected.

 

As many of us travellers have discovered when finding ourselves in new places, unexpected relocation isn’t always a bad or a hard thing, but a place where one can stay. A place where one can thrive.

 

Perhaps these buffalo thrived living a life unexpected. Perhaps they found a life where they no longer needed to run through storms.

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